Semiotics and Communication

Signs, Codes, Cultures

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1993
• ISBN:
  9781136760693
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Kommunikationswissenschaften

Communication is, among other things, about the study of meaning -- how people convey ideas for themselves and to one another in their daily lives. Designed to close the gap between what we are able to do as social actors and what we are able to describe as social analysts, this book introduces the language of semiotics -- a language that provides

Part I

Semiotic Theory and Communication Theory

Part I of this book is intended to provide a strong theoretical foundation for the study of semiotics within communication. Chapter 1 provides an historical overview and necessary background to the study of semiotics. This chapter is hardly a complete summary of the field of semiotics (whole books have been written on the topic) but is designed to provide basic information particularly of value to communication scholars. After a brief history of the establishment of the field by its major figures, discussion of various definitions and the potential contributions of semiotics, the common use of linguistics as a model for other semiotic codes, is described. The connections between culture, communication, and semiotics serve as the focus of the chapter; interrelated definitions of each demonstrate their overlap, providing common ground for later elaboration. Think of this chapter as the portal, or doorway, to the remainder of the book; it presents the obvious beginning point.

Chapter 2 introduces signs as the basic building blocks of semiotic theory, as informally agreed upon by nearly all authors writing on the topic. If this one concept is understood, all else will follow; if it is fuzzy, little else will make sense. The origins of the concept are described, followed by a select list of basic terms useful in its study. These have been chosen from the vast number of terms invented to date, for researchers in semiotics have proposed more new vocabulary than anyone can reasonably be expected to remember. Of the three major types of signs, the one most important to researchers in communication, symbols, serve as the focus of the majority of the chapter. Continuing with the metaphor of chapter 1 as the doorway, chapter 2 presents the first object of study; that object is noticed, picked up, examined, and described.

Chapter 3 places signs into their proper context, codes. Signs rarely appear alone; they appear in groups. These groups, together with the rules for their use, are known as codes. After defining the term, the characteristics of all codes are described in detail and three major types of codes are outlined; the majority of the chapter discusses social codes, the type most relevant to communication. Because the term code has appeared frequently in the communication literature, a brief review of how it has been used previously is provided. Past uses of the term are similar but not identical to that described here. Here the angle of vision changes: The object of study presented in chapter 2 no longer appears alone in an empty room; the remainder of the room, its proper context, is now visible and other objects appear and can be examined as well.¹

Together these chapters are intended to provide sufficient theoretical grounding for the doing (the practice) of semiotics; the basics are laid out as clearly as possible, the details ignored. Extensive footnotes recommending further reading are provided for anyone wishing to follow up any of the ideas presented. It is not my intent to provide a complete overview of semiotics as it currently stands; others have attempted that, more or less successfully. Because semiotic theory has its own agendas, not identical with those of communication, some parts of semiotics are more useful to communication than others. I attempt to focus on what seem to me the most essential and valuable parts. Others would certainly have chosen differently; they may yet write their own books. It is important to stress, however, that Part I of this book is not intended to stand alone. It is but prelude to the second part: applying the theory to concrete examples of behavior.

Any theory can be thought of as a tool kit, and semiotics is no exception; applying theory to data involves turning passive knowledge about each tool and how it functions into active knowledge of how various tools are actually used. Despite the fact that theory alone is always a bit dry to read (just as trying to memorize the names and functions of unfamiliar tools is difficult), it comes alive when joined to examples taken from everyday life (as one learns the names and functions of tools more completely through using them to build something new). As with the first bird feeder a young carpenter makes, the edges of our semiotic analysis may not be perfectly squared, but a homemade object can have value to its creator despite its flaws. We learn best in the process of doing; so we must each eventually use semiotic theory ourselves to analyze behavior if we are to find value in it. At the same time, just as a good carpenter studies her tools before using them the first time, learning their names and hearing their functions from someone more experienced, so I begin this foray into semiotics with an overview of theory.

Note

1. Following this metaphor, chapters 4 through 6 examine three different rooms in a single house. Chapter 7 steps back yet further, discussing the connections between these (and potential other) rooms, and the house as a whole.

Chapter 1

Introducing Semiotics

Communication is a young field, yet it covers a broad area. Recently, to resolve much dispute about exactly what constitutes the definition of the field, Cronkhite (1986) proposed “the study of human symbolic activity” as one emphasis shared by all subfields. His definition has been noticed and is gaining acceptance, but one obvious implication remains undeveloped: the connections between communication and semiotics, the theoretical area most directly identified with the study of symbolic behavior. With others, it makes sense to me that Cronkhite’s proposal points to a reasonable focus for the field of communication; I have no problem in identifying my research as contributing to the study of human symbolic activity. Yet as others have previously studied this topic, we may find it profitable to discover what the semiotic literature contributes to our understanding of communication.¹

This chapter briefly introduces semiotics: its origins, the definition of the field, and the connections between semiotics and the related field of linguistics, concluding with closely related definitions of culture, communication, and semiotics to demonstrate their areas of overlap. Semiotics is uncommonly broad; this volume makes no pretense of supplying a complete history even of the major ideas. Rather it presents a concise introduction to selected aspects, those that seem to me potentially most valuable for the field of communication. This summary in no way substitutes for a more thorough reading of original sources, but as an introductory synthesis, it may provoke interest in particular authors or ideas.²

Establishing the Field of Semiotics

Independently, but at approximately the same point in time, Ferdinand de Saus-sure, a linguist in Switzerland, and Charles Sanders Peirce, a philosopher in the United States, described the need for a field to study the meanings conveyed through signs and symbols (see Figs. 1.1 and 1.2).³ Both felt something important was missing in the currently existing fields of study and wanted to remedy the situation. For both authors the standard references are to books published by others on their behalf after their deaths; as a result their influence was greater on future generations than on their contemporaries.

Saussure’s statements introducing semiology come from a compilation of notes taken by several of his students based on lectures given between 1907 and 1911, published after his death as Course in General Linguistics. The quote most often cited as responsible for establishing the field follows:

A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology (from Greek semeion “sign”). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. Linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology; the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circumscribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts. (Saussure, 1916/1969, p. 16)

Note that he, being a linguist, proposed semiology as a science placing the study of language into a broad context; similar concerns by others later led to the development of pragmatics and sociolinguistics.

Peirce, unlike Saussure, wrote his own papers (enormous numbers of them, in fact), though the majority remained unpublished during his lifetime. The larger quantity of available quotes from Peirce about semiotics (which he actually used in the singular, semiotic), encourages disputes among his followers as to exactly what he intended (as with all authors, he changed his mind on a variety of details over the years). From his writings, one commonly cited justification for establishing the new field, to be matched to that of Saussure presented previously, follows:

Logic, in its general sense, is, as I believe I have shown, only another name for semiotic, the quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs. By describing the doctrine as “quasi-necessary”, or formal, I mean that we observe the characters of such signs as we know, and from such an observation, by a process which I will not object to naming Abstraction, we are led to statements, eminently fallible, and therefore in one sense by no means necessary, as to what must be the characters of all signs used by a “scientific” intelligence, that is to say by an intelligence capable of learning by experience. (Peirce, 1931/1958, Vol. 2, para. 227)

Fig. 1.1. Ferdinand de Saussure. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Fig. 1.2. Charles Sanders Peirce. Photo courtesy of the Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University, Indianapolis.

Here the study of signs is narrowed rather than broadened; it is related to logic rather than the broader society.

As is clear from these quotes, a fundamental distinction between the two efforts exists: Peirce studied logic; Saussure studied behavior. Despite this distinction, it should be obvious that logic is one part of what governs behavior. As a result, these two separately established fields of study have substantial areas of overlap. It has become common in the United States to use the term semiotics to refer to the entire field (to all of the work of Saussure and Peirce as well as the followers of both), in deference to the fact that Peirce devoted the greatest amount of time and effort toward developing the groundwork of the discipline and in an attempt to consolidate rather than draw fine distinctions between areas of related research.⁴

Within the field of communication Peirce has been the more influential to date, and the Peircian tradition is proposed as potentially the most valuable in a recent argument by Switzer, Fry, and Miller (1990).⁵ Yet I would recommend Saussure as the less obscure and more readily applicable to actual behavior.⁶ Saussure’s scant comments have been expanded by his many followers, so there is no dearth of material available for inspiration. In particular, there is an entire strand of related research by scholars known collectively as the Russian Formalists and the Czech Structuralists (surprisingly often ignored within both current semiotics and communication as studied in the United States), heavily influenced by Saussure, demonstrating an early interest in applying semiotics to various aspects of culture.⁷ Their work is particularly valuable when applying semiotics to material aspects of communicative behavior, as proposed in Part II of this volume, and is described in some detail in the introduction to that section. Thus, the approach followed in this book technically is semiology, though the term semiotics is used, because it has found favor as the more general term.

Defining Semiotics

The accepted definition of semiotics today generally is phrased as either “the study of signs” or “the study of signs and sign systems.” (Briefly, a sign is something present that stands for something absent, as a cross represents Christianity; a sign system, also termed a code, is a collection of signs and rules for their use.) Defining semiotics in this way is brief but vague. What does it mean to say one studies signs? What exactly are signs? Why are they worthy of attention in the first place? What difference do they make in the world? These are issues addressed by many authors. In comments specifically intended for an audience of nonspecialists, Wray provided a useful beginning:

Semiotics is the study of signs. On that and little else, all “semioticians” seem to agree. Specifically it is the study of semiosis, or communication—that is, the way any sign, whether it is a traffic signal, a thermometer reading of 98.6° F, poetic imagery, musical notation, a prose passage, or a wink of the eye, functions in the mind of an interpreter to convey a specific meaning in a given situation. Broadly defined, semiotics includes the study of how Sherlock Holmes makes meaning out of Hansom tracks, how deoxyribonucleic acid conveys hereditary traits, how an historian sees significance in an old church registry, or how Baudelaire’s view of the world can be approached through a pattern of words arranged on paper. (Wray, 1981, p. 4)

Wray introduced two new terms, semiosis and semiotician. Briefly, semiosis is understood to be the active form of the word semiotics, more formally defined as “the process of making and using signs” (Sless, 1986, p. 2). The term semiotician moves outside the realm of semiotic behavior to its study: It is the name for someone who studies semiotics. Anyone who performs semiotic analysis figuratively dons a T-shirt reading “Semiotician at work.” (Because everyone engages in semiotic behavior, there is no need of a special word for someone doing semiosis). Three ideas are particularly noteworthy in Wray’s quote: (a) the facile equation of semiosis with communication, not uncommon for semioticians, though usually passing unremarked within the field of communication; (b) the basic description of what the study of signs actually involves (here described as studying how something functions in the mind of an interpreter to convey a specific meaning in a specific situation); and (c) the breadth of activity included in the study of semiotic behavior.

What is important here is not merely that semiotics includes a lot of things that other people would never have grouped together, which is interesting but not terribly enlightening, but that it explains how they are similar. In each case, whether it be a traffic signal or poetic imagery, something (the sign) conv...