Notes on Pierce
the sign is social. in peirce, the model is communicative and social in that the interpreter is essential for semiosis via 'the interpretant': "The interpretant is similar in meaning to the signified. However the interpretant has a quality unlike that of the signified: it is itself a sign in the mind of the interpreter. P noted that 'a sign ... addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign.'" 33.
P emphasizes semiosis as process in contrast to S's "synchronic emphasis on structure" 34. "One important aspect if this is its characterization even of internal reflection as fundamentally social." 34.
P's model leads to 'unlimited semiosis' (Eco) 33. P was aware of this, but it does model what seems to happen when a sign is placed in social circulation. Semiosis is then limited by social constraints and the availability of semiotic affordances and resources available to the interpreter. That is, semiosis is not unlimited but socially and contextually frames or limited.
The social sign will eventually link us to Kress et al, where the act of semiosis results in the presenting of a sign - which freezes semiosis for a moment - and starts again with the interpretation of that sign. It will also appear in Kress's model that the interpreter employs those semiotic resources that she has available to create the mental version of the sign.
Arbitrary / motivated. P's model suggests - or even argues - that the sign is socially motivated and not arbitrary.
the act of semiosis will lead to a consideration of 'orders of signification' 142ff, via Barthes.
Three Modes of Relativity: the symbolic, the iconic, the indexical
the role of interpreter is necessary for semiosis. "the role of the interpreter must be accounted for - either within the formal model of the sign or as an essential part of the process of semiosis." 35
digital and analogue. Chandler looks at thee modes briefly with some leading ideas: languages are digital as they use discrete units. Anological signs such as visual images, etc, "involve graded relationships" and so "There can be no comprehensive catalogue of such dynamic analogue signs as smilas or laughs" 46. Digital communication is intentional while analogue communication happens whether we want it to or not: we appear and we are communicating. 46
type-token distinction. 48. connects with Benjamin in the relation between the original and its (reproduced) tokens.
Current theorists reclaim The Materiality of the Signifier. 50. Chandler mentions Marxism, psychology, Derrida, Barthes, Bolter, Hodge, Kress et al in social semiotics. Kress sees the the material of the sign as its own 'semiotic feature' (resource, I think) 53 - which opens up semiosis from the material plane.
materiality and the sign. S and P viewed the sign as formal and functional and non-material 49, construed in the mind. they didn't look much at materiality w/respect to the sign's 'representative function.' 50.