Semiotics

Semiotics, also known as semiology, the science of signs. Its two major founders were the American philosopher C. S. Peirce (1839-1914) and the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Semiotics is concerned with the relationship between form and meaning, with particular emphasis on language. Both Peirce and Saussure based their theories on the understanding that a sign is composed of two parts, the signifier and the signified. The signifier is a sound or image, for example, the aural or written word tree. The signified, following the same example, is the concept or idea of tree. Together, the signifier and the signified constitute the sign.

Peirce believed that semiology was the foundation of logic itself. He describes logic as “the science of the general necessary laws of signs.” Much of his work involves an attempt to classify signs according to the nature of the relationships between and among signifier, signified, and object. Peirce made two important contributions to semiotics. First, he showed that a sign can never contain a definite meaning. Second, he identified various types of signs, including the symbolic sign, which is arbitrarily related to its referent. Linguistic signs are symbolic and therefore arbitrary, except for ideographic (as those used in Chinese) or onomatopoeic signs. For example, there is no prescribed relationship between the word tree and the object itself.

Saussure’s work is primarily concerned with the linguistic sign, and his attempts at a classificatory system involve distinguishing between different aspects of language. He is generally considered to be the founder of structural linguistics, and is perhaps best known for the Cours de linguistique générale (1916; Course in General Linguistics, 1959). Saussure’s semiotic analyses tend to be conducted in terms of opposite pairs. First, linguistic studies may be diachronic (historical) or synchronic (at one particular time). Second, language may be considered as langue or parole, that is, either as the general set of semantic and syntactic rules of a particular language or in its individual utterances. Third, the sign comprises a signifier and a signified, the relationship between which is arbitrary, and which both depend on a vast network of differences. In literary criticism, semiotics considers the complete system of a text and what is required to understand it, including genre and other conventions. These theories concerning the relationship between form and meaning have influenced not only linguistics and literary theory (such as the work of Roland Barthes), but also anthropology (Claude Lévi-Strauss) and psychoanalysis (Jacques Lacan).