Stage 1 (5): Types of Sign Relations – Charles Sanders Peirce’s notions of Icon, Index, and Symbol

In the previous post (https://decodingsemiotics.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/stage-1-4-modeling-flexible-meaning-charles-sanders-peirces-model-of-the-sign/) we looked at Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic model of the sign, and how its constituent components of a ‘representamen’, an ‘interpretant, and an ‘object’ facilitate an understanding of meaning as a flexible phenomena.

Through the course of this blog thus far we have looked at how we construct our world through signs (Jakob von Uexkull (1)), the role of socially agreed signifier – signified conventions in helping to create our meaningful world (Saussure (2)), how meaning extends beyond these dyadic conventions, to include the fluid notion of ‘sense’ (Frege (3)), before looking at Peirce’s triadic model of the sign (4) as a means of combining the thinking of Saussure and Frege.

In very simple terms we can depict our journey over the last three posts as:

Saussure                                       Frege                                               Peirce

Working entirely independently these three thinkers each revealed important aspects of sign functioning, with Peirce’s thinking providing the most comprehensive model.

According to Peirce; ‘all forms of thought (ideas) are essentially communication (transmission of signs), organised by an underlying logic (or semiotic, as he called it) that is not fundamentally different for communication processes inside or outside of brains.’ (Deacon 1998, 70)

Thus far we have considered all signs as being of the same type, operating in the same ways. But for Peirce, while all sign processes share an ‘underlying logic’ there are different classes of sign that operate within this. Moving beyond his general 3-part model of the sign, Peirce describes a typology of subtly different signs and explores the ways in which they function as signifiers.

Sign typologies have existed throughout the history of semiotics and philosophy, where; ‘in order to be specific about differences in referential form, philosophers and semioticians have often distinguished between different forms of referential relationships’ (Deacon 1998, 70). But Peirce’s full typology is considered; ‘probably the most successful classification of representational relationships’ (Deacon 1998, 70), and was developed throughout his life to extend to some 66+ types. At its foundation Peirce’s typology concerns 3 core sign types; Icons, Indexes, and Symbols. Terrence Deacon summarises how these signs differ as follows;

In simple terms, the differences between iconic, indexical, and symbolic relationships derive from their regarding things either with respect to their form, their correlations with other things, or their involvement in systems of conventional relationships.’ (Deacon 1998, 71)

Unpacking this; ‘Icons are mediated by a similarity between a representamen* and an object’ (Deacon 1998, 70). This similarity can be conveyed through any sense, for instance onomatopoeic language signifies iconically with the word ‘cluck’ possessing a similar audible quality to the noise made by a chicken.

The sound that Steve Miller makes with his guitar  18 seconds into the song ‘The Joker’ is an example of an iconic sign for a “wolf whistle”

Visually toilet signage frequently makes use of iconicity with the figures depicted in forms visually similar to stereotypically female and male forms of dress.

As we can see; ‘when we say something is “iconic” (an icon) of something else we usually man that there is a resemblance that we notice.’ Realism in art is a movement that favours iconic representation within which; ‘landscapes, portraits, and pictures of all kinds are iconic of what they depict’ (Deacon 1998, 71).

Jules Breton ‘The End of The Working Day’

Moving beyond similarity, Indexical signs; ‘are mediated by some physical or temporal connection between sign and object’ (Deacon 1998, 70). When we say something is an “Index” we mean that it is somehow directly/causally linked, like walking on a beach is to footprints on the sand.

Indexes are established by the regular the co-occurence of some phenomena, a classic example of this is of smoke being understood as an indexical sign of fire, with one seemingly indivisible from the other.

The hand prints in the concrete outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard are another example of Indexical signs.

The fame of these markings exists in their direct physical and temporal connection to the stars that made them, which lends these indexical signs additional ‘authenticity’ in terms of their perceived relation to the stars that made them.

Due to this potential for ‘authenticity’, indexical signs are frequently requested as evidence of an individuals agreement with something, for example when ‘signing’ a document, or historically through use of an wax seal.

Due to the causal link between representamen and object, Indexical signification can have a particularly strong physical effect upon recipients. As as example Terrence Deacon talks about the indexical sign ‘laughter’, stating that; ‘laughter provides others with information about the laugher’s state of mind and recent history, but it also exerts amore direct effect, a sort of compulsion to laugh along.’ (Deacon 1998, 58)

In contrast to Icons and Indexes, there is no naturally occuring link between a symbol’s representamen, and its object; ‘Symbols are mediated by some formal or merely agreed-upon link irrespective of any physical characteristics of either sign or object.’ (Deacon 1998, 70)

An example of a Symbol is the common cultural practice of ringing a peal of church bells to celebrate a wedding, that occurs in many countries.

There is no link between the ringing of bells and marriage, prior to the construction of a human convention linking the two. The link here is arbitrary in the same way that we explored when looking at the work of Saussure in the second post.

More than simply an agreed, or arbitrary link between the representamen and object (arbitrary indexes can be established, think of ‘Pavlov’s Dog’ as an example of this), it is important to not that symbols are involved in ‘systems of conventional relationships’ (Deacon 1998, 71), and it is this that is their defining feature.

 

Think back to Saussure’s notion of linguistic value (discussed in post two), which he states is constituted of;

‘(1) of a dissimilar thing that can be exchanged for the thing of which the value is to be determined; and (2) of similar things that can be compared with the thing of which the value is to be determined.’ (Saussure 1978, 115)

Saussure gives the example of a coin, which can (1) be exchanged for some bread of the equivalent value, or (2) compared or exchanged with coins of a different value.

For symbols; ‘the relationship that a representamen* has to an object is a function of the relationship it has to other representamen’ (Deacon 1998, 86).

Essentially there is a similarity in the structure of relationships between objects, and in the structure of relationships between signs, and these structures must be understood first, before we can properly claim to be able to ‘use’ symbols.

‘many interdependent associations that will ultimately provide the nodes in a matrix of symbol-symbol relationships must be in place in order for any one of them to refer symbolically, so they must each be learned prior to recognising their symbolic associative functions.’ (Deacon 1998, 93)

As an example of this think back to the mutually structuring relationship between language and colour, again explored in the second post.

We have now explained the differences between these three classes of signs, however it is very important to note that they are not mutually exclusive categories, very few signs can be considered to be pure examples of either an Icon, Index, or Symbol, there is often a blend of simultaneous significations;

‘no particular objects are intrinsically icons, indexes, or symbols. They are interpreted to be so, depending on what is produced in response’ (Deacon 1998, 71)

Many representamen possess potential Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic associations, it is merelycontext and habit that biases us into interpreting them a certain way. Playing with one such habitual interpretaion, Groucho Marx famously remarked;

An important point for all semioticians to remember!

*terminology amended for consistency within this post

Reccomended Reading:

Deacon, Terrence W. 1998. The Symbolic Species. New York: Norton and Company