Sign Analysis

Title

Sign Analysis

Description

That which operates as a sign (i.e. functions in a significatory manner) is called the sign vehicle; the act of mediated taking account of, performed by the interpreter, is called the interpretant; what is taken account of mediately is called the designatum. By definition a sign must designate ("have a designatum"), but it may not actually denote anything ("may have no denotata"). … The relations of sign vehicles to what is designated or denoted may be called the semantical dimension of semiosis, and the study of this dimension semantics; the relations of sign vehicles to interpreters may be called the pragmatical dimension of semiosis, and the study of this dimension pragmatics; the remaining semiotically relevant relations of sign vehicles to other signs may be called the syntactical dimension of semiosis, and its study syntactics. Semiotics, as the general science of signs, thus contains the subordinate sciences of syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics.A sign is exhaustively analyzed when its relations to other signs, to what it denotes or can denote, and to its interpreters are specified. The specification of such relations in concrete cases of semiosis is called sign analysis. … The [figure] may help to fixate these terminological usages.

Designer

Morris, Charles W.

Date

1939

Source

Esthetics and the Theory of Signs

Bibliographic Citation

Morris, Charles W. 1939. "Esthetics and the Theory of Signs." The Journal of Unified Science (Erkenntnis). Vol. 8, No. 1/3 (Jun. 1, 1939). Page 133.

Morris, Charles W. 1971. "Esthetics and the Theory of Signs." In Morris, Charles W., Writings on the General Theory of Signs. Mouton. Pages 415-433.

is composed of

Square

has attribute

Arrow

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Dash Line

depict things of type

Conceptual

Coverage

semiotics

sign structure