The nature and role of indexicality in language and culture using the data of three of the authors read on the course.

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The nature and role of indexicality in language and culture using the data of three of the authors read on the course.

        According to Charles S. Pierce, we as human beings are ‘meaning- makers’ and we ‘think only in signs’. Therefore meanings are created through our interpretation of signs in the form of words, images, sounds, smells, flavours, acts or objects. These words have no inherent meaning and only become signs when we attach the meaning to them (Pierce, 1931-58, 2.302). Pierce also suggested that it is the interpretation of a sign that signifies something or stands for something other than itself. It is by our unconscious interpretation of signs and associating them with a particular system of rules that makes signs meaningful (Pierce, 1931-58, 2.172).

        The two important models of what make up a sign were those of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce. Saussure suggested a dyadic model to the sign; a signifier or the form which the sign takes, and the signified, the representation of the idea (Saussure, 1974:67). In contrast Pierce offered a triadic model which consisted of the Representamen: the form which the sign takes; an Interpretant: the sense made of the sign; and an Object to which the sign refers. This relation between the representamen, the interpretant and the object Pierce called ‘semiosis’ (Pierce, 1931-58, 2.228). He explains this concept by the use of the traffic light sign for ‘stop’: the red light at a junction facing traffic (the representamen); the traffic coming to a stop (the object) and the knowledge that a red light indicates that the traffic must stop (the interpretant) or the icon, index, and symbol. Pierce wrote

“Something which has such a relation to the mind and to an object as to bring the two latter into a certain relation with one another.” Generalising this conception and refusing to limit our conception to the human mind alone we conceive of something which is in such a relation to a second or third as to bring that second and third into relation with one another.” (Cited in Colapietro: 209).

        Indexicality according to Pierce refers to an indication of something that is connected physically or causally to the object. The most recognizable examples of indexicality are the use of pronouns and deictic adverbs and these must be interpreted at the time of utterance for example “I want you to have this”.  

 This connection can be seen or inferred: eg smoke, thunder, footprints, an index finger, weather vane, thermometer and indexical words such as that, this, here, and there. He gives the examples of a sundial or clock which indicate the time of the day. He suggests that there is a genuine relation between the sign and the object which is not dependant on interpretation as the object already exists. The connection of an index to an object is purely a physical one and yet does not resemble the object. ‘Similarity or analogy’ is not what defines the object but it is the compulsive attention focussed on an object that is an index (Pierce, 1931-58, 2.285). Indexical signs ‘direct the attention to their objects by blind compulsion’ (ibid., 2.306). Pierce suggested that a photograph was not only iconic but indexical too by virtue of the fact that they represent exactly the objects taken at a certain point in time, have a physical connection and are records of reality. (ibid. 2.281).

         For Pierce an icon is represented by it’s similarity to an object and therefore used as a sign of it. The icon’s resemblance to objects that they describe, are comparable in certain respects, but the ‘icon has no dynamical connection with the object it represents.’ (ibid. 2.299). A portrait of a person for instance, is the resemblance of the person seen through the artist’s eyes leads us to form an opinion of that person. Apache Indians use icons that also have an indexical meaning of place “It happened here……”  Indexical icons such as the M that signifies Mc Donald’s are powerful enough to make people protest and take up arms against capitalism. (Lecture Notes, 30/9/’03.

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        In comparison to an index or an icon, a symbol is an arbitrary sign and they only exist because of the way people interpret them. Symbols are conventional signs, elements of habit to do with cultural assumptions. They denote a certain type of thing rather than a general thing and have to have a connection to know what a symbol means. A symbol in use always includes an index for example: symbols used in the Apache cultural codes of speaking are grounded on habit and law although the frame of reference is an index used when a symbol is in ...

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