Sign

Question 1

What is a “sign”?

Answer 1

The meaning we make though our creation and interpretation of “signs”
- Ex: words, images, sounds, objects, etc.

Question 2

Saussurean Model

Answer 2

• Signifier: form of the sign, like a sound, a written shape, image.

• Signified: concept or mental idea associated with the signifier. It is not a physical object in the real world.

Question 3

Saussurean relationship between signified and signifier

Answer 3

• Differential.
• Language is a system of functional differences and opposites

Question 4

Piercean Model

Answer 4

• Representamen: form that the sign takes, like a word or image.

• Interpretant: the sense we make of the sign.

• Object: something beyond the sign to which it refers, what ir represents.

Question 5

Piercean relationship between representament and object

Answer 5

• Icon/Iconic: signifier resembles or imitates the signified.

• Index/Indexical: signifier is directly connected in some way to the signified. This link can be observed or inferred.

• Symbol/symbolic: signifier doesn’t resemble the signified, it is arbitrary. Their relationship must be agreed upon and learned.