Abstract
The present paper proposes to accept a usage-based theory of communication, as recently advanced by developmental psychology and cognitive linguistics. With respect to semiotics, this change of theoretical design means to abandon the belief that verbal language is strongly connected to reasoning; it drops the distinction between signifier and signified; and it draws attention to the blurry difference between “ordinary things” and signs. It turns out that, in fact, only essentially hybrid objects exist whose communicative “parts” can hardly be disentangled from their non-communicative “parts.” The present paper assesses a theory of communication which does not depart from language but asks what one can do with things. Such a question leads to an examination of the conditions governing mental representation, social interaction, and abstract analysis. Nonetheless, it finally explores why language is so important in increasing social complexity and in creating mental representations of the world – even though it cannot be equated with reasoning and abstract thought.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This was already Augustine’s starting point: “omne signum etiam res aliqua est” (1826 [427]: 11), that is, “every sign is some thing.” Augustine adds that the reverse is not true (“non autem omnis res etiam signum est,” ibid.), but we shall see that such a distinction is inaccurate.
- 2.
My translation: “But when one takes an object as something which only represents another object, the idea one has of it is related to signification, and the first object is called sign.”
- 3.
Some still posit that the equation merely presents an interpretation.
- 4.
Instead communication seems to be a basic behavior that many species on earth (for instance insects, see Hölldobler and Wilson 2009) employ to influence their fellows. It is not clear which the capacities are that enable humans to use such refined and complex means of communication (see Tomasello 2003a, Tomasello/Rakoczy 2003b). In the present paper, I present some characteristics that could contribute to these outstanding human abilities (abstract signs, for instance).
- 5.
This is an example Boris Gasparov gave in a lecture to illustrate de Saussure’s concept of arbitrariness.
- 6.
This is no comment on the question of how much choice or free will a human being has. In fact, I am afraid that the question itself is only a philosophical artifact that cannot be rephrased in biological, physical, juridical, or even psychological terms without confusion.
- 7.
Of course, there is always the possibly of misuse. One can use a traffic sign as a weapon. In fact, one then uses the metal rather than the traffic sign, but the traffic sign is misused in any case.
- 8.
An example: If I promise to give someone a gift, that means that she has the option to remind me of my obligation. It does not include handing out the gift. If a judge sentences me to five years in prison, the decision itself only communicates to policemen that they have the right to imprison me. The performative sign itself changes the behavioral options because the policemen could refer to the court decision when detaining me and would have to justify themselves if they let me go. That is, the court decision itself gives verbal options.
- 9.
An arm stretched out pointing to the door, however, can operate in quite the same way even if it can, in given contexts, say quite different things, such as “this is the door that must be repaired.” By the way, there are only very few options which apply to all use of language (such as someone being out of acoustic reach, being deaf, playing a role on the stage, and so on), that is, which can be used at any time; but they invoke a different frame of communication by interrupting the flow of object-related reactions and switching to communication-related ones.
- 10.
Compared to other species, humans are not “reprogrammed” through genetic evolution but cultural evolution, which means that they are somewhat similar to von Neumann machines.
- 11.
Let me mention a difference which led philosophy to separate a signifying and a signified sphere. It is the difference between event-like speech acts and durable things. First of all there is in fact no apparent difference between words and things: words are as well in the world as are other things. Words are audible or visible. They have to materialize to exist. The difference, which became so important in semiotic models, lies beneath the received difference between words and things: it is the difference between ephemeral and persistent phenomena. Ephemeral phenomena have short life-spans, that is, they materialize for a brief period only (for instance, spoken words). Persistent phenomena, however, exist for a longer time and can be expected to be retrieved when the need arises (for instance, printed words). The difference between ephemeral and persistent entities is gradual, of course. Few things are considered eternal; some would even deny that there is anything that eternally exists. Ephemeral things have their span of life, too; it is only because they vanish soon from a human perspective that they are considered ephemeral. Human speech has been considered different from other things because it vanishes quickly; it is the logocentric tradition that Derrida famously analyzed. This tradition tends to ignore the fact that written language persists in time, and that spoken language, too, relies on persistent remnants (which Derrida calls “trace”, 2002 [1967], 90). Words that are heard and read appear ephemerally, while the things they relate to are often persistent. Of course, this is far from being universally true or relevant. Printed words and recorded speech persist for a long time, and language often refers to short-lived events, such as explosions or sunsets.
- 12.
I should discuss Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, which are apparently highly important for my approach. But since his work requires a lengthy and detailed analysis, I do not fulfill my obligation in the present paper.
- 13.
Consider what Peirce posits (at least about symbols): “The entire intellectual purport of any symbol consists in the total of all general modes of rational conduct that, conditionally upon all the possible different circumstances and desires, would ensue upon the acceptance of the symbol” (1998 [1905], 282).
- 14.
When Peirce considers both thought and external entities as signs, he also attempts to undercut the dualist body/soul distinction.
References
Arnauld, Antoine, and Pierre Nicole. (1683)1964. Logique ou L’art de penser. Paris: Despriz. Reprint, Lille: Giard.
Augustine. (427)1837. S. Aur. Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Opera Omnia. Sermones 5.1. Paris: Apud-Gaume Fratres / Bibliopolas.
Austin, John L. (1962)1975. How to Do Things With Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bacon, Francis. (1620)1990. Neues Organon [New Organon, Novum Organum], 2 vols. Hamburg: Meiner.
Bennett, Maxwell R., and Peter M. S. Hacker. 2003. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. Malden: Blackwell.
Bhabha, Homi K. (1994)2000. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Derrida, Jacques. (1967)2002. De la grammatologie. Paris: Minuit.
Descartes, René. (1641)2005. Meditationes de Prima Philosophia. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Hölldobler, Bert, and Edward O. Wilson. 2009. The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies. New York: Norton.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Latour, Bruno. (1991)2006. Nous n’avons jamais été modernes: Essai d’anthropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte.
Luhmann, Niklas. (1997)1999. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Peirce, Charles S. (1878)1998. “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” In The Essential Writings, edited by Charles S. Peirce, 137–157. Amherst: Prometheus.
Peirce, Charles S. (1905)1998. “What Pragmatism Is.” In The Essential Writings, edited by Charles S. Peirce, 262–281. Amherst: Prometheus.
Peterson, Mary A. (2001)2005. “Object Perception.” In Blackwell Handbook of Sensation and Perception, edited by E. Bruce Goldstein, 168–203. Malden: Blackwell.
Quine, Williard Van Orman. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Quintilian. (~80)2001. The Orator’s Education, 5 vols., translated by Donald A. Russell, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Rancière, Jacques. (2003)2008. Le destin des images. Paris: Fabrique.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1916)2006. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot.
Tomasello, Michael. (1999)2000. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, Michael. 2003a. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, Michael, and Hannes Rakoczy. 2003b. “What Makes Human Cognition Unique? From Individual to Shared to Collective Intentionality.” Mind & Language 18.2: 121–147.
Towfigh, Emanuel Vahid. 2008. “Komplexität und Normenklarheit – oder: Gesetze sind für Juristen gemacht.“ Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 22.
Wellbery, David E. 1984. Lessing’s Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bunia, R. (2012). The Agony of the Signified: Towards a Usage-Based Theory of Meaning and Society. In: Stockhammer, P. (eds) Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21846-0_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21846-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21845-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21846-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)