Sign


 * Etymology **

The etymology of the term sign in the English language, according to the //OED//, has roots in the Anglo-Norman (seigne, sengne, singne, sein, seine) and refers to a variety of objects including, but not limited to, miracle (end of the 10th century), gesture (beginning of the 12th century), token (end of the 12th century), banner (13th century), and even feigned appearances (14th century). Morphologically, the //OED// posits that sign reaches back to the Latin term signum, which also has similar meanings associated with the early English usage. What follows is a brief history of the concept of the sign that begins with the classical era and ends with contemporary appropriations of the concept.


 * The Classical Era **

The concept sign can be traced to the Greek term sēmeion (σημεῖον), a term that indicated ways of knowing (//Greek English Lexicon//). For example, signs were ways of recognizing a calf of cultic importance (Herodutus, 1920, 2.35), communicating one's unfavorable judgment (Plato, 1969, 614c), and grasping the character of a creature such as “courage” from physical characteristics (Aristotle, 1967, 70b10-15). In a later classical formulation, Augustine explicated the nature of the sign in //De Doctrina//, “For a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come to mind as a consequence of itself” (Augustine, 2009, 2.1.1). Linguistic signs were one example of these types of signs that carried a particular “thing” with them, “The signs that address themselves to the ear are, as I have said, more numerous, and for the most part consist of words...For among men words have obtained far and away the chief place as a means of indicating the thoughts of the mind” (Augustine, 2009, 2.3.4). In sum, the classical era appeared to appreciate signs as a means of knowing “life” and while Augustine undergirded sign with a systematic overtone that suggested that signs (and in particular words) were merely a means to an end (i.e., to indicate the thing), the sign and what the sign signified were tied tightly one to the other.


 * The Renaissance **

As the etymology of the term sign suggested, the impact of the classical era endured throughout the medieval period. However, the Renaissance birthed new thoughts regarding epistemology, human nature, and human psychology that eventually elevated the thought or ideas of the mind over the value of the sign (or more specifically, the “word”) that conceived it (Herzberg, 2001, pp. 792-799). John Locke, who represents the heightened interest in human intellectual activity, gave preeminence to the knowledge generated through experience and relegated signs to secondary importance, in so far as they could be used to communicate ideas, “When Children have, by repeated Sensations, got Ideas fixed in their Memories, they begin, by degrees, to learn the use of Signs” (Locke, 1796, p. 138; Uzgalis, Summer 2015). Signs became subservient to intellectual activity, such that language would eventually be viewed to be a hindrance rather than promoting communication (Spencer, 1892, pp. 3-4).


 * Modern and Post-Modern Era **

The beginning of the modern era witnessed a renewed interest in the relationship between language and the “things” conveyed by them. Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, is considered to be one of the fathers of “semiology” (the science of signs) and of a structuralist approach to the study of language ( Leeds-Hurwitz, 2009, p. 874; Young, 1981, pp. 1-2). Saussure contended that sign was a general term labeling a duplex comprised of a signifier (i.e., word) and the signified (i.e., the concept) (Saussure, 1966, p. 67). Key to his systematization was the arbitrary nature of the bond between the signifier and signified, a link determined solely by the language users (1966, 71). Perhaps most influential in the field of semiotics, however, is pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, who divided the sign into a three-part structure rather than a Saussurian two-fold entity (Peirce, 1960, p. 135; Kockelman 2011, p. 165-168). Indeed, it is primarily a Peircian framework that has influenced a variety of disciplines (e.g., linguistic anthropology, semiotics, communication) interested in language, cultural-social practices, and identity ( Mertz, 2007, p. 339; Manning, 2012, p. 10; Koven, 2015, p. 401).

Despite the usefulness of these structuralist approaches to the study of signs, there has been an increasing awareness of the ambiguity of meaning inherent in the use of signs in communicative contexts (Leeds-Hurwitz, 2009, p. 875). Representing the post-structuralist critique, Derrida famously uttered, “There is nothing outside of the text,” and it appears that if one were to complete the project of removing all traces of a "hidden" meaning (what he calls “metaphysical”) lying behind the sign, one might need to abandon the concept of the signified altogether and work simply with the sign as Derrida proposed (Derrida, 1972, pp. 250-251). This critique has led scholarship to understand the collection of signs (i.e., texts) as independent of their historical or sociological origins to occupy a “polysemic space where the paths of several possible meanings intersect” (Barthes, 1981, pp. 35-37). Consequently, methodological approaches to the study of signs in communicative contexts (discourse analysis for example) has favored a “consequentialist” approach to meaning in the post-structuralist vein, that is, an approach to understanding the meaning of signs as “depend[ent] in substantial part on how [signs are] taken up by subsequent speakers and utterances” (Reyes, 2015, p. 61). As this brief survey of the conceptual history of the sign has shown, the understanding of the concept of the sign continues to have relevant bearing on language and communication both methodologically and conceptually.

José G. Izaguirre, III (2015)


 * References**

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Barthes, Roland. (1981). Theory of the Text. In Robert Young (Ed.), //Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader//. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Derrida, Jacques. (1972). Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. In Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato (Ed.), //The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man// (pp. 247-272). Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Koven, Michele. (2015). Narratives and Cultural Identities. In Anna De Fina and Alexandra Georgakopoulou (Ed.), //The Handbook of Narrative Analysis// (pp. 388-407). Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

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Peirce, Charles Sanders. (1960). //Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. 2)//. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

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Reyes, Stanton Wortham and Angela. (2015). //Discourse Analysis Beyond the Speech Event//. London: Routledge.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1966). //Course in General Linguistics// (Wade Baskin, Trans. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

sign. (n.d.). In //OED Online//. Retrieved from [|http://dictionary.oed.com.]

Spencer, Herbert. (1892). //The Philosophy of Style, Together with an Essay on Style// (Fred N. Scott Ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Uzgalis, William. (Summer 2015). John Locke. In Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), //The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy//.

Young, Robert. (1981). Post-Structuralism: An Introduction. In Robert Young (Ed.), //Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader// (pp. 1-28). Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.