| Author: Gabriel |
I have used Portuguese model just to illustrate that the words themselves do not have to be the same, or understandable for us, just that the tribesman needs to be able to understand. In the example I have just given, the words "tigre-dente-de-sabre" means the same as a "sabre tooth tiger" in English. These words are the sign or signifier. If you were to travel back in time and ask a tribesman were you could find a sabre-toothed tiger he would have absolutely no idea what you were talking about. That is because the words have no connection to the animal in question. How then are the words related to the animal, or signified? According to Saussure, all signs are arbitrary, and are wholly conventional associations that have been determined by social rule, or semiotic convention. At first you could argue that this absolute statement is flawed, especially in relation to onomatopoeic words. However, if you look in detail at specific languages you will see some differences. For example, in English a cock's crowing is represented in speech and writing as cock-a-doodle-doo, whilst in French it is cocorico. In my humble opinion it is unlikely that cock's in Britain and France sound different.
It can also be said that noises have no significance in and of themselves. A noise is just a noise, just as a piece of wood hitting another is just that, one piece of wood hitting another. However, when a judge hits his mallet against his desk it is accepted he is calling the court to order. How then are these sounds assigned meaning? Unlike in Mark Twain's "Diaries of Eve" someone has not gone around naming animals and objects for us. It has been argued that words are assigned meaning "by virtue of systematic differences between them" and only have significance "through relations through one another in a symbolic system" or language.
Arbitrariness, however, does not always mean that every time a new or different concept is conceived a completely new word, made up of a unique set of sounds, is necessary. Someone working in a bank is a banker, someone working in a bakery is a baker, and similarly the wing of a plane was carried on from wing of a bird. Just because similar words have related meanings does not take away from arbitrariness, indeed if you said wing to a sub-Saharan tribesman, he would have no idea what you were talking about.
However, the relationship between signifier and signified is not a complete one. For instance, for the signifier dog, the image that comes to mind is not that of an Irish setter bounding down a corridor, instead what comes to mind is the concept of a dog. The Irish setter is the next stage in the chain, it is the referent. When you say to some one, there is a dog behind you, all you now is that a dog is behind you, you do not know whether it is about to attack you or try and lick your hand. You need extra information, either from your companion or from your own senses. It is only then that you know what the referent. |
Author Bio:
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