Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

Semiotics
Semiotics or semiotic is the study of signs in general; so linguistics can be seen as that
subdiscipline of semiotics which is particularly concerned with the nature of the linguistic
sign. What is of relevance to linguistics from the discipline of semiotics, on the other
hand, will be those of its conclusions and considerations about signs in general which are
applicable to linguistic signs. The process of making and using signs is called semiosis.
The term semiotic originates with the American pragmatist philosopher Charles
Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), and the discipline owes most to him, although in Europe
Saussure’s contribution was better known for a considerable time. Saussure called the
study of the life of the sign in society semiology, and considered the sign relation dyadic,
consisting in the relation between a concept and a sound (see STRUCTURALIST
LINGUISTICS), while according to Peirce the relation is irreducibly triadic. He defines
a sign as (1931–58, 2.228): ‘something which stands to somebody for something in some
respect or capacity’; and semiosis as (ibid., 5.484): ‘an action, or influence, which is, or
involves, an operation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this
trirelative influence not being in any way resolvable into an action between pairs’. The
process is, furthermore, potentially infinite, because the interpretant, the interpreting
thought, is itself a sign and will therefore stand in its own triadic relation to a further
interpretant (see Hookway, 1985, p. 121)—in other, simpler, terms, one thought leads to
another ad infinitum. It is this third dimension, preventing closure, an end to
interpretation, which has endeared Peirce to poststructuralist and deconstructivist
thinkers.
Eco (1984, pp. 4–7) distinguishes between specific semiotics and general semiotics. A
specific semiotics deals with a particular sign system, while general semiotics presents a
theory of, or search for, that which is shared by all sign systems. Peirce’s writings on
signs is an example of general semiotics, while Halliday’s (1978) work on language as
social semiotic (see FUNCTIONALIST LINGUISTICS) is an example of a specific
semiotics of particular interest to linguists.
As mentioned above, a sign stands for something, which we shall call its object
(‘object’ does not mean ‘thing’ in this context—it is not confined to physical entities).
Signs may stand for something to somebody, who will be called the interpreter. But a
sign only functions as such to the interpreter in virtue of the interpreter’s understanding
that it does so function, and this understanding is called the interpretant. An example is
given in the figure below (see Hookway, 1985, pp. 122–4).