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Semiotics - General theory of signs Ferdinand Saussure

Three types of signs:

  • icons - objects signified (like a naturalistic painting)
  • natural signs - natural indications (cloud is sign of rain, spots of measles) any indication, evidence, manifestation, portent, trace, or mark that infers that the subject is near
  • conventional signs - words, plus codes like red=danger

Three fields of study:

  • semantics the study of meaning
  • syntactics the study of (surface 'grammatical' and also 'deep') structure
  • pragmatics which deals with extra linguistic purposes and effects of communications

 

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Philosophy of Language Map. The History of Philosophy Companion. Ed. Ted Hondurach. Oxford University Press, 1995, p.937

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