Semiotics background - By Tom Knapp

The Creators

Semiotics is the theory of signs, and it has aroused considerable interest in a wide range of fields, including linguistics, anthropology, literary criticism, political science, and philosophy. Two of the original thinkers in semiotics were Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Each of these thinkers posited a basic theory of signs and their meanings.

Ferdinand de Saussure, a French linguist working in the early 1900s, was one of the first to develop a semiotic theory.  Working in the same domain and at much the same time was Charles Sanders Peirce, an American philosopher/logician, who developed models that were related to, but somewhat different from those of Saussure.

Saussure developed the idea that a language is a system of signs, where words are used to signify objects.  The language itself is an abstract system, which can exist independently from real-life objects.  It is through the spoken or written word that language systems are applied to real-life situations. Saussure argued that no actual link exists between the sign and the object; rather it is an interpretative, or arbitrary link.  Saussure also argued that words (or signs) in a language become connected into large communicative units, such as sentences and paragraphs, according to relations between the words.  The way that this is done is determined by a “sign system”, or set of grammatical rules.

According to De Saussure, a sign is made up of two elements, the signified and the signifier. The signifier is the sound or image that stands for something else:

The word “bachelor”, and the signified is the concept represented by the signifier, e.g. the concept of being an unmarried, adult male.  More of the theory will be analysed later.

Peirce’s semiotic model was similar to, but more complex than Saussure’s.  Peirce’s model also became more strongly associated with American thinking on semiology, while Saussure is more often represented in European works on the subject. The principle distinction between Peirce and Saussure is that Peirce’s model is based on theories of logic, philosophy and mathematics, rather than on linguistics alone.  A key feature of Peirce’s semiotic theory is his creation of three semiotic categories; Peirce described semiosis as a relationship between a sign, an object and an interpretant (or meaning). Since there were three categories, which were each related to each other, they could be represented in a triangular fashion.

So, concurrently, but independently of each other, Saussure and Peirce developed a line of thinking that treats languages as sign systems, which are governed by rules.  For languages such as English, the rules take the form of such an aspect as grammar.  Similarly in visual languages, such as signing for the deaf, the rules take the form of sequences of gestures/hand actions etc. each of which has specific meaning.

Saussure recognised that one role of communication is to convey meaning between minds.  Nevertheless, it does seem to me that his approach was deeply rooted in a classical analytical worldview.  Both Saussure and Peirce treated language as being made up of distinct units - words, sentences and so on