Semiotics—the study of signs and sign systems. A “sign” is something present that stands
for something absent, as a cross represents Christianity; a “sign system” is a set of signs
and rules for their use. Semiotics is both a discipline and an approach used by other
disciplines, including folklore.
While there have been recent attempts to document early theorizing that can belatedly
be described as contributing to semiotics, there are two major early theorists who clearly
intended to establish a new field of study: Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), a Swiss
linguist, and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), an American philosopher. Saussure
thought there was something missing in the study of linguistics and introduced
“semiology” as the science to “study the life of signs within society” (1916/1969, p. 16).
Peirce wanted to expand the study of logic to include the study of signs and proposed
calling the new field “semiotics” (1931–1958). It has become common in the United
States to use the term semiotics to refer to all of the work of Saussure and Peirce and the
followers of both (rather than semiology, a term more in favor in Europe) 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. Within folklore, Saussure has clearly had
the greatest influence.
Part of what is interesting about semiotics is the breadth of topics covered (Sebeok
1986). At the least, everything that is granted meaning by humans can be included; a few scholars also include animals and even plants. What is important is not merely that
semiotics encompasses many things that are rarely grouped together, but that it explains
how they are similar. In each case, whether the topic is food, painting, or poetic imagery,
something (the sign) conveys meaning—meaning that would not otherwise be obvious, or
that we could not otherwise present in such a condensed form. It is not breadth of scope
for its own sake that is significant, but breadth of scope for the surprising fact that so
many different actions, objects, and behaviors, in so many different contexts, all appear
to operate in a similar fashion that warrants attention.
Largely due to Saussure’s role as a linguist, his early statements about semiotics are
generally understood to imply that language should be taken as the model for other
semiotic systems and that linguistics serve as the model for how to study all semiotic
systems. There has been considerable discussion about the appropriateness of this
presumptive role of language as the preeminent semiotic system and about whether
linguistics is always the best model for semiotic analysis. Such discussion does not
change the fact that language has, to date (1995), usefully served as the model for much
work within semiotics.
As proposed by Saussure, each sign has two parts, termed the “signifier” and the
“signified.” The signifier is visible or in some other way present (for example, a flag is
visible, and the word “flag” is audible); the signified is invisible but referred to (the
country that verbal and material flags represent). In other words, the signifier is the
explicit aspect of a sign, a material presence of some sort; the signified is the tacit
element of a sign, something literally absent yet functionally present because it has been
invoked.
In addition to designating the component parts of any sign, semioticians commonly
sort the class of signs into different groups or types. Of the sixty-six potential varieties
Peirce originally identified, three have gained wide acceptance. In each case, the
relationship between the signifier and signified serves as focus of attention. An “icon”
has the relationship of similarity (a photograph of someone is an icon since the
signifier—the photograph—resembles the signified—the person it represents). An
“index” has the relationship of contiguity (the top of the wedding cake kept for the first
anniversary is an index since it served as a physical piece of the original event). A
“symbol” has the relationship of arbitrariness (a white bridal gown is a symbol of
innocence, standing for something it neither resembles nor was taken from).
Semioticians have touted the concept of the sign as the basic building block used in
the construction of human meaning. The following quotation is from Charles Morris, but
the sentiment is fairly common: “Indeed, it does not seem fantastic to believe that the
concept of sign may prove as fundamental to the sciences of man as the concept of atom
has been for the physical sciences or the concept of cell for the biological sciences”
(Morris 1938:42). As with literal building blocks, signs function by being combined into
larger sets; technically, the term for a set of signs is a “code.” Yet the concept of code
includes more than “groupness”; it also includes rules govern-ing the use of signs. All
codes share the same characteristics. Among these, two are critical. First, each code has a
set of signs arranged into what are called “paradigms,” and it is from each set of
possibilities that a single one is chosen for a given purpose. For example, in the clothing
code, all shoes are a single paradigm; it is from this set that each of us chooses one
possible pair of shoes to wear each day.
Second, individual signs are chosen from paradigms and combined into new sets
termed syntagms. For example, to go with the particular shoes I chose to wear today, I
chose one shirt from the paradigm of shirts, and one pair of pants from the paradigm of
pants; taken together they form a new group termed a syntagm. Meaning arises from the
combination of two things: the choice of a particular sign from the range of possibilities
(paradigms) and the combination of individual signs into new meaning sets (syntagms).
There are three main types of codes: (1) logical (those used by science, such as
mathematics or Morse code); (2) aesthetic (those used by art, such as architecture or
photography); and (3) social (those used by groups of people during interaction, such as
language or clothing). It is primarily social codes that are of interest to folklorists,
although aesthetic codes may also become a focus of attention. Most study of material
culture and verbal art could appropriately use semiotics as an analytic tool. Some
examples of scholars who have applied a semiotic approach to material aspects of culture
are Roland Barthes (1967), Petr Bogatyrev (1971), and Bela Gunda (1973); some who
have applied a semiotic approach to verbal art are Vladimir J.Propp ([1928] 1968), John
H.McDowell (1981), and Danielle M.Roemer (1982).
Just as a single sign does not convey meaning alone but only as part of a larger system
(a code), so also a single code does not stand alone but functions as one part of a system
of codes. This system of codes does not yet have a name that everyone has agreed upon,
but the most likely term is “culture” for, as Umberto Eco suggests, “to communicate is to
use the entire world as a semiotic apparatus. I believe that culture is that, and nothing
else” (Eco 1973:57; see Leeds-Hurwitz, 1993:155–176 for elaboration). Just as some
aspects of meaning are determined from the (larger) code rather than the (smaller) sign,
so are some drawn from the largest level of all, the entire set of codes utilized within a
single culture. Presumably, one reason there has been so little focus at this level to date
(1995) is the difficulty of such study; however, it is the logical next step in semiotic
analysis.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
References
Barthes, Roland. 1967. Elements of Semiology , trans.A.Lavers and C.Smith. New York: Hill and
Wang.
Bogatyrev, Petr. 1971. The Function of Folk Costume in Moravian Slovakia, trans. R.G.Crum. The
Hague: Mouton.
Eco, Umberto. 1973. Social Life as a Sign System. In Structuralism: An Introduction, ed. D.Bobey.
Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 57–72.
Gunda, Bela. 1973. Sex and Semiotics. Journal of American Folklore 86:143–151.
Leeds-Hurwitz, Wendy. 1993. Semiotics and Communication: Signs, Codes, Cultures. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
McDowell, John H. 1981. Toward a Semiotics of Nick-naming: The Kamsa Example. Journal of
American Folklore 94:1–18.
Morris, Charles. 1938. Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Propp, Vladimir J. [1928] 1968. Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Roemer, Danielle M. 1982. In the Eye of the Beholder: A Semiotic Analysis of the Visual
Descriptive Riddle. Journal of American Folklore 95:173–199.
Sebeok, Thomas A., ed. 1986. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics. 3vols.Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.