Transcript Types of signs - University of Waterloo

Signification
Indexicality
Iconicity
Symbolicity
English 306A; Harris
Modes of signification
Indexical
• A mode defined by necessity (especially cause and effect), or association.
Prototypically, think fever.
Iconic
• A mode defined by relationship of resemblance. Prototypically, think picture.
Symbolic
• A mode defined by relationship of “arbitrariness,” convention, and learning.
Prototypically, think word.
English 306A; Harris
Bow-wow-pooh-pooh-yo-he-ho
theories
Index-to-icon-to-symbol
migration theories
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle
concept
form
entity
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle (symbol)
yappy, hairy
quaduped
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle (symbol)
yappy, hairy
quaduped
Signified
The (evoked)
world
Signifier
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle (index)
yappy, hairy
quaduped
Signified
The (evoked)
world
Signifier
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle (icon)
yappy, hairy
quaduped
Signified
The (evoked)
world
Signifier
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle (word)
yappy, hairy
quaduped
Sign
(narrow sense)
Sense,
Intension
Reference,
Extension
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Semiotic triangle (word)
yappy, hairy
quaduped
Onomasiology
The (evoked)
world
Semasiology
“dog”
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor and metonymy
Indirect representation
Something (called the vehicle) carries the primary signification for something
else (tenor) that ordinarily holds that signification.
Metaphor is iconic
The vehicle/tenor relationship is an asserted resemblance: the tenor is said to
be like the vehicle in some way.
Metonymy is indexical
The vehicle/tenor relationship is (not exactly necessary but) drawn from the
same habitat: the tenor is related to the vehicle in some way.
English 306A; Harris
Homer is a pig
Vehicle
Tenor
Simpsons
pater familias
Porcine farm
animal
“Pig”
“Homer”
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor and metonymy
Indirect representation
Something (called the vehicle) carries the primary signification for something
else (tenor) that ordinarily holds that signification.
Metaphor is iconic
The vehicle/tenor relationship is an asserted resemblance: the tenor is said to
be like the vehicle in some way.
Metonymy is indexical
The vehicle/tenor relationship is (not exactly necessary but) drawn from the
same habitat: the tenor is related to the vehicle in some way.
English 306A; Harris
Metonymy, metaphor
to go tyson
to go ballistic
Metonymy
Metaphor
English 306A; Harris
Metonymy—
The principle of set membership
One element of a set or a relationship (the
vehicle) singled out to represent other
element(s) (the tenor)
•
•
•
•
Buffalo wins in OT!
Hollywood loves westerns.
All hands on deck.
Thirty head of cattle.
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor—
The principle of comparison
One element (the vehicle) represents another
element (the tenor), to which it is unrelated.
•
•
•
•
•
Homer is a pig.
My love is red, red rose.
Toronto is toast.
The table leg is broken.
The orthopedic wing is closed.
English 306A; Harris
Metonym
Attributes are picked out (treated indexically) to
represent something associated with those
attributes. Like a mascot.
Dancin’
Homer
English 306A; Harris
Metaphor
Attributes are invoked, by way (iconically) of
resemblance.
Homer is a pig.
• Eats a lot
• Noisy
• Not very clean.
•
English 306A; Harris
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
Metaphor
• Tenor = vagina
• Vehicle = felus domesticus
• Attributes
• Warm
• Furry
•
English 306A; Harris
!
“Pussy!” Stage 1
Metonymy
• Tenor = woman
• Vehicle = vagina/pussy
The ultimate devaluing of
a (category of a) person:
to a small anatomical
component.
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy!” Stage 2
Metaphor
• Tenor = the insult target
• Vehicle = woman (not vagina)
• Attributes
=
• Weak
• Soft
• Quitter
• Means ‘Opposite of a man’, but
in a wholly evaluative way.
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
Metaphor  Metonymy  Metaphor
Indexicality, Iconicity
• a relatively mundane example of ordinary language
• not a fancy literary or rhetorical device
• these processes, and figuration generally, are pervasive
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
English 306A; Harris
“Pussy”
Metaphor
=
• Tenor = the insult target
• Vehicle = a particular type of woman
(still not vagina)
• Attributes
• Weak
• Soft
• Quitter
• Means ‘the sort of woman that gives all
of us a bad name for being weak, soft,
quitters’ (?); in a wholly evaluative way.
• Embeds “male” values
English 306A; Harris
“Dick!”
Metonymy  Metaphor
Anatomical label
Insult
Tenor: penis
Tenor: object of insult
Vehicle: Famously
endowed man
named Dick (?)
Vehicle: penis
Cf. kleenex,
sandwich, goldfarb,
…
Cf, willy, peter,
johnson, …
English 306A; Harris
Critical attributes:
• Unthinking
• Self-serving
• Insensitive
We now return you to regular
programming
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Defined by association
There is a connection of
some sort (necessary or
conventional) between the
vehicle and the tenor.
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Egocentricity
Speaker-oriented
• Deixis (pointing words)
Anthropocentrism
Human-oriented
• Inherent orientation
(human-body orientation
projected to objects)
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Deixis
Gk. deiktos ≈ “to show”
• Pointing words
Work by ‘gesturing
outward’ from speaker,
from the EGO, to other
objects
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Deixis
Proximals (“deictics”
• Speaking location of EGO
(this, that; here, there; …)
• Speaking time of EGO
(now, then; today,
tomorrow; …)
Pronouns
• Pick out attributes relative
to EGO (speaker, hearer,
not-speaker-or-hearer;
speaker+others,
hearer+others, …)
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Lexical egocentricity
Proximals (“deictics”)
• Speaking location
• Where-EGO-is: here, near, …
• Where-EGO-is-not: there, far, …
• Speaking time
• When-EGO-is: now, today, …
• When-EGO-is-not: then, tomorrow, …
• Relative location to speaker
• Close-to-EGO: this, these, …
• Not-close-to-EGO: that, those, ..
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Lexical egocentricity
Pronouns
• EGO = 1st person (I, me, …)
• EGO+others = 1st person
plural (we, us, …)
• Hearer-of-EGO = 2nd person
(you, your, …)
• Hearer-of-EGO+others = 2nd
person plural (you, your, …)
• Not-EGO-and-not-hearer-ofEGO = 3rd person (he, she, it,
…)
• Not-EGO-and-not-hearer-ofEGO+others = 3rd person
plural (they, them, …)
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Expressive egocentricity
The speaker (or, in a rhetorical extention, the hearer) as
the (default) reference point for everything else.
The squirrel is
behind the
tree.
English 306A; Harris
Indexical orientation — Deictic centre
Expressive egocentricity
The speaker (or, in a rhetorical extention, the hearer) as
the (default) reference point for everything else.
The squirrel is
in front of the
tree.
English 306A; Harris
Indexicality
Anthropocentricity
Gk. anthropos ≈ “man”
(hu)man-centred
Inherent orientation: human
orientation projected onto
artefacts and entities)
• front, back
• left, right
• before, behind
English 306A; Harris
Deictic (egocentric) vs. Inherent
(anthropocentric) Orientation
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Defined by resemblance
Sequential order
“Don’t drink and drive”
Distance
Immediacy of action
Quantity
Reduplication
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Principle of sequential order
Unless marked, the order
of words (by default)
mirrors the order of
events.
• He kicked sand in my face and
I got mad.
• I got mad and he kicked sand
in my face.
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Principle of distance
Linguistic distance tends
to mirror conceptual
distance.
• She squeezed me.
• She gave me a squeeze.
• She gave a squeeze to me.
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity
Principle of quantity
Length of utterance correlates
with (speaker’s perception of)
quantity of concept.
• Dinosaurs lived a l o o o n g
time ago.
• Dinosaurs lived a long, long,
long, … time ago.
• Lawyerese.
• Political speeches.
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Reduplication
Japanese
hito 'person'
hitobito ’group of people'
kami 'god'
kamigami ’group of gods'
Mandarin
xiao 'small'
xiaoxiao 'very small'
gaoxing 'happy'
gaogaoxingxing 'very happy'
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Reduplication
/ora¯/ = man
/ ora¯ ora¯/ = all sorts of men
/anak/ = child
/anak anak/ = all sorts of children
/ma¯a/ = mango
/ ma¯a ma¯a / = all sorts of mangoes
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
• yes-we?
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
• yes-we?
• yes-whee?
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Iconicity — Principle of quantity
Conceptual Reduplication
Trinidad and Tobago
[jEswij]
• emphatic confirmation,
agreement; interjective
intensifier
• yes-we?
• yes-whee?
• yes-oui!
Children at Play, Romeo Downer
http://caribbeanartist.com/
English 306A; Harris
Any questions?
Modes of signification
Semiotic triangle
Symbolicity (arbitrariness, convention, learning)
Indexicality (relation of necessity)
• Egocentricity (deixis)
• Anthropocentricity (inherent orientation)
Iconicity (relation of resemblance)
• Sequential order
• Distance
• Quantity
English 306A; Harris