UNIT 2: Sign and meaning.
Types of sign
Arbitrariness
In a few words, arbitrariness’ concept refers to a feature given to words which stands for the lack of purpose at the time of naming a thing in one way or another, or in other words, it means that there is not a logical or specific reason to call whatever you can think of in that way.
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I would really like to give you a deep and fancy example of this language quality; but being honest there is not such a thing like that since almost every word in English is arbitrary, being the only exceptions the derivative words. However, there exists the suffix “-ish” in this language and it is used to transform words into characteristics of something: “there’s nothing ice-ish in the word ice” nothing “fan-ish” in fan neither, so you just name the noun you want and you can say the same of it.
Naming Things
When you read the title “Naming things' ' what may come to your mind is the process of putting names to things, like when you name a pet or a newborn, but in fact it's more than that. According to some semioticians, words are just reflections of things in our reality, but that is just a simplification of what words actually are.
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Words not only exist “to name things” because even though there exist thousands of lexical words (nouns) which function is to name physical things or objects, thousands of others name abstract concepts as emotions, this fact opens the possibility to words to serve as something more than mere denominations. Proper nouns are the ones that contain a specific referent the majority of the time, example of this could be my classmates whose names are Erika Jazmin and the only difference is their last names, so in this case you have to be very specific in order to have a specific referent. On the other hand, the importance of functional words (adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, etc.) lies in them being a link between words, and therefore what provides logic to the message transmitted.
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After lots of debates, semioticians conclude that language cannot be enclosure in just naming things, for example, Sasurre believed that concepts could exist without words and that we cannot reduce language as a nomenclature of things because if that would be the case all the people around the world should be speaking the same or almost the same kind of language. To him people who perceive language in that way are just being superfluous.
The word is not the real thing
This concept relies on the fact that words are just a reference we have in our language to allude to something when we talk, for instance, the word “cold” refers to a low or relatively low temperature; however, the word “cold” doesn’t make us feel cold at all; and if it does, probably it’s because we have a mental problem of some kind and thus, we tangle the levels of abstraction.
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In order to exemplify this, please see the following image.
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As you could see, a guy is looking at himself through the mirror, but let’s convey that what he is seeing is just a reflection of himself, and it can’t pass through the mirror or move by its own will, even if he would have tried to touch it, he will just touch the glass. Everyone knows that, except if we are talking in a humoristic/literary way or if we talk with someone with a mental problem such as eisoptrophobia. Needless to say, the same principle goes to words since they are just a mirror of reality that we use during communication.
