Communicating Signs

By representing nouns simply as symbols, we lose some of the specifics of that which we are trying to convey.

Swift gives a satirical account of fictional academicians of Lagade outlined a proposal to carry around objects for use in communication, and to abolish language all together. This highlights a problem in communication by using signs as direct substitutes for physical objects. Language is sometimes said to be nomenclature (item by item naming), which Saussure said was a “superficial view taken by the general public”. As most words are lexical, reducing communication to simply using signs means it would be hard to make representations for nouns like friendship and History.

The way we look at language is based around categorisation, when using a sign; we lose the ability to donate meaning to a specific object, but instead a group. An example of this would be an image of a book. It would be hard to explain that you wanted that specific book, rather than just any book.

If we were to look at Peirce’s model of the sign, it helps to explain a way to denote specific meaning. A sign can feature a ‘referent’ which is something that the sign implies, rather than a direct meaning of the image displayed. Signs may also be interpretant, which implies a meaning of an ‘infinite series’ of signs.

John Kennedy showed children a picture of a group of children sat in a circle, he then asked them to fill in the gap with their own drawing. Many of the children tried to hold their pencil in the same way as an image in the top right-hand corner of the page. This shows that being absorbed in a task could lead to ‘suspension of disbelief’ and not distinguishing between representation and reality.

When we read a sign it is important to know how to interpret it, this is generally learned throughout life by coming into contact with the relevant cultural codes. Knowing the appropriate level of abstraction allows us to understand the relevant cultural code in a text.
It is important that nouns are represented correctly in signs, and that it is easy for the receiver to interpret them.

Resources Used: Semiotics, The Basics by Daniel Chandler