SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang

14 I Foundations of Peircean Semiotics Peirce Divested for Nonintimates I 15
iconic, that is, as a rheme, would be to form an interprétant representing the
weathervane as standing for some possible wind condition—perhaps resembling
yesterday's breeze. Obviously, this farmer could not rely on the weathervane to
provide reliable information about the arrival of the storm clouds hovering in the
western sky.
In contrast, cases in which a sign's actual relation to its object differs from they share these principles with all semiotic phenomena and not because any par-,
the ground apprehended by the interprétant are fascinating precisely because they ticular language's grammatical, syntactical, or lexical conventions are direct ex-1
suggest the possibility for creativity built into semiotic processes. Take the lin-| pressions of these principles. In fact, Peirce often remarks on the necessity off
guistic sign the king is dead. Though clearly composed of purely conventional! penetrating beneath these surface conventions in order to see logical regularity
symbols, this complex sign is interpreted as a proposition when the subject, the struggling to emerge. For example, diverse linguistic categories need to be reconceptualized
in semiotic terms: proper names, personal pronouns {you), demon­
king, is interpreted as referring to or denoting a particular person (e.g., Elvis!
Louis XIV) with which the interpreter is in prior acquaintance; and the predi-j stratives {that), and locatives {here) are all "genuine indices" (CP 2.305). Many
cate, is dead, is interpreted to apply to that object. And the noun phrase a tall distinctions which would be essential for a perfectly logical language are missing
man, though a symbolic legisign, is also a rheme, since it is apprehended as an| entirely in many languages:
icon of its object {the tall man would, of course, be a dicent symbol).
And the argument, being a symbol taken as a symbol, is for Peirce the high-!
est kind of semiotic entity. A series of propositions in syllogistic reasoning is an;
argument because the interprétant represents the syllogism as being related to its'
object by virtue of "the law that the passage from all such premises to such conclusions
tends to the truth" (CP 2.263). As a
symbol that compels an interpreting;
representation to represent it as a fully conventional sign, the argument is a particularly
important feature of cultural phenomena that call attention to their semiotic
shape or that impose constraints on the ability of members of a society toj
generate their own interpretations of messages (see Chapter 6):
\ The argument is a representamen which does not leave the interprétant to be
\ determined as it may by the person to whom the symbol is addressed, but sep-
\ arately represents what is the interpreting representation that it is intended to
1 determine. (CP 5.76)
Thus, rheme, dicent, and argument form a logical sequence:
Fully to understand and assimilate the symbol "a tall man," it is by no
means requisite to understand it to relate, or to profess to relate, to a real
Object. Its Interprétant, therefore, does not represent it as a genuine Index;
so that the definition of the Dicisign does not apply to it. It is impossible
here fully to go into the examination of whether the analysis given does
justice to the distinction between propositions and arguments. But it is easy
to see that the proposition purports to intend to compel its Interprétant to
refer to its real Object, that is represents itself as an Index, while the argument
purports to intend not compulsion but action by means of comprehensible
generals, that is, represents its character to be specially symbolic.
(CP 2.321)
It might appear that, in using English-language examples to illustrate the logical
structure of the proposition, we have violated Peirce's firm warning against following
the model of linguistic usage. But a moment's reflection on these examples
will show that all linguistic usages, whether words, propositions, or arguments,
can be reduced to the elementary principles of their semiotic functioning because I
If a logician had to construct a language de novo—which he actually has almost
to do—he would naturally say, I shall need prepositions to express the
temporal relations of before, after, and at the same time with, I shall need
prepositions to express the spatial relations of adjoining, containing, touching,
of m range with, of near to, far from, of to the right of, to the left of, above,
below, before, behind, and I shall need prepositions to express motions into
and out of these situations. For the rest, I can manage with metaphors. Only
if my language is intended for use by people having some great geographical
feature related the same way to all of them, as a mountain range, the sea, a
great river, it will be desirable to have prepositions signifying situations relatively
to that, as across, seaward, etc. But when we examine actual languages,
it would seem as though they had supplied the place of many of these distinctions
by gestures. The Egyptians had no preposition nor demonstrative having
any apparent reference to the Nile. Only the Esquimos are so wrapped up in
their bearskins that they have demonstratives distinguishing landward, seaward,
north, south, east, and west. But examining the cases or prepositions of
any actual language we find them a haphazard lot. (CP 2.29on)
Inversely, distinctions overtly expressed in languages often need to be nullified in
semiotic analysis: in the proposition John gives the book to Mary, the semiotic
object is a complex unit consisting of the denoted objects of John, book, Mary,
despite the different case markings these may have.
If languages are such imperfect illustrations of semiotic functioning, why
does Peirce persist in using linguistic examples? The answer to this question lies
in the answer to a more general question: why analyze forms of expression at all,
since they seem inevitably to muck up the logically precise picture? Peirce's answer
is that, although "internal signs" (that is, mental ideas) and "external signs"
(that is, representations clothed in perceptible forms) do not differ in principle,
only the latter offer an opportunity to perform experimental manipulations.