SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
18 I Foundations of Peircean Semiotics<br />
Peirce Divested for Nonintimates I 19<br />
index cannot be an argument (blocking out two possibilités in the middle row).<br />
The resulting ten sign possibilities are given below, along with a concrete illustration<br />
for each class:<br />
(i) (rhematic iconic) qualisign; feeling of red<br />
(2.) (rhematic) iconic sinsign; individual diagram<br />
— (3) rhematic indexical sinsign; spontaneous cry: ouch!<br />
(4) dicent (indexical) sinsign; telephone ring<br />
(5) (rhematic) iconic legisign; architectural order<br />
«- (6) rhematic indexical legisign; type of shout: hello!<br />
(7) dicent indexical legisign; vendor's cry: beer here!<br />
— (8) rhematic symbol (legisign); the noun book<br />
— (9) dicent symbol (legisign); proposition<br />
(ro) argument (symbolic legisign); syllogism<br />
Placing certain words in parentheses indicates that they are not essential in defining<br />
a sign class because of certain logical implications (identical with the<br />
principles of exclusion used above). Thus a qualisign, being a First, must be an<br />
icon, and being an icon it can only be a rheme. Similarly at the other extreme of<br />
the hierarchy, an argument must be a symbol, and being a symbol it must be a<br />
legisign.<br />
" That this list of sign classes was generated by a method of exclusion should<br />
not be taken to imply that the resulting types do not have positive connections<br />
and interactions as well. Peirce specifies three such positive linkages (though not<br />
with these labels): replication, composition, and downshifting. Replication refers<br />
to the necessity that all legisigns generate replicas of themselves (in fact, to be a<br />
legisign is to be something that produces tokens of its type). If a sign is classed<br />
as an indexical legisign, for example, we know that its replica will be classed as<br />
an indexical sinsign—although, as noted previously, this replica will not have<br />
identical properties with the "run of the mill" indexical sinsign (e.g., telephone<br />
ring). Composition refers to the internal complexity of certain sign classes such<br />
that they necessarily contain or embody lower-ranking signs. The dicent symbol,<br />
a proposition for example, is built up of two rhemes, a rhematic symbol (com-<br />
\ mon noun) as well as a rhematic indexical legisign (demonstrative pronoun), the<br />
\ former "to express its information" (CP 2.26z) and the latter "to indicate the<br />
\ subject of that information." Finally, downshifting refers to the tendency of cer-<br />
\ tain of the classes to be systematically apperceived by their interprétants as being<br />
\ lower-ranking signs. A rhematic indexical legisign will regularly be interpreted<br />
as if it were only a (rhematical) iconic legisign. The that in the phrase that<br />
book,<br />
though interprétable at all only because it is in proximity to its object, the book<br />
being denoted, functions to determine an interprétant which represents it as<br />
being related to this book by virtue of formal resemblance, thus not as picking<br />
out a particular object (the task of a dicent) but as stipulating a possible class of<br />
objects sharing the same feature, namely, whatever might possibly be "relatively<br />
far from speaker." In order to distinguish regular members of a sign class from<br />
other variants or varieties that fall into this class because of these processes of<br />
replication, composition, or downshifting, Peirce sometimes calls these latter instances<br />
"degenerate" signs—a term derived from mathematics rather than from<br />
morals.<br />
An important implication of Peirce's third trichotomy (rheme, dicent, argument)<br />
for historical analysis is that the identical representamen can shift ranks in<br />
different periods. Jappy (1984:23—25) gives a particularly clear example of this:<br />
for a nonspecialist modern museum goer, the presence of ultramarine pigment on<br />
a Quattrocento altarpiece painting of a Madonna is interpreted as a rhematic<br />
iconic sinsign, that is, a sign that is a particular occurrence, that stands for its<br />
dark blue object by resemblance, and that can only be interpreted as representing<br />
some possible original object. For the contemporary viewer, however, this pigment<br />
generated several additional interprétants: knowing that this pigment was<br />
rare and expensive, the contemporary viewer would interpret its presence as a<br />
dicent indexical sinsign pointing to the wealthy patron who commissioned the<br />
work; and sensitive both to the place of ultramarine in the overall color code of<br />
the period and to the position of particular shades of ultramarine, the contemporary<br />
viewer would interpret the pigment as a replica of a dicent indexical legisign,<br />
since the color is part of a system of general regularities. Note that, in this<br />
example, the passage of time corresponds to a lowering<br />
of the rank of the sign,<br />
as the richness of "collateral knowledge" available to the viewer decreases.<br />
Cultural symbols with embedded iconic properties are frequently interpreted<br />
as less than fully symbolic, that is, as "naturalized" signs that inherently, rather<br />
than conventionally, signal their object (Herzfeld 1992:69; Lotman 1985:56).<br />
One limitation of Peirce's view is that it does not allow for the possibility of the<br />
opposite to happen, the "upshifting" of signs as a result of the structure of interprétants.<br />
But this is precisely what happens in cases of the "conventionalizing"'<br />
of relatively motivated signs (see Chapter 8).<br />
Always sensitive to the difficulties involved in grasping thèse interlocking<br />
regularities among sign classes, Peirce tries to ease the student's mind: "It is a<br />
nice problem to say to what class a given sign belongs; since all the circumstances<br />
of the case have to be considered. But it is seldom requisite to be very accurate;<br />
for if one does not locate the sign precisely, one will easily come near enough to<br />
its character for any ordinary purpose of logic" (CP 2.265).<br />
Scientific Knowledge and Cultural Belief<br />
For Peirce, semiotic relations are anchored in the linkage between signs as<br />
constituents of cognitions and external reality, the character of the world "whatever<br />
you or I or any man or men may think of them to be" (MS 296:18). This