1. What is a sign? A knot on a handkerchief stands in for, substitutes sg. absent Umberto Eco: „A sign is what can be used to lie” a smile (false) clues symptoms

2. The structure of the sign Ferdinand de Saussure: two aspects of the sign: signifier: material signified: the idea (+referent) Meaning = relationship between Sr and Sd

3. Kinds of signs 1: primary and secondary Anything may be(come) a sign a flower, a stone or rock Primary signs: made to be signs (traffic signs, letters, flags)

4. Primary and secondary sign

5. Kinds of signs 2

6. Kinds of signs 2: the relationship between Sr and Sd icon – index – symbol

10. Kinds of signs 3: motivated and unmotivated Heart: love Flower: kindness Motivated: we don’t have to know anything unmotivated: we need to know the code arbitrariness, convention

11. hieroglyphs

12. Chinese characters

13. Pictograms

16. Edinburgh

18. How do signs signify? Signs make up systems Meaning as difference (rather than correspondance) Meaning ~ value: pieces of a chess set bill vs. pill bull pit meaning: result of a play of differences within the semiotic system

19. LANGUAGE

20. The language of the bees Karl von Frisch, 1923 Sophisticated, abstract, arbitrary code: circles, figures of 8, different heights Yet: limited set and themes no extension or modification no real response no passing on of the information

21. Language as a system LANGUE and PAROLE (Saussure) Langue: general rules and code, shared system, underlying structure (to study ‘English’) Parole: the sum of particular acts of language put together (always changing, growing) We encounter parole – we want to learn langue (lang. acquisition)

22. Competence and performance Creation of new statements Knowledge of langue – participating in parole Language: finite set of elements – infinite number of possible sentences

23. Denotation - connotation Why do signs have several meanings? (1) Often there at the start ‘farkas’ - wolf (vlk, loup, lobo, lupus, lycos) Grammatical gender: der Schlüssel – la llave die Brücke – la puente (2) Come into being through use Signs (words): repeatable, used in many situations

24. “The idea was to show other inhabited planets, in case they were listening, how intelligent we were. We had tortured circles until they coughed up this symbol of their secret lives:  ” (Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions)

25. Connotations Concentric circles: public meanings – private meanings No word is free from connotations No dictionary is ever complete: new meanings are born and discarded every day Meaning is never entirely fixed

26. language selfworld other(s)

27. Problems with language 1: language and the world Referentiality (language refers to the world) crisis of referentiality language: general – world: particular

28. Ted Hughes: Crow Goes Hunting Crow / Decided to try words. He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack  Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained, / With strong teeth. You could not find a better bred lot. He pointed out the hare and away went the words / Resounding. Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare? It converted itself to a concrete bunker. The words circled protesting, resounding. Crow turned the words into bombs  they blasted the bunker. The bits of bunker flew up  a flock of starlings. Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings. The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst. Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water. The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir. The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill Having eaten Crow’s words. Crow gazed after the bounding hare / Speechless with admiration.

29. Problems with language 2: language and thought which comes first? (body/clothes or melody/notes?) Benjamin Whorf (Am. linguist): language constructs our worlds/thought ‘How should I know what I think before I have said it?’ (Marx brothers) the Hopis: no tenses - “it was impossible to learn their language without learning their world” (Jeanette Winterson)

30. Problems with language 3: Language as communication Meaning of words: different for each of us - Verbal exchanges involve an act of interpretation, translation Every understanding: also a misunderstanding Wilhelm von Humboldt, 19th-c. German scholar: “There isn’t a single word that is interpreted in the same way by two people. The difference, however small, vibrates in language, like ripples or circles on the water. Therefore, any act of comprehension is also a non-comprehension, every single encounter of thoughts and emotions is also a moving apart”

31. Babel Tower YHWH says: “Yes! A single people, a single tongue for all: that is what they begin to do! Come! Let us descend! Let us confuse their tongues, man will no longer understand the lip of his neighbour” (Genesis)

32. Language as the work or gift of the devil St. Augustine: language is a sign of our fallen nature Talleyrand: language is there for us to be able to disguise our thoughts

33. Language and communication Yet, communication is possible: Contract (agreement) ‘language games’ (Wittgenstein) Context Habit “He believes that he and she can choose their words and make a private language, with an I and you and here and now of their own. But there can be no private language. Whatever they may say to each other, even in the closest dead of night, they say in common words, unless they gibber like apes.” (J. M. Coetzee: In the Heart of the Country)