Who was Jakobson, who remembers him? @vtgvzdk

Roman Jakobson & semiotics

1 Sign

2 Code

3 Communication

Sign

The essential property of any sign in general, and of any linguistic sign in particular, is its twofold character: every linguistic unit is bipartite and involves two aspects – one sensible and the other intelligible – or, in other words, both a signans (Saussure’s signifiant) and a signatum (signifié).

“The Phonemic and Grammatical Aspects of Language in their Interrelations”. In: Lejeune, M. (ed.) Actes du Sixième Congrès International des Linguistes. Paris: Klincksieck 1949.

Cheese argument

The SwissGerman peasant woman who allegedly asked why cheese is called fromage by her French countrymen – ‘Käse ist doch viel natürlicher!’ – displayed a much more Saussurian attitude than those who assert that every word is an arbitrary sign instead of which any other could be used for the same purpose.

„Quest for the Essence of Language“. Diogenes 51 (13), 1966.

Semiotic matrix

similarity contiguity

factual icon index

imputed artifice symbol

Coup d’oeil sur le développement de la sémiotique. Studies in Semiotics 3. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications 1975.

Code horizontality

There is a difference of basic importance between a phonological and a grammatical opposition: in the former case the coupled contradictories reside in the perceptible side of language (signans, or ‘signifier’), whereas in the latter they lie in its intelligible side (signatum, or ‘signified’).

„Verbal Communication“. Scientific American 227 (3), 1972.

Code verticality

Jakobson seems to be responsible for a confusing generalization by which the term code indicates both a syntactic system of purely differential units devoid of any meaning and a correlation of two series of elements systematically arranged term to term or string to string, the items of the first standing for the item of the second.

Umberto Eco: Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1986.

Communication

„Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics“. In: Sebeok, T. A. (ed.) Style in Language. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press 1960.

Subcode

is a certain disposition of subject not to be aware of and not to perceive every possibility that the ideal code or sign system offers.

Code: one-to-one relation Subcode: on-to-many relation

„Diskussionsbeitrag“. In: Zeichen und System der Sprache 2. Schriften zur Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung IV. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1962.

Wojciech Skalmowski: „On the Notion of a Subcode in Semiotics“.In: Greimas, A. J. – Jakobson, R. – Mayenowa, M. R. – Šaumjan, S. K. – Steinitz, W. - Żółkiewski, S. (eds.) Sign, language, culture. Thee Hague – Paris: Mouton 1970.

SUBCODEINTENTIONALITY / SUBJECT

SPECIES SPECIFIC

COMMUNICATIVE

DISCRIMINATION SEMIOTIC MATRIX

SIGN(S)NORMATIVITY

DETERMINATION

CODEDIFFERENCE / OPPOSITION / MARKEDNESS

UNIVERSAL

OR JAKOBSON.

!!

v.gvozdiak@gmail.com !

@vtgvzdk