SUO: Re: Sign Relations
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Semiotic SIG,
I think it may serve the discussion at this point to introduce a couple
of concrete examples of sign relations, and perhaps thereby to dispell
the suspicion that all of this pragmatic sign theory stuff is just too
ill-defined to touch down anywhere. This is a strategy that my former
advisor, Thomas G. Windeknecht, recommended to me at a critical point
in the development of my dissertation work, exhorting me in this wise,
by means of a singular interrogative plus a threefold imperative:
1. "How simple can it be and still be interesting?"
2. "Examples! Examples! Examples!"
To make a long story short, I shortly thereafter came up with the following
pair of associated sign relations, which, for all of their evident simplicity,
can be used to illustrate many of the most distinctive features of the subject.
You can start out by imagining that two people, A and B, have a language
that is restricted to just their own proper names, "A" and "B", plus the
first and second person pronouns, "I" and "you", which will here be
schematized as "i" and "u", respectively.
To specify a sign relation one has to give three domains,
the Object, Sign, and Interpretant domains, schematized
here as O, S, and I, respectively.
For this example, let us consider the two sign relations, R(A) and R(B),
corresponding to the usages of the two "interpreters", A and B, respectively.
(Notation: I will use "€" for "element of" and "ç" for "subset of".)
We have the following:
R(A), R(B) ç O x S x I,
O = {A, B},
S = {"A", "B", "i", "u"},
I = {"A", "B", "i", "u"}.
R(A) has the following eight triples of the form <o, s, i>:
<A, "A", "A">
<A, "A", "i">
<A, "i", "A">
<A, "i", "i">
<B, "B", "B">
<B, "B", "u">
<B, "u", "B">
<B, "u", "u">
R(B) has the following eight triples of the form <o, s, i>:
<A, "A", "A">
<A, "A", "u">
<A, "u", "A">
<A, "u", "u">
<B, "B", "B">
<B, "B", "i">
<B, "i", "B">
<B, "i", "i">
Following a usage of C.S. Peirce, the elements of a sign relation R,
that is, the ordered triples of the form <o, s, i> € R, are known as
its "elementary sign relations". (This is roughly Peirce's meaning.)
That is all there is to this kind of model of the sign relations in question.
Semiosis, the Movie, is another story altogether. Angel, with his mind fixed
on Buffy, might have the following sequence of thoughts, suitably abbreviated,
pass through his mind: "B", "B", "u", "B", "u", "u", "B", "u", ..., only one
of many possible reveries that are due to his obsessive repetition compulsion.
What is the most that we can say about the bearing of these
abstract sign relations on the concrete transits of semiosis?
Just this: The sign relations for the interpreters A and B
constrain the transitions in their respective processes of
semiosis, but do not of necessity determine them uniquely.
More, later,
Jon Awbrey
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