FLOYD MERRELL’ S CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIELD OF SEMIOTICS Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi Ouzou 2 nd year Master degree Mdule of Semiotics Presented by: BELGACEM Leila

The content: - Biography - Introduction - Merrell’s explanation of the sign: A/How sign happen B/A Tale of three signs C/The categories -Conclusion.

Biography of Merrell: Floyd Merrell was born in Duncan, he took a BA in 1964 and PHD in 1973 he taught Chemestry and physics at the higher school level from 1964 to 1970 and Latin American literature in the Departement of foreign Languages and literature at purdue University from 1973 to During that time he wrote 32 books in latin American literature, cultures and communication theory (semiotics).

INTRODUCTION: F loyd Merrell was highly influenced by Charles Senders Peirce, he based on his thinking and discussed the semiotic process according to his work. As Merrell declared: »I began dabbling in Peirce, than I read the collected papers from over to over, and I was hooked on signs » and from this he began his studies on sign and meaning. Floyd Merrell demonstrates throughout Peirce signs and meanings that Peirce's view remains dynamically relevant to the analyses of subsequent work in the philosophy of language, he also demonstrates how quests for meaning inevetably falls victim to vagness in pursuit of generality.

He also suggest that vagness generality, overdetermination, underdetermination and Peirce phenomonological categories of Firstness, secondness and Thirdness must be incorporated into notions of sign structure for a proper treatement of meaning, he also argues that the twentieth Century search for meaning has placed an overbearing stress on language while ignoring nonlinguistic norm sign and meaning. Merrell’s explanation of the sign: Merrell explained the sign according to the Peirce’s concept of the sign: a/How signs happen : In its simplest form,the peircean sign has been defined

as something that relates to something else for someone in some respect or capacity, he describes Peirce’s sign sports three component : what usally goes for a sign in evry day talk, peirce called a repesentamen, something that enters into relation with its object, he allude to Peirce’s object as the « semiotic object » it is that to which the sign relates, the third component of the sign is the interpretant : the interpretant relates to and mediates between the representamen and the semiotic object in such a way as to bring about an interrelation with them.

A fully fledged sign must have a representamen, a semiotic object, and an interpretant,and each of these sign components must enjoy the company of the other two, if not there is no sign. b/ A Tale of three sign: The most basic classes of signs in Peirce's managerie are icons, indices and symbols. An icon: is a sign that interrelates with its semiotic object by virtue of some resemblance or similarity with it such as a map and the territory it maps. An index: is a sign that interrelates with its semiotic object through some actual or physical or imagined

causal structure connexion : a smoke is an index of fire. A symbol is somewhat complicated, that is to say there is no necessary natural link( as the index) or a link due to some resemblance or similarity ( as with the icon) between the representamen and the semiotic object. (The Routledge companion to semiotic and linguistic, Floyd Merrell. 2005)

C/ The categories as explained by Merrell: Peirce developed the categories in order to account for the feeling, sensation, experience and conceptualization of signs these categories make up Peirce's fundamental triad of relations as follows : 1-Firstness: what there is such as it is, without reference or relation to anything else. 2-Secondness: what there is such as it is,in relation to something else, but without relation to any third entity. 3-Thirdness: what there is such as it is, in so far as it is capable of bringing a second entity into relation with a first one and into relation with each of them.

Firstness is a quality,secondness is effect,and thirdness is product in the process of its becoming. Firstness is possibility, (a might be), secondness is actuality (what happens to be at the moment),and thirdness is potentiality, prrobability or necessity (what would be, should be or could be, given a certain set of conditions) Merrell explaineed some aspect of semiotic according to Peirce’s view and was against him in some other as he sad: I must express my displeasure with the concept of signs « standing for something »more properly a representamen, interrelatedly and interdependently emerges with all other signs at the same time,it intrrelates and participate with something and the

Representamen and its semiotic object are mediated by a third term the interpretant. As a result of such mediation, the sign takes on value meaning and importance as a representamen doing its thing along with its neighbors within the vast river of semiosis. In this light (merrell says) I would rephrase the customary peircean definition of the sign as: any thing that interdependently interrelates with its interpretant in such a manner that that interpretant interdependently interrelates with its semiotic object in the same way that the semiotic object interdependently interrelates with it, such correlations serving to

engender an other sign from the interpretant, and subsequently the process is re- itreted. Conclusion: Floyd Merrell in his work has tried to explain and simplify some aspect that Charles Sanders Peirce has dealt with and expressed his displeasure to other aspects as he suggested a different definition mainly to the sign

REFERENCES: -The Routldge companion to semiotics and linguistics edited by Paul Cobley, 2005 (PDF). -Sign system studies, Floyd Merrell.2005(PDF).