The other major semiotic theory, developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), defines the sign as a triadic relation as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity".
These cannot be conceptualized as separate entities but rather as a mapping from significant differences in sound to potential (correct) differential denotation.
A famous thesis by Saussure states that the relationship between a sign and the real-world thing it denotes is an arbitrary one.
There is, however, what Saussure called 'relative motivation': the possibilities of signification of a signifier are constrained by the compositionality of elements in the linguistic system (cf.
Unlike Saussure who approached the conceptual question from a study of linguistics and phonology, Peirce, considered the father of Pragmaticism, extended the concept of sign to embrace many other forms.
He covered not only artificial, linguistic and symbolic signs, but also all semblances (such as kindred sensible qualities), and all indicators (such as mechanical reactions).
He counted as symbols all terms, propositions and arguments whose interpretation is based upon convention or habit, even apart from their expression in particular languages.
[3] The setting of Peirce's study of signs is philosophical logic, which he defined as formal semiotic,[4] and characterized as a normative field following esthetics and ethics, as more basic than metaphysics,[5] and as the art of devising methods of research.
[8] The result is a theory not of language in particular, but rather of the production of meaning, and it rejects the idea of a static relationship between a sign and what it represents: its object.
The process, called semiosis, is irreducibly triadic, Peirce held, and is logically structured to perpetuate itself.
Thirdness is representation or mediation, the category associated with signs, generality, rule, continuity, habit-taking and purpose.
Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic.According to Nattiez, writing with Jean Molino, the tripartite definition of sign, object and interpretant is based on the "trace" or neutral level, Saussure's "sound-image" (or "signified", thus Peirce's "representamen").
[17] Molino's and Nattiez's diagram: Peirce's theory of the sign therefore offered a powerful analysis of the signification system, its codes, and its processes of inference and learning—because the focus was often on natural or cultural context rather than linguistics, which only analyses usage in slow time whereas human semiotic interaction in the real world often has a chaotic blur of language and signal exchange.
Nevertheless, the implication that triadic relations are structured to perpetuate themselves leads to a level of complexity not usually experienced in the routine of message creation and interpretation.
By 1903,[18] Peirce came to classify signs by three universal trichotomies dependent on his three categories (quality, fact, habit).
Peirce developed for deductive logic a system of visual existential graphs, which continue to be researched today.
It is now agreed that the effectiveness of the acts that may convert the message into text (including speaking, writing, drawing, music and physical movements) depends upon the knowledge of the sender.
Such theories assert that language is a collective memory or cultural history of all the different ways in which meaning has been communicated, and may to that extent, constitute all life's experiences (see Louis Hjelmslev).
[citation needed] Hence, although the writers who co-operated to produce this page exist, they can only be represented by the signs actually selected and presented here.
When the audience receives the message, there will always be an excess of connotations available to be applied to the particular signs in their context (no matter how relatively complete or incomplete their knowledge, the cognitive process is the same).
More often, the receiver's desire for closure (see Gestalt psychology) leads to simple meanings being attributed out of prejudices and without reference to the sender's intentions.