Semiotics and Systems of Signification

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the key theories and terminology of semiotics, including Saussure's and Peirce's models, types of signs, and linguistic theories from the lecture notes.

Representation

To literally re-present reality in some form, which can be language-based, image-based, sound-based, smell-based, or taste-based.

Conventions

Repeated forms of communication that become meaningful through recognizable patterns; every form of communication has them.

Semiotics

The science of signs.

Natural Representation Theory

The claim that representation stems from humans capturing experience in concrete form, based on a presumption that language and the natural world are naturally linked.

Saussure's view of communication

The argument that communication is an invented system rather than simple or natural, consisting of sense and reference that relate to an internal system of signification.

Sign (Saussure)

The unification of two components: the signifier and the signified.

Signifier

The form of a thing, described as the mental representation of a perceivable pattern or sound.

Signified

A concept or notion in the mind attached to a signifier; it is not the physical thing itself.

System of Signification

A relational and interdependent system where signs only work in relation to other signs, such as a traffic light where yellow only has meaning relative to green and red.

Arbitrary

The quality of signs having no inherent meaning outside the systems that give them meaning; they are decided at discretion, often in a random way, and acquire meaning through habit and convention.

Peircean model of semiosis

A model of meaning-making that includes three terms: the representamen, the interpretant, and the object.

Representamen

The component in Peirce's model corresponding to the signifier (e.g., the red light itself).

Interpretant

The interpretive function of a sign that produces an effect (like a concept in the mind) or social convention; how one makes sense of the sign.

Object (Peirce)

The actual social coordination or material action in play that the sign refers to, such as the physical action of stopping a car.

Symbolic Sign

A sign characterized by an arbitrary and conventional relationship between signifier and signified, such as the word "C-A-T".

Iconic Sign

A sign based on perceived resemblance or imitation between signifier and signified, such as the word "meow" or a "home" button that looks like a house.

Indexical Sign

A sign based on an inferred connection between signifier and signified, such as paw prints indicating an animal or a photograph.

Type

A kind of sign distinguished from other signs within a given context, such as the specific characters in an alphabet or the original Mona Lisa painting.

Token

A replica of a type that is its own kind of sign, such as a t-shirt or postcard featuring the Mona Lisa.

Structuralism

A theoretical approach where the meaning of a thing is found within its own structure, which can be discovered.

Intermediaries / Mediating forces

Semiotic systems through which we experience and sense the world; the world is not "pre-given" but "pre-linguistic".

Linguistic Determinism

The concept that language determines our reality and that no thinking or cognition exists without language categories.

Linguistic Relativism

The idea that language reveals our relative position in the world and differentiates people's meanings based on their specific language systems.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The theory that the sign fundamentally guides and creates thought, rather than thought creating the sign.

Illusion of Transparency

The assumption by monolingual speakers that concepts are "obvious" or universal, failing to see that meaning is naturalized and relative across languages.

Semiosis

The process of meaning making.

Speech Circuit (Saussure)

A loop where a speaker transforms a mental concept (signified) into sound, which the listener then decodes back into a mental concept.