SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang

ioi I Comparative Perspectives on Complex Semiotic Processes Tropical Semiotics I 103
Wagner notes that literal symbolization tends to involve a maximal degree of
separation between semiotic representation and its context of occurrence (that is,
a tendency toward decontextualization), while figurative symbolization "assimilates"
to the context (1977^391).
It is helpful to compare the operation of single, isolated signs and multiple,
interlocking signs at both the semantic and the tropic levels. It was Saussure's
(1959:127—34) great discovery that, at the first level, signs relatively unconstrained
by iconic or indexical motivation (what he labels "signs" and what
Peirce labels "symbols") are free to generate complex linkages along two dimensions,
the co-occurence of signs in the same construction (the "syntagmatic"
chain) and the association of signs which can replace each other in a given environment
(the "paradigmatic" chain). Individual phonic signs without motivation
are created entirely by the "reciprocal delimitation" of their differential yet absolutely
correlative planes; a linguistic "unit" is a conventional fusion of phonic
and conceptual differences by the relational operation of language. But linguistic
signs, viewed as the inextricable bond of signifier and signified, belong to higherorder
regularities also determined by conventional rules of "syntagmatic solidarities"
(word formation, morphological complexity, concatenation) and paradigmatic
"opposition" (the reciprocal "summoning up" of concepts). Saussure went
so far—too far, no doubt—as to argue that, in the realm of linguistic signs at
least, signs viewed from the perspective of their position in syntagmatic and paradigmatic
chains generate semiotic "value" which entirely replaces the isolated
signification of individual signs—signification itself (denotational "naming," for
example [Saussure 1954:68—69]) becoming an illusion perpetrated by the syslated)
in several ways on the basis of the motivating ground or reason for the
relationship. According to Peirce's well-known trichotomy, signs at this level can
be iconic, that is, grounded in formal resemblance; indexical, that is, grounded
in spatiotemporal contiguity; and symbolic, that is, grounded in arbitrary, conventional
agreement (see Chapter i). Symbols, though created only by the imputed
ground between sign and object, are subject to speakers' "assumption of
invariant referential value" (Wagner 1983:3) across contexts. The second level
of meaningfulness, labeled tropic or metaphorical by Wagner, consists of the relationships
among complete signs (regardless of the kind of internal motivation)
which are contextually innovative changes introduced upon semantic units. As
Ricoeur (1974^99) explains:
But the semantics of the word demonstrates very clearly that words have actual
meanings only in a sentence and that lexical entities—words in the dictionary—have
only potential meanings and for the sake of their potential uses in
sentences. As concerns the metaphor itself, semantics demonstrates with the
same strength that the metaphorical meaning of a word is nothing which may
be found in a dictionary (in that sense we may continue to oppose the metaphorical
sense to the literal sense, if we call literal sense whatever sense may
occur among the partial meanings enumerated in the dictionary, and not a socalled
original, or fundamental, or primitive, or proper meaning). If the metaphorical
sense is more than the actualization of one of the potential meanings
of a polysémie word (and all our words in common discourse are polysémie),
it is necessary that this metaphorical use is only contextual; by that I mean a
sense which emerges as the result of a certain contextual action. We are led in
that way to oppose contextual changes of meaning to lexical changes, which
concern the diachronistic aspect of language as code, system, or langue. Metaphor
is such a contextual change of meaning.
In contrast to semantic units at the first level, tropic symbolizations engage a
"moral content," that is, relate a particular metaphor to the broader "values and
precepts of society" (Weiner 1988:124).
A clear example of semiosis at the first level would be the linguistic form
kara'o signifying the "oil of the Campnosperma brevipetiolata tree" (Weiner
1988:63); semiosis at the second level would be the Foi cultural association of
this kara'o oil with "male wealth" and the exchange of this symbolically rich
material object for wives in affinal exchange rituals. The meaning of the exchange
using this oil cannot be understood if all we know is the "literal" signification
of the word kara'o. The full meaning involves ramifying cultural categorizations
(wealth vs. nonwealth, male vs. female, oil wealth vs. pearl shell
wealth) and metaphorical associations (the interior cavity of the kara'o tree and
a woman's uterus [Weiner 1988:229]). No amount of knowledge about the Foi
linguistic system at the first semiotic level would enable the analyst to grasp the
intention of a young Foi man who, seeking a marriageable young woman, re-
quests, "Do you know a white cockatoo feather you could give me?" (Weiner
1988:126). An important contrast, then, between the complementary elements
brought together in semantic signification and the paired terms of a metaphor is
that, in the latter, the terms are simultaneously different and similar: "women
are marsupials" (Weiner 1988:124) and yet no man would marry a marsupial,
except in myth. This is called the "reflexive" quality of metaphors, since these
symbolic figures tend to merge the "vehicle" or signifying term and the "tenor"
or signified term within a relatively self-contained expression, what Wagner
terms "symbols that stand for themselves" (Wagner i986b:6; Weiner
1988:124).
The interchange between signification and metaphorization, wherein each
draws upon the other, produces a situation in which meaning is a function of
change as well as of formal signification and in which the creative aspect of
change is metaphoric innovation. Any meaning that impinges upon, or "opposes,"
a central cultural tenet or proposition must take the form of an innovation
upon it, a metaphoric expression involving the tenet itself, and in fact
metaphorizing it. (Wagner 1972:168)