Natural and Conventional Signs

1. Natural Signs
A language is a system of symbols through which people communicate. The symbols
may be spoken, written, or signed with the hands. A language is a complex system of symbols,
or signs, that are shared by various members of a community. For example, it will be useful to
consider from a linguistic perspective some signs that people know and how they react to them.
Robinson Crusoe, according to D. Defoes novel, was walking along the beach one
morning and suddenly saw a human footprint in the sandmade by the man who was later to
be called Friday, as it turned out. That experience, after twenty-seven years of living alone on
his island, frightened poor Crusoe so much that he ran back to the cave that was his home and
would not venture out again that day.
A footprint is a natural sign. It is the natural result of a foot treading on a soft surface,
and it can communicate a messagethat the owner of the foot was recently thereto anyone
who observes it. We are all familiar with other natural signs. We see smoke and know that there
is a fire, or a fire has just gone out. A black cloud informs us of the possibility of rain. Treetops
moving tell us that the wind is blowing. Our own bodies provide such signs as earaches and
hunger pangs. In other people we notice and interpret shivering, perspiration, or a head
nodding with drowsiness. All sorts of sights, sounds and smells can be natural signs; they
communicate to someone who observes and can interpret but their messages are unintentional,
the by-products of various events.
2. Conventional Signs
In modern life we are likely to be less concerned with natural signs than with
conventional signs, the auditory and visual devices that people have created to send routine
messages to one another. Day after day we hear such signals because someone intends for us to
hear them: horns, whistles, sirens, buzzers and bells. The pop of a gun starts competitive
runners, swimmers and jockeys on their respective races. In various sports a whistle or buzzer
marks the beginning and end of each period of play. Visual signs are just as prevalent and as
varied. We have conventional ways of indicating a slippery road, a bicycle path, the location of
a telephone, of mens and womens lavatories, where there is access for the handicapped, where
smoking is prohibited, and much more. Humans produce not only single symbols but systems
of symbols. Different bugle calls, different bell tones, different numbers of toots on a whistle or
flashes of light can form a repertory of messages. The traffic light found at numerous city street
intersections is a good example of a simple system. None of these communication systems uses
language, though devising, installing and learning them could not be accomplished by people
who had no language.
Unlike natural signs, conventional signs have human senders as well as human
receivers; each one has an intention and an interpretation. The message may be personal as
when a friend rings your telephone or quite impersonal and general, like the warning siren on a
speeding ambulance. We can even use devices like smoke detectors and burglar alarms to send
messages to ourselves at a later time, in circumstances that we really do not want to occur.
3. Information Processing
Observing any such sign and getting information from it seems like a simple matter and
can take place in an instant, and yet the process of getting information consists of three steps:
Perception
The sign and the observer share a context of place and time in which the sign attracts the
observers attention. Robinson Crusoe, to use our first example, walked where the footprint
was, looked in the right direction, when there was sufficient light for visibility and before the
print had been obliterated by rain, wind, tide, or the movement of other creatures.
Identification
Every perception is a unique experience. To say that we recognize a phenomenon
means that we match it with previous experiences stored in our memory. Almost certainly, if
you observe a sign and derive some meaning from it, you must have seen a similar sign before.
We identify any new thing either as a phenomenon previously observed or, more often, as
something that is identical with phenomena we already know, a new token of a familiar type.
The human mind cannot deal with an infinite number of separate things; we classify an entity
as a new instance of the class of footprints or bushes or sirens or churches. And to identify what
something is requires us to recognize what it is not, to discriminate between signs.
Interpretation
Meanings are often personal. The meaning of any sign depends on the space-time
context in which we observe it. Crusoes reaction to the footprint was due to the circumstances
of his life, the fact that until this moment it had been impossible for him to see any human
footprint other than his own. This is clearly an unusual case, but all the time we interpret
differently in different contexts.
In conclusion, conventional signs can have different meanings in different contexts or
different circumstances. The whistle of a policeman directing traffic, the whistle of a hotel
doorman summoning a taxi, and the whistle of the referee in a soccer game may all sound
exactly the same; their different meanings are due to the difference of context in which the
signal occurs. They have different intentions and are interpreted differently.

Linguistic Signs

1. Defining a Linguistic Sign

A linguistic sign is an abstract structure whose instances participate in a linguistic
system, or language. By definition, a linguistic sign must have a form component (whose
elements are phonological units), a grammatical component (whose elements are grammatical
units), and a meaning component (whose elements are semantic units). The formal structure of
a linguistic sign is determined by the grammar of a language. The information value of a
linguistic sign, its meaning, is not fixed, but determined by the conventions of the language. The
relation of form to meaning is largely arbitrary within a semiotic system. Signs are classified
primarily according to what kinds of formal relations they participate in, and, secondly,
according to their complexity (whether they are atomic or composed of other signs). Signs range
from morphological and syntactic constructions to whole discourse segments.

2. The Dyadic Model of the Sign

F. de Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. The linguist defined a
sign as being composed of:
a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form (sound-image) which the sign takes; and
the 'signified' (signifi) - the concept it represents.
The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified.
The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as 'signification'. For
example, the word 'Open' (placed on a shop doorway) is a sign consisting of:
a signifier: the word open;
a signified concept: that the shop is open for business.
A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless
signifier or a completely formless signified. A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier
with a particular signified. The same signifier (the word 'open') could stand for a different
signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button inside a lift ('push to open
door'). Similarly, many signifiers could stand for the concept 'open' (for instance, on top of a
packing carton, a small outline of a box with an open flap for 'open this end') - again, with each
unique pairing constituting a different sign. The linguistic value of a word (a signifier) comes
from its property of standing for a concept (the signified). The value of the signified comes from
its relation to other concepts. The value of the complete sign comes from the way in which it
unites the signifier and the signified.
Spoken language includes the communication of concepts by means of sound-images
from the speaker to the listener. The combination of the signifier and the signified is arbitrary;
i.e., any sound-image can conceivably be used to signify a particular concept.
A sign can be altered by a change in the relationship between the signifier and the
signified. According to Saussure, changes in linguistic signs originate in changes in the social
activity of speech.
F. de Saussure argues that linguistic signs are by nature linear, because they represent a
span in a single dimension. Auditory signifiers are linear, because they succeed each other or
form a chain. Visual signifiers, in contrast, may be grouped simultaneously in several
dimensions.
Relations between linguistic signs can be either: syntagmatic (linear, sequential, or
successive), or associative (substitutive, or having indeterminate order).

3. Properties of Linguistic Signs

F. de Saussure distinguished four properties of linguistic signs. Two central are referred
to as arbitrariness and linearity.
Arbitrariness means that there is no motivation for the phonetic constitution of a sign.
There is no direct connection between the shape and the concept. For instance, there is no
reason why the letters c, a, t or the sound of these phonemes produce exactly the image
of the small, domesticated animal with fur, four legs and a tail in peoples minds. It is a result of
conversion: speakers of the same language group have agreed and learnt that these letters or
sounds evoke a certain image. It is true only in simple signs. In syntagmes (complex or
compound words, syntactic constructions) there is a relative motivation. For example, inflected
forms are similarly constructed.
Linearity is regarded in the significant which can be segmented into parts succeeding
each other in time. The linearity is the entire basis of the linguistic mechanism and the criterion
by which language can be distinguished from other sign systems. Linearity means that words
follow words, sentences follow sentences, and there is no overlapping.
Linguistic signs are immutable (not able or likely to change: people still understand old
movies or books as some things do not change) and mutable (able to change: even during ones
lifetime linguistic signs as komorka or mouse can change their concept).
The basic reason for immutability is the fact that each generation inherits its language
and the signs that constitute it and both the community and the individual are passive in
receiving them. It indicates that the conventional nature of language is of a particular type and
the notion that there is an explicit contract about meanings among speakers is quite misguided.
There are four reasons for the immutability of linguistic signs:
1. signs are arbitrary; any sign is as good as another;
2. while people might prefer to change the arbitrary writing system, because the
elements are limited in number and could become an object of criticism, the signs of language
are infinite and this infinity steers linguistic change;
3. language is an extremely complex system of which only a handful of experts are
aware;
4. language is the only social system that all people use, and this fact helps to
account for the speakers conservatism concerning the alterations of their linguistic habits.
The mutability of linguistic signs is an obvious fact of history. Language is mutable;
history and development bring about shifts in relation of the significant and the signifier as a
consequence of sound change and analogical shifts. From a modern perspective, mouse used to
refer to a little rodent, now the word has acquired a new concept- a computer mouse. All the
reasons for language change are visible (mutability: merry/gay/cheerful: used to mean
happy now each word bears different meaning).
Exceptions of arbitrariness:
 a) onomatopoeic expressions (kuku)
b) interjections (ouch! wow!)
The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The
latter is not the material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint of the
sound, the impression it makes on our senses. F. de Saussure argues: the sound-image is
sensory, and if I happen to call it 'material' it is only in that sense, and by way of opposing it to
the other term of the opposition, the concept, which is generally more abstract (Saussure, in
Innis 1986, 36).

4. The Triadic Model of the Sign

The American philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce formulated his own
model of the sign, of 'semiotic' and of the taxonomies of signs. In contrast to F. de Saussure's
model of the sign, Ch. S. Peirce offered a triadic model:
The Representamen: the form which the sign takes (not necessarily material);
An Interpretant: not an interpreter but rather the sense made of the sign;
An Object: to which the sign refers.
The interaction between the representamen, the object and the interpretant is referred to by
Peirce as 'semiosis' (ibid, 5.484). Within Ch. S. Peirce's model of the sign, the traffic light sign for
'stop' would consist of: a red light facing traffic at an intersection (the representamen); vehicles
halting (the object) and the idea that a red light indicates that vehicles must stop (the
interpretant).
The representamen is similar in meaning to Saussure's signifier whilst the interpretant is
similar in meaning to the signified. However, the interpretant has a quality unlike that of the
signified: it is itself a sign in the mind of the interpreter.
Words are linguistic signs, similar in certain respects to natural and conventional signs.
They do not have meanings but rather are capable of conveying meanings to those who can
perceive, identify and interpret. Words go together to form sentences which in turn are capable
of conveying meanings the meanings of the individual words and the meaning that comes
from the relation of these words to one another.

5. Ch. S. Peirces Taxonomy of Signs

According to Charles Sanders Peirce, there are three kinds of signs: the symbol, the icon
and the index:
Icons have a physical resemblance between the signal and the meaning
Indices have a correlation in space and time with its meaning.
Symbols (content words like nouns, verbs and adjectives) are (sound) patterns) that get
meaning: first from its mental association with other symbols and second from its correlation
with environmental patterns.
Whereas F. de Saussure emphasized the arbitrary nature of the (linguistic) sign, most
semioticians stress that signs differ in how arbitrary/conventional (or by contrast 'transparent')
they are. Symbolism reflects only one form of relationship between signifiers and their
signifieds. Charles Peirce noted differing modes of relationship between sign vehicles and their
referents, and three of his terms for these relationships are now widely referred to in semiotic
studies. Consider the following table:

Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the

signified but which is arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the
relationship must be learnt (e.g. the word 'stop', a red traffic light, a national
flag, a number);
 Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier physically or perceptually
resembles or imitates the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling,
tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities
(e.g. a portrait, a diagram, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic'
sounds in music, sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack,
imitative gestures);

Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not purely arbitrary but is

directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this
link can be observed or inferred (e.g. smoke, weathercock, thermometer,
clock, spirit-level, footprint, fingerprint, knock on door, pulse rate, rashes,
pain).

Symbolic signs such as language are highly conventional; iconic signs always involve
some degree of conventionality; indexical signs 'direct the attention to their objects by blind
compulsion' (Peirce: 1974).
Indexical and iconic signifiers can be seen as more constrained by referential signifieds
whereas in the more conventional symbolic signs the signified can be seen as being defined to a
greater extent by the signifier. The terms motivation and constraint are sometimes used to
describe the extent to which the signified determines the signifier. The more a signifier is
constrained by the signified, the more 'motivated' the sign is: iconic signs are highly motivated;
symbolic signs are unmotivated. The less motivated the sign, the more learning of an agreed
convention is required. Nevertheless, most semioticians emphasize the role of convention in
relation to signs. Even photographs and films are built on conventions which people must learn
to read. Such conventions are an important social dimension of semiotics.

6. Processing the Meaning of Linguistic Signs

Let us consider the matter of perception, identification and interpretation with respect to
language use and not to individual linguistic signs alone.

In order to grasp what somebody says, we must first of all perceive the utterancehear
a spoken utterance, see a written one. A number of things can create difficulty in perceiving a
spoken message: too much noise in the environment, too great a distance between speaker and
hearer, insufficient volume in the speakers delivery, a poor connection if the message is
conveyed by telephone, static in a radio message, or insufficient attention on the part of the
hearer. A written message must be clear, sufficiently lighted and have the readers attention.

But hearing alone is not enough, nor is seeing. We get no message from an utterance in a
language we dont know. Identification of the elements in an utterance requires speaker and
hearer to share common ground. By and large, speaker and hearer use the same vocabulary:
they attach the same meanings to the same words and sentences; they have similar
pronunciations; and they have, in general, the same ways of putting words together in
sentences. Certainly, there can be different degrees of commonality in the common ground. The
speaker and the hearer may speak different dialects of the same language, so that their
pronunciations differ to some degree and there is some divergence in the ways they express
themselves. Markedly different pronunciations, use of vocabulary items that the other doesnt
know, meanings not shared, syntactic constructions not familiar to both these disturb the
process of identification.

Suppose somebody hears an utterance, knows the language, and knows the meanings of
the words and the sentences formed with the words. One may still not fully comprehend what
is said because he doesnt know what the utterance is about. He doesnt grasp the speakers
intention, largely because he doesnt know what is being referred to. On the other hand, when
communication is successful, one, as hearer, interprets correctly because one derives some
information from what has been said previously (the discourse context) and from knowledge of
the speaker and from a grasp of conditions and circumstances in the environment (the physical-
social context).

When one listens to someone talking, one first takes in a sequence of sounds, a phonetic
event, but our understanding is not a matter of grasping one sound after another or even one
word after another (Clark and Clark 1977:4357). Possibly the speaker helps by speaking in
sense-groups, making the pauses that are needed for breathing between sense-groups; for
example, at some of the places marked (pause) in this utterance:

Ill let you know the answer (pause) as soon as I get the information (pause) from a friend of
mine (pause) who lives in Winchester.

However, conversational speech is not usually so neatly organized. Speakers use

typically fillers (Well; As a matter of fact); repetition; or correction (I mean).
Sometimes they appeal to the addressees understanding (you know). So even a short
utterance like the one above may come out this way:

Well, Ill uh let you know (pause) the answer (pause) as soonas soon as I get the information
(pause) from a friend of mine (pause) um you know (pause) who lives in Winchester.

Listeners edit what they hear, separating the pauses, fillers and repetitions from the
gist of the message. Thus, although they cant grasp a spoken message without hearing it
(perception), our knowledge of the language enables them to distinguish between what
communicates and what does not. Listenersand readersuse their implicit knowledge of the
language to grasp the message they are dealing with. For instance, if they encounter the verb
put in an utterance, we are prepared to find three expressions telling us who puts, what is put,
and where it is put. One part of semantic analysis, therefore, is concerned with describing the
kinds of expressions which usually accompany various verbswhat roles these expressions
play with respect to the verb and to each other.

Although listeners begin with a phonetic message, once they have grasped the semantic
content they retain only the sense of the message. People frequently give an accurate account of
something that has been said but almost always they re-tell it in words that are different from
the original message. The account is not an exact repetition of what was said unless the message
is fairly short. Thus, as listeners, we begin by identifying the phonetic message and through the
phonetic message identify the semantic message.

Comprehension or interpretation is not just taking in words or even sense-groups.

Listeners use their background information to interpret the message. They need to know not
only what the speaker says but also what he is talking about, why he bothers to say it, and why
he says it the way he does. They have to relate what is being said to what was said previously
relate new information that is coming at them to the information that preceded it. The
listener has to decide if the speaker is joking, being sarcastic, or is entirely serious, and such
judgments and interpretations have to be made within a brief span of time. When they are
reading, their interpretation of what the author wants to convey depends on their background
knowledge of the topic, and they probably will be more successful in comprehending if they
find the authors style somewhat familiar and to their liking. From the other side, speakers who
make themselves understood have to have some notion of what their addressees already know
and what the addressees can infer and fill in. Writers have to decide for what potential audience
they are writing and how much these potential readers can contribute to the process of
comprehending.
 Summing up, Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles S. Peirce are the founders of
contemporary semiotic theory and practice. Their ideas make up the basic framework for
describing and classifying signs, as well as for applying semiotics to the study of knowledge,
communication and culture systems. While F. de Saussure viewed the sign as an arbitrarily
devised binary (dyadic) structure, Ch. S. Peirce saw it instead as a triadic structure that tended
to be motivated by some form of simulation.

The elements of language are similar to natural signs and, more especially, to
conventional signals. A sign is meaningful to people only if they perceive it, identify it and
interpret it. Signs allow all the individuals to represent the world in various ways - by
simulation, indication, and conventional agreements.