Semiosis

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Semiosis (ger .: semiosis ) refers to the "process in which something as character acts", the drawing process .

The term was introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce . Its concrete meaning depends on the underlying semiosis theory. Peirce's theory is fundamental. Prominent modifications are those by Charles W. Morris and Umberto Eco . A sociologically oriented variant is that of Eliseo Verón .

Semiosis according to Peirce

Concept of semiosis

According to Peirce, semiotics is “the doctrine of the actual nature and the fundamental variations of possible semiosis”. The semiosis is then the real subject of semiotics.

Peirce defined semiosis (ger .: semiosis ) as

... a process or an influence that is or includes the interaction of three objects, namely the sign, its object and its interpreter; a threefold influence that in no case can be resolved into pairwise operations .

For Peirce, the sign is a form of thirdness - a term that is difficult to understand and will be explained in more detail below.

Components of semiosis

Peirce identifies and names the three correlates that are related to each other as follows:

  • Representatives - ( sign , representamen ) - (the outer sign shape; the sign in the narrower sense)
  • Object - ( object ) - (the material or psychological reference object; the object to which the sign relates)
  • Interpretant - ( interpretant , signification ) - (the meaning of the sign)

The interpreter

The term interpretant was introduced by Peirce and denotes the "thought" generated by a representative (the outer carrier of the symbol) in the interpreter, an "some interpretive consciousness". Meaning is understood "as an emotional, actual or cognitive effect in the consciousness of the interpreter".

Peirce himself:

“A sign, or representative, is something that stands for someone in a certain way or ability. It is directed at someone, ie it creates an equivalent or perhaps a more developed sign in that person's consciousness. I call the character it produces the interpreter of the first character. The sign stands for something, its object. It does not represent the object in every respect, but in relation to a kind of idea that I have sometimes called the reason for the representative name. "

The more detailed interpretation is inconsistent. According to an objectifying view, interpreter is to be understood as a “synonym or an explanation of the first character”. In this way, Peirce's conception is supposed to approximate the structuralist conception of signs and to be interpreter "not so different from the meaning content".

The interpretant as a sign in an infinite semiosis

According to Peirce, the interpreter is itself a sign in the sense of a representative. The interpreter is also subject to semiosis as a sign (representative). This leads to an unlimited, infinite semiosis. Thinking is considered to be the “connection of signs in an unlimited chain of associations of ideas in which we are constantly entangled without always being clear about it”. In everyday life, however, this “infinite semiotic recourse” is broken off at an early stage.

The relation to reality and truth of the infinite semiosis

Peirce postulates "that semiosis, as reality and truth-oriented 'in the long run', tends towards an 'ultimate opinion' in which the real ('the object') has become accessible to predication".

Peirce himself:

"Signs which should be merely parts of an endless viaduct for the transmission of [signs] ... would not be signs at all."

The infinite semiotic recourse ties "in its entirety the network of virtual signs that guarantees reality for the community of thinking subjects".

The Italian semiologist Ugo Volli exemplifies such recourse from a media-cultural point of view as follows:

“The concept of unlimited semiosis [is] extremely interesting for an analysis of culture [,] as well as mass communication [,]. For imagination [that] is indicated any sign of a subsequent in potentially endless succession, implies [that] each culture resistant character to other characters translated, thereby producing a continuous sequence of interpretations that are each based on the previous interpretations deposited . [...] For example, [is] the mass media phenomenon in which an event broadcast on television is often picked up by the newspapers of the [following day]. [...] These articles in turn trigger a television or radio discussion [...] that receives a press response the next day or ends up in the shredder and experiences a television parody, later produces a book, etc. The same happens with famous pictures, Seals, pieces of music, proverbs [...]. From a certain point of view, culture thus becomes the practice of unlimited semiosis. "

Semiosis as a category of thirdness

Peirce developed his ideas of semiosis against the linguistically oriented direction of semiotics, as it is mainly known from Saussure , from logic and epistemology. Peirce was concerned with epistemological universality and metaphysical universality, while Saussure was concerned with application. For Peirce semiosis is the subject of ontology and phenomenology , which are based on three universal categories : firstness, secondness and thirdness.

In the first is a mode of being in which everything “is as it is” (Peirce) without reference to one another. The immediate possibility, mere feelings and spontaneity, for example, belong in this category of possibilities. In the second, relationships are formed between facts and their counterparts. Semiosis is the category of thirdness, which includes signs, laws, habits and the phenomena of necessity.

Peirce pursues a pansemiotic concept that determines his view of the universe. Since thoughts are also signs from this point of view, humans are also signs. For Peirce, semiotic studies are thus the basis for all science, for without them no science would have succeeded in considering its subject.

The limits of the semiotic field

With Peirce the semiotic field is unlimited. According to his universalism, signs point to more and more signs. A large part of semiotics limits the semiotic field to the extensive area of signification and the narrower area of communication . The semiotic process is further limited in linguocentric approaches. In the method for analysis of semiotic phenomenon in the context of the language in Greimas (1917-1992) no theory of character exists more.

criticism

The semiosis theories of Morris and Eco can at the same time be understood as a critique of Peirce's theory. Peirce's semiosis concept was fundamentally criticized by Derrida's deconstructivism : According to deconstructivism, the idea of ​​a semiotic signified is to be abandoned “and the finitely variable flow of signs itself is to be thought of as the only infinite”. For deconstructivism, semiosis is a “deconstructive floating of the signifiers”.

Semiosis according to Charles Morris

Charles W. Morris takes up Peirce's semiosis concept and takes on z. T. behavioral basis to make changes and additions. The semiosis theory of Morris is subject to modifications.

Concept of semiosis

Morris defines semiosis itself as follows:

"A drawing process is generally a way in which certain existences take notice of other existences with the help of a class of mediating existences."
“Accordingly, in semiosis, something takes notice of something else indirectly, that is, through the mediation of something third. A semiosis is therefore indirectly taking notice of. The mediators are sign carriers; the notes are interpreters; the actors in this process are interpreters; that which is noted are designates. "

The four components of semiosis

At Morris, semiosis consists of four components:

  • from what acts as a sign (the sign);
  • from what the sign refers to (the denotation / designation);
  • from the effect that the sign has on the recipient and that allows the recipient to recognize it as a sign (the interpretant);
  • from the character interpreter (the interpreter).

The interpreter

In a departure from Peirce, Morris expressly includes the interpreter , the interpreter, in his semiosis model.

The denotation / designation

The object at Peirce differentiates Morris into denotation and designation . Later (1964), Morris ignored denotations and spoke only of the signified or signification.

At Morris, denotations are the existing reference objects of a sign. These are also elements of the class designated by the sign ( designate ).

"The designate is not a thing, but a type of object or a class of objects - and a class can contain many elements, one element or no element at all." In 1955, Morris replaced the designate "with the intentionally defined" significatum "and maintained the opposition to the denotate."

The behaviorist interpretation

The definition of semiosis and the sign in Morris takes place in the behavioristic model, for which the overcoming of "introspective (n) school psychology" speaks for. A behavioristic interpretation should not be mandatory according to the self-understanding.

Thus, "from the behaviorist point of view ... noticing D in the presence of Z is a reaction to D caused by the reaction to Z".

Behaviorally, denotation is understood as something "that would allow the completion of the sequence of reactions to which an interpreter is disposed based on a sign".

The interpreter also defines “strictly behaviorist” as the “disposition of an interpreter to react on the basis of a sign with a sequence of reactions from a behavioral family” - with the consequence that infinite semiosis is no longer required.

criticism

Morris' semiosis theory is held up to the behaviorist foundation (which Morris himself did not consider necessary). The model of Morris is a "cryptodyadic symbol model", has a "physicalism-like, bipolar stimulus-response structure" and this although semiosis cannot be grasped in a "behaviorist-objective way".

Semiosis according to Umberto Eco

Eco takes up the thesis of the infinite semiosis à la Peirce. This is the only way that a semiotic system can be "accountable for itself". The interpretant in the sense of the content of consciousness and individually recognized meaning is culturally shaped according to Eco, so that the meaning of the sign is also postulated as a “cultural unit”. With the rejection of an equivalence model, this leads to the “conception of a multidimensional openness of the sign”.

The “social semiosis” according to Eliseo Verón

The Argentine semiologist Eliseo Verón developed in his work La Semiosis Social (1987) (translated: The social semiosis) an extension of the semiosis according to Peirce, which also includes the social component, i.e. the social framework. With this and other considerations the so-called sociosemiotics was founded, which examines the effects of social phenomena on the processing of signs by humans.

See also

literature

  • Eliseo Veron: La Semiosis Social. Gedisa Publishing House, Buenos Aires. May 1999. ISBN 84-7432-502-1 . (Spanish.)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Morris, Basics of Character Theory (1988), p. 20
  2. ^ So Rehbock, Helmut: Semiose. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  3. ↑ : " ... action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs. " ("Pragmatism", Essential Peirce 2: 411; written 1907)
  4. ↑ Kjørup, Søren: Semiotics. W. Fink, Paderborn, 2009, p. 71
  5. ^ Trabant, Semiotik (1996), p. 31
  6. ↑ Rehbock, Helmut: Meaning. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  7. ↑ Peirce, 2.228, quoted from Gansel, Christina / Frank Jürgens: Textlinguistik und Textgrammatik. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, 2007, p. 20 (unclear to what extent literal quotation)
  8. ↑ a b Kjørup, Søren: Semiotics. W. Fink, Paderborn, 2009, p. 18
  9. ↑ Volli, Semiotik (2002), p. 30
  10. ↑ Cf. Nöth, Winfried: Handbuch der Semiotik. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1985, p. 38.
  11. ↑ a b c d e Rehbock, Helmut: Semiose. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  12. ↑ Nagl, Ludwig: Does the "interpretant" interpret, execute or document the sign ?: Post-analytical considerations on Peirce's theory of semiosis , in: Nagl, Ludwig u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy and Semiotics. - ÖGS / ISSS, Vienna 1991, p. 89 (93)
  13. ↑ Peirce, MS 238: 106, quoted from Nagl, Ludwig: Does the "interpretant" interpret, execute or document the sign ?: Post-analytical considerations on Peirce's theory of semiosis , in: Nagl, Ludwig u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy and Semiotics. - ÖGS / ISSS, Vienna 1991, p. 89 (97)
  14. ^ So Rehbock, Helmut: Semiose. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  15. ↑ Volli, Ugo et al .: Semiotics - Introduction to their basic concepts (2002), UTB-Verlag, p. 30
  16. ↑ Nagl, Ludwig: Does the "interpretant" interpret, execute or document the sign ?: Post-analytical considerations on Peirce's theory of semiosis , in: Nagl, Ludwig u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy and Semiotics. - ÖGS / ISSS, Vienna 1991, p. 89 (96)
  17. ↑ Nagl, Ludwig: Does the "interpretant" interpret, execute or document the sign ?: Post-analytical considerations on Peirce's theory of semiosis , in: Nagl, Ludwig u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy and Semiotics. - ÖGS / ISSS, Vienna 1991, p. 89 (97)
  18. ↑ See Rehbock, Helmut: Semiose. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010. - The development cannot be precisely traced here at the moment.
  19. ^ Morris, Fundamentals of Character Theory (1988), p. 25
  20. ^ Morris, Fundamentals of Character Theory (1988), p. 21
  21. ^ According to Ernst, Peter: Germanistic Linguistics. Vienna: WUV, 2008 (UTB; 2541), p. 193 (Ernst only mentions the designate)
  22. ^ Morris, Fundamentals of Character Theory (1988), p. 22
  23. ^ Rehbock, Helmut: Designat. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  24. ^ A b Morris, Basics of Character Theory (1988), p. 23
  25. ^ Morris, quoted without evidence by and after Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexikon Sprache. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010: Denotat.
  26. ^ Morris, 1955, quoted from Rehbock, Helmut: Semiose. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  27. ↑ a b Nagl, Ludwig: Does the “interpretant” interpret, execute or document the sign ?: Post-analytical considerations on Peirce's theory of semiosis , in: Nagl, Ludwig u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy and Semiotics. - ÖGS / ISSS, Vienna 1991, p. 89 (95)
  28. ↑ Nagl, Ludwig: Does the “interpretant” interpret, execute or document the sign ?: Post-analytical considerations on Peirce's theory of semiosis , in: Nagl, Ludwig u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy and Semiotics. - ÖGS / ISSS, Vienna 1991, p. 89 (97)
  29. ↑ Eco 1972, 77, quoted from Rehbock, Helmut: Semiose. In: Glück, Helmut (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th edition. Metzler: Stuttgart, Weimar 2010.
  30. ↑ Homberger, Subject Dictionary for Linguistics (2000) / drawing process