Daniel Chandler

• Semiotics for Beginners.Internet.

• Published version:

• Semiotics: The Basics. 2001. New York:

Routledge.
 Motto
• Why study semantics? Semantics (as the
study of meaning) is central to
communication.
• Geofrrey Leech Semantics
 Etymology
σεµαντικος /semantikos/ ”significant”
σεµαινειν /semainein/ ”to show”
”to signify”
”to point by sign”
σεµα /sema/ ”sign”
 Sign: first approximation
Something that stands for something else
= X signifies Y
= X is a sign of Y.
Sign – directly meaningful sense
 Sign - symbol
Love?

‘love’
 Problems with meanings of
verbal signs
1. Polysemy
2. Circularity
3. Liquidity
 Polysemy
house
1. a building which people, usually one family, live in

2. all the people living in a house

3. a building where animals are kept

4. a building or part of a building which is used for a

special purpose
The Sydney Opera House
Broadcasting House
 Circularity
house
a building which people, usually one family, live in
building
a structure with walls and a roof such as a house
or factory, or the business of making these
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language)
 Fluidity
be (EXIST)
to exist or live
exist
to be, or to be real:
I don't think ghosts exist.
Poverty still exists in this country.

to live, or to live in difficult conditions:

What happens when we
communicate ?
 Communication Sequence
(of mappings)
SNC  ASO  AT  AHO  LNC

SNC = speaker’s neural connections

LNC = listener’s neural connections
ASO = activation of speech organs
AHO = activation of hearing organs
AT = acoustic transmission
 Interfaces with cognitive
structures
SCS  SNC
LNC  LCS

SCS = Speaker’s cognitive structures

LCS = Listener’s cognitive structures
Connection scheme in
the interactive
activation model
Spectrogram
 The Conduit Metaphor
COMMUNICATION ”IS” SENDING (thoughts)
THOUGHTS ”ARE” MATERIAL OBJECTS
MINDS ”ARE” CONTAINERS
WORDS ”ARE” CONTAINERS

Metonymy:
WORDS STAND FOR LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS
 COMMUNICATION IS
SENDING
It is hard to get that idea across to him.
I gave you that idea.
Your reasons came through to us.
Fling/sling/throw mud at someone.
Hurl curses at someone.
 THOUGHTS (IDEAS) ARE
MATERIAL OBJECTS
When you have a good idea try to capture it
immediately in words.
It is difficult to reconstruct his thoughts.
Your thoughts will leak out anyway.
His ideas are a disorderly heap.
 MINDS ARE CONTAINERS
His mind is full of ideas.
How can one be so empty-headed?
Go in through one ear and go out through
another.
 WORDS ARE CONTAINERS
Words stand for linguistics expressions
It’s difficult to put my ideas into words.
The meaning is right there in the words.
You can’t simply stuff ideas into a sentence.
This text is without meaning.
 Some metalinguistic concepts
E C W

E= entity
C= concept (thought)
W= word (linguistic expression)
Entity = an element of anything that IS in
whatever reality (physical and/or mental)
 Semiotics and semantics
• Semiotics (semiology, semasiology) deals
with all possible elements and relations
between these elements in E, C and W
(”meaning” tout court).
• Semantics, more specifically, focuses on C
and W (”linguistic meaning”).
 Ontological differences
Entities – any conceivable domain
Concepts – mental domain
Words – language/speech domain (mental
and physical)
 Notational conventions
<dog> as an entity (real or imagined)
”dog” as a concept
‘dog’ as a word (linguistic expression)
dog/dogs as words (linguistic forms)
:dog/dogs: as words used in an actual speech
act
 Concepts: three kinds of sets
Finite
Nondenumerably infinite
Denumerably infinite
 Finite sets
Formal (synthetic) concepts – products of
human mind. Examples: geometrical
figures; mathematical constructs; logical
relations.
Delimited by definitions
 Denumerably infinite sets
Categories of (analytic) concepts ”abstracted”
through human experience.
Examples: all concepts based on repeated experience
generalised as categories, such as common nouns
and noun phrases as well as verbs in any language.

Delimited by explications (expositions) consisting

of relevant features.
Note: Though the number of relevant features
is denumerable for a given concept, the
number of potential relevant features for all
concepts is infinite.
 Further examples
• ‘memi’ in Old Laylonian – ”jeździć
brawurowo na małym różowym słoniu bez
ucha, potrząsając zarazem chorągiewką
bladoniebieską z jedwabnej wstążki i kręcąc
młynka palcami krwiście pomalowanymi.”
• Leszek Kołakowski Bajki różne
 More examples
‘grupa trzymająca władzę’
‘dokich’/’pokich’
‘becikowe’ (‘baby–bonus’?)
 Nondenumerably infinite sets
Singulary concepts conceptualised
individually.
Examples: unique real and imagined entities

Delimited by descriptions (depictions)

 Home assignment
Look up the following words in the largest
dictionary you can access and and/or in
other sources, and try to make sense of the
”definitions” therein.
Meaning
Representation
Designation
Extension
Reference
Intension
Sense
Signification
Denotation
Connotation