-----Original Message-----
From: Derek Allan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, 21 March 2008 9:05 AM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: RE: Sign Theory
Cheerskep
Re your: ' If I utter "doggy" to a shepherd in the remote Andes, no picture
of a dog will arise in his mind. But if 'doggy' "has a meaning", why
doesn't that happen? Because he hasn't been exposed to repeated association
of the sound, "doggy", with real dogs that his parents pointed at when they
said the word. "
Isn't the answer to this just that a word has meaning only in its relevant
speech community?
As for signs, it seems to me they also have meanings within certain
communities - which sometimes stretch beyond a given speech community - e.g.
a basic image of a man (and not a woman) on what looks like it could be a
toilet door can be found in lots of countries. Arrows for pointing are also
pretty well universal.
What puzzles me about signs is why so many academics etc ('semioticians')
place so much importance on them and want to build elaborate theories around
them - especially theories relating to art. Signs seem to me a very
primitive means of communication - in fact that's one of their principal
characteristics. They are a world away from anything to do with art.
I once knew someone who used to call semiotics 'semi-idiotics.' Maybe
that's going a bit far but the general idea appealed to me.
DA
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