69249454-chandler-semiotics

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS
opposition of two logical contradictories: the presence of an attribute
(“markedness”) in contraposition to its absence (“unmarkedness”)’
(Jakobson 1972, 42; cf. 1980a). The concept of markedness can be
applied to the poles of a paradigmatic opposition: paired signs consist
of an ‘unmarked’ and a ‘marked’ form. This applies, as we shall
see, both at the level of the signifier and at the level of the signified.
The marked signifier is distinguished by some special semiotic
feature. In relation to linguistic signifiers, two characteristic features
of marked forms are commonly identified: these relate to formal
features and generic function. The more complex form is marked,
which typically involves both of the following features:
• Formal marking: in morphologically related oppositions,
marking is based on the presence or absence of some particular
formal feature. The marked signifier is formed by
adding a distinctive feature to the unmarked signifier (for
instance, the marked form ‘unhappy’ is formed by adding
the prefix un- to the unmarked signifier ‘happy’) (Greenberg
1966; Clark and Clark, 1977; Lyons 1977, 305ff.).
• Distributional marking: formally marked terms show a
tendency to be more restricted in the range of contexts in
which they occur. (Lyons 1977, 306–7)
In English, linguistically unmarked forms include the present tense
of verbs and the singular form of nouns (Jakobson’s ‘zero-sign’).
The active voice is normally unmarked, although in the restricted
genre of traditional academic writing the passive voice is still often
the unmarked form.
The markedness of linguistic signs includes semantic marking:
a marked or unmarked status applies not only to signifiers but also
to signifieds. With morphologically related pairings, there is an
obvious relation between formal and semantic marking, and John
Lyons suggests that distributional marking in oppositions is probably
determined by semantic marking (Lyons 1977, 307). Jakobson
reported that ‘the general meaning of the marked is characterized
by the conveyance of more precise, specific, and additional information
than the unmarked term provides’ (Jakobson 1980a, 138).
The unmarked term is often used as a generic term while the marked