Generally, "sign" is used as a kind of umbrella category - i.e., all
symbols, icons, and indexes (or indices) are all signs, so a sign can be
less conventional than a symbol, but doesn't have to be.  Again, though,
I can't rule out some semiotician, somewhere, having used "sign" as
something else entirely. 

 

Bill Spruiell

Dept. of English 

Central Michigan University

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol Morrison
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 2:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "sign" and "symbol"

 

Thank you, Diane. What a terrific site. I feel as if I've opened a can
of worms with the sign/symbol thing, but it does seem ambiguous and
unclear. The textbook I'm using defines "sign" as "anything that bears a
meaning. Words, objects, images, and forms of behavior are all signs
whose meanings are determined by the particular codes or systems, in
which they appear." The text defines "symbol" as "a sign, according to
semiotician C.S. Pierce, whose significance is arbitrary. The meaning of
the word bear for example, is arbitrarily determined by those who use
it." I gather from these definitions then that a sign has more intrinsic
meaning while the symbol has no meaning until one is assigned to it by
the reader. I think.

--- On Sat, 9/13/08, diane skinner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: diane skinner <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "sign" and "symbol"
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Saturday, September 13, 2008, 10:39 PM

Carol,
 
On sign versus symbol, this site may be of use since it goes into C.S.
Peirce and Saussure's differences in use of the terms:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html.  It's a good
intro to semiotics.
On Jacques Derrida (JD) and the instability of meaning; at base what
he says is that in philosophical terms, our way of putting a cap on
meaning isn't convincing.  Concepts such as "context" end up
limiting
the play of signification, whereas the process of signification
emerges from differential relations and deferral: dog isn't fog isn't
log, and so forth.  Our ways of making meaning finite, he suggests,
are similar to the invocation of a god-concept or a concept like
"structure" within structuralist thinking: the one key term we never
question, so it ends up being the absolute ground of an entire system.
 We privilege consciousness as the guarantor of stable meaning, but it
makes sense to say that speech tied to consciousness works in a
similar way as writing.  Really all JD is doing, I suppose, is
exploiting the implications inherent in Saussurean linguistics.
Anyhow, I would recommend a few books if your time permits: Giovanni
Manetti's Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity and Roy Harris'
Saussure and His Interpreters.
Will write more as time permits.
Cordially,
Diane
 
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