Semiotic Analysis

Semiotic Analysis

Introduction

Semiology has its modern origins in the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure, especially in the various versions of his Cours de Linguistique Générale (Saussure, 2001). Some of the basic principles expounded by Saussure are also discussed by classical writers such as Plato and Aristotle, although neither of these thinkers explicitly set out to develop a science of semiology as such. In the present discussion, the term semiology will refer to those developments that stem from Saussure in the early twentieth century and that have contributed to the further development of Saussure's thinking. The term semiology is to be distinguished from the term semiotics. The latter term, at least in its modern usage, is traceable to the work of the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and will not be discussed here. Increasingly, the term semiotics, irrespective of the Peircean lineage, has become the more widely used term (Saussure, 2001).

Semiology, in Saussure's (1993) definition, is a science concerned with values that are “arbitrarily fixable” (p. 326) in contrast with those values that have their roots in things. Moreover, langue is a system that must be considered as a totality (p. 329). These two aspects of Saussure's conception of linguistic value must be seen together if we are to understand the importance of his notion of linguistic value. Saussure defines value as follows: “The language system represents a system in which all the terms appear to be linked by relations…. The value of a word will only result from the coexistence of different terms. The value is the counterpart of coexisting terms” (pp. 358-59).

Discussion

In Saussure's conception, semiology is the study of systems of signs. According to the notes compiled by Riedlinger and Constantin of Saussure's third Cours de Linguistique Générale (Saussure 1993), semiology is defined as “studies of signs and their life in human societies” (p. 282), Saussure's inauguration of this new science depends on establishing an object of study—the language system, or la langue—in order that the language system may take its place among “the human facts” (p. 282).

For reasons that the various texts of the Cours do not make explicit, Saussure subsumes the study of the language system and of other sign systems (e.g., writing, maritime signals, sign language) under psychology, more particularly social psychology (Saussure, 2001).

It is interesting to compare Saussure's classification with the observations made by Claparède (1916) in his review of the Cours de Linguistique Générale Claparède, who was professor of Psychology at the University of Geneva, states: “Whereas Saussure recognizes that 'all is psychology in the language system,' he distinguishes, however, linguistics from psychology in an absolute manner” (p. 94). According to Saussure (1993), “The set of socially ratified associations [between acoustic images and ideas] that constitute the language system have their seat in the brain; it is a set of realities similar to other psychic realities” (p. 282). In this sense, an essentially social phenomenon—the language system—may be said to have a psychological reality for the individual by virtue of the associations ...