SEMIOTICS COURSE

Second Assignment

Assignment Topic: Peirce’s theory upon Semiotics (History of Semiotics course)

Student name: Stavroula Charalampia Pollatou

In this assignment we will focus mainly on Peirce’s work in terms of the science of Semiotics. It is very important to understand his ideas as they contributed to the evolution of Semiotics and changed the history of Semiotics forever.

Source 1

“There are three kinds of interest we may take in a thing. First, we may have a primary interest in it for itself. Second, we may have a secondary interest in it, on account of its reactions with other things. Third, we may have a mediatory interest in it, in so far as it conveys to a mind an idea about a thing. In so far as it does this, it is a sign, or representation (Peirce, 1998, para. 2).

Source 2

Peirce offered a triadic (three-part) model consisting of: 1. The representamen: the form which the sign takes (not necessarily material,

though usually interpreted as such) – called by some theorists the ‘sign vehicle’. 2. An interpretant: not an interpreter but rather the sense made of the sign. 3. An object: something beyond the sign to which it refers (a referent).

In Peirce’s own words: A sign . . . [in the form of a representamen] is something which stands

to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen. (Peirce 1931–58, 2.228)

To qualify as a sign, all three elements are essential. The sign is a unity of what is represented (the object), how it is represented (the representamen) and how it is interpreted (the interpretant).

Source 3Dividing the Object The first effect of Peirce's greater appreciation of the parallels

between inquiry and his sign theory is a distinction between the object of the sign as it we understand at some given point in the semiotic process, and the object of the sign as it stands at the end of that process. The former he calls the immediate object, and the later he calls the dynamic object. A neat way of capturing this distinction is as the different objects arising from the “two answers to the question: what object does this sign refer to? One is the answer that could be given when the sign was used; and the other is the one we could give when our scientific knowledge is complete”. (Hookway 1985, 139).

4.1.1 The Dynamic Object The dynamic object is, in some senses, the object that generates a

chain of signs. The aim of a sign chain is to arrive at a full understanding of an object and so assimilate that object into the system of signs. Using slightly more simplistic terms, Ransdell (1977, 169) describes the dynamic object as the “object as it really is”, and Hookway (1985, 139) describes it as “the object as it is known to be [at the end of inquiry]”. Indeed, Hookway's description shows an acute awareness of the connection between the dynamic object and the process of inquiry in Peirce's later sign theory. An example, from Liszka (1996, 23), captures Peirce's idea quite clearly: taking a petroleum tank half full with fuel, a variety of signs for this half-full state are available. Perhaps there is a fuel gauge attached to the tank, or perhaps the tank makes a distinctive sound when we strike it and so on. But, despite these various signs, the object underlying them all is the actual level of fuel in the petroleum tank; this is the dynamic object.

4.1.2 The Immediate Object Ransdell (1977, 169) describes the immediate object as “what we, at

any time, suppose the object to be”, and Hookway (1985, 139) describes it as “the object at the time it is first used and interpreted”. The immediate object, then, is not some additional object distinct from the dynamic object but is merely some informationally incomplete facsimile of the dynamic object generated at some interim stage in a chain of signs. Returning to the petroleum tank example, when we strike the tank, the tone that it emits (which functions as the sign-vehicle) represents to us that the tank is not full (but it does not tell us the precise level of fuel). The immediate object, then, is a less-than-full-tank.

Summary

What interests us in a thing the thing itself the way in reacts when it interacts with other things the idea that it conveys to someone’s mind

What makes something to qualify as a sign

Three elements

the representamen the interpretant the object

.So the object can be considered

Dynamic Immediate

Analysis

In order for something to be considered as a sign it has to be consisted of three parts. Those three parts are; the thing or else the signified as we could say in the language of semiotics, the interpreter which is in other words the „sign vehicle“, and the final sign that is created in our minds or else the idea of the object created in our minds called by Peirce the representamen or we could say the signifier. For some it is easier to understand semiotics through these terms signified and signifier. But Peirce adds one more part in between and that is the sign vehicle which is, maybe, what complicates things a little.

Analysiswe see an object

we immediatly create a sign for it in our minds and that is the interpretant

The interpretant takes another form and that final form- or else the sense of the initial sign- is the representamen

Peirce‘s observations upon the division of the object

By dynamic he means that it has a physical appearance

. At the same time though, a different idea of it is created in everybody‘s minds and thats what makes it immediate