True that.

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:21 AM, Spruiell, William C
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Just a side note -- while I don't, in any way, want to diminish
> Augustine's role in the development of semiotics, he was hardly the
> first to link a theory of signs to theories about language. The
> realism/nominalism debate had been around for quite some time, and in a
> sense, Augustine was constructing a Christian contextualization of the
> (neo-)Platonist position -- that there's a universe of "true form" that
> signs *in principle* could refer to entities in, that the actual sound
> used for the sign can be arbitrary, and that humans don't perceive "true
> form" directly and can therefore mess things up royally.
>
> If I'm remembering the historiographic material I've read correctly
> (sorry, as an academic, I'm required by law to hedge at least once per
> email, or at least, that's what I've been given to understand), pretty
> much all medieval approaches to semiotics used Augustine as a starting
> point until Aquinas, though, so he's certainly central to the field.
>
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of diane skinner
> Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 3:04 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Semiotics
>
>
>  The field of semiotics is fascinating. These studies have become such
> an
> intricate part of so many disciplines since St Augustine in On
> Christian Doctrine (ca. 395 ) linked the theory of signs to a theory
> of language for the practice of unraveling and interpreting the
> figurative language in the Scriptures. Augustine' s principles, the
> basic elements of signification, were transmitted
> to the modern linguist Ferdinand De Saussure, who coined the term
> "semiology."
> Roland Barthes explored the semiology of fashion, advertising,  and
> travel. Claude Levi-Strauss studied myths and kinship systems within
> different cultures as a system of signs to be interpreted. Jacques
> Lacan used Saussure to reformulate Freud in linguistic terms. And
> figurative signs "commuted" (to use Jacques Derrida's term) things
> into signs in a process that may be, for modern theorists,
> interminable--this process of commutation, however, undermines the
> stable referentiality that Augustine sought.
> Ah, full circle--can the world and words really be commensurate?
>
> Diane
>
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