Lecture 3' The classics of semiotics of the 20th century

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Lecture 3. The classics of semiotics of the 20th
century

• Peirce
• Saussure
• Morris
• Hjelmslev

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Charles Sanders Peirce

• An American philosopher, founder of modern
  semiotics
• Peirce, pronounced purse

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About Peirce

• http//www.peirce.org/
• Who is the most original and the most versatile
  intellect that the Americas have so far produced?
  The answer "Charles S. Peirce" is uncontested,
  because any second would be so far behind as not
  to be worth nominating. He was mathematician,
  astronomer, chemist, geodesist, surveyor,
  cartographer, metrologist, spectroscopist,
  engineer, inventor psychologist, philologist,
  lexicographer, historian of science, mathematical
  economist, lifelong student of medicine book
  reviewer, dramatist, actor, short story writer
  phenomenologist, semiotician, logician,
  rhetorician and metaphysician.    Max H. Fisch
  in Sebeok, The Play of Musement

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Charles Sanders Peirce

• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
  http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Saunders_Peir
  ce
• Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse),
  (September 10, 1839 April 19, 1914) was an
  American polymath, born in Cambridge,
  Massachusetts. Although educated as a chemist and
  employed as a scientist for 30 years, he is now
  mostly seen as a philosopher. He is the greatest
  American builder of architectonic systems, and
  his admirers deem him the most important
  systematizer since Kant and Hegel, who were major
  influences.
• Peirce was largely ignored within his lifetime,
  and the secondary literature was scant until
  after WWII. Much of his huge output is still
  unpublished. An innovator in fields such as
  mathematics, research methodology, the philosophy
  of science, epistemology, and metaphysics, he
  considered himself a logician first and foremost.
  While he made major contributions to formal
  logic, "logic" for him encompassed much of what
  is now called the philosophy of science and
  epistemology. He, in turn, saw logic as a branch
  of semiotics, of which he is a founder. In 1886,
  he saw that logical operations could be carried
  out by electrical switching circuits, thus
  anticipating the digital computer.

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The Peircean Triad
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Writings

• http//www.peirce.org/writings.html
• "On a New List of Categories."
• Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and
  Sciences 7 (1867), 287-298.
• What Is a Sign?

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Ferdinand de Saussure

• A Swiss linguist, Founder of semiology, a
  linguistic branch in semiotics

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Ferdinand de Saussure

• (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
  http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure
  
• Ferdinand de Saussure (November 26, 1857 -
  February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist,
  considered by many to be the father of
  structuralism.
• Born in Geneva, he laid the foundation for many
  developments in linguistics in the 20th century.
  He perceived linguistics as a branch of a general
  science of signs he proposed to call semiology
  (now generally known as semiotics).

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Works of Ferdinand de Saussure

• (1916). Cours de linguistique générale (published
  by C. Bally and A. Sechehaye in collaboration
  with A. Riedlinger). Lausanne and Paris Payot.
  (CLG)

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Main ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure
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Saussure on semiology

• Semiology a part of the social psychology
• Linguistics is within semiology
• Semiology is a science of forms, not of
  substances form is a structure
• Sign is a social institution

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Saussure on sign

• A linguistic sign consist of signifier (image
  acoustique, sound-image) and signified (concept)
• Both are mental (sound-image is a psychological
  imprint of the sound) i.e. sign is a
  mentallistic entity
• No referential object
• Sign model Bilateral (the two-sided)

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Saussure on sign

• For Saussure, both the signifier and the
  signified were purely 'psychological' (Saussure
  1983, 12, 14-15, 66 Saussure 1974, 12, 15,
  65-66). Both were form rather than substance
• A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing
  and a name, but between a concept and a sound
  pattern. The sound pattern is not actually a
  sound for a sound is something physical. A sound
  pattern is the hearer's psychological impression
  of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of
  his senses. This sound pattern may be called a
  'material' element only in that it is the
  representation of our sensory impressions. The
  sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the
  other element associated with it in a linguistic
  sign. This other element is generally of a more
  abstract kind the concept. (Saussure 1983, 66
  Saussure 1974, 66)
• Semiotic for Beginners. http//www.aber.ac.uk/medi
  a/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

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Saussure on meaning

• Meaning is a semantic structure
• Meaning is a form or differential value

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Charles W. Morris (1901-1979)

• an American semiotician and philosopher.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Morris

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Charles W. Morris

• Morris's approach to semiotics divided the
  subject into syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
  He proposed a threefold division of a sign into a
  sign vehicle, designatum, and interpreter this
  trichotomy first appeared in his book Foundations
  of the Theory of Signs. Although it would seem
  that a semiotics structured in this manner owes
  much to Charles Peirce, some Peircians have
  accused Morris of reading Peirce superficially,
  through the distorting lens of Morris's
  behaviorism.

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Main ideas of Morris

• Rejected Peircean approach, based on the
  universal categories of perception
• Semiotics is a sicience of signs, ... developed
  on a biological basis, within a science of
  behavior
• Semiotics consists of syntax, semantics, and
  pragmatics

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Works of Charles W. Morris

• Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938)
• Signs, Language, and Behavior (1946)
• Signification and Significance (1964)
• Writings on the General Theory of Signs (1971)

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Hjelmslev (1899-1965)

• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Hjelmslev lui 'j?l?msl???? (October 3, 1899 -
  May 30, 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas
  formed the basis of the Danish School in
  linguistics. Born into an academic family,
  Hjelmslev studied comparative linguistics in
  Copenhagen, Prague and Paris (with A. Meillet).
  In 1931, he helped to found the Cercle
  Linguistique de Copenhague. Together with
  Hans-Jørgen Uldall he developed a new theory on
  language, they coined Glossematik (glossematics
  was derived from the Greek "glossa" which means
  "tongue" or "language").

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Written assignment (hardcopy)

• Topic Modern Semiotics the 20th century, the
  classics of semiotics (Choose one of the
  following semioticians Peirce, Saussure, Morris,
  Hjelmslev, or someone else you consider as
  classic of semiotics )
• Compile a text from the internet search results,
  including full bibliographic descriptions of the
  entries. Analyze the text and formulate your own
  opinion on the topic
• Present in a verbal and a hardcopy form during
  the seminar.
• Due next week