Page 33 - Critical and Cultural Theory

CHAPTER 2

THE SIGN

Many important developments in critical and cultural theory have
been triggered by the study of language as a system of signs. ' The
discipline concerned with the analysis of this system is known as
semiotics (or semiology), a term derived from the Greek word
semeion, namely 'sign'. In examining the ways in which signs
operate within a culture, semiotics proceeds from the premise that
all aspects of that culture can be regarded as systems of signs:
verbal and visual languages, movements, postures and gestures,
buildings and furniture, clothes, accessories and menus are equally
open to semiotic decoding. Understanding a culture means detect-
ing and interpreting its sign systems. Signs do not embody specific
meanings or concepts. Rather, they give us clues which only lead
to meanings through interpretation. Signs become meaningful
when they are decoded according to cultural conventions and
rules which people employ both consciously and unconsciously.
The idea of language as a system of signs was introduced by the
Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). His Course in
General Linguistics was compiled after his death with the assis-
tance of notes based on lectures delivered by Saussure in Geneva
between 1906 and 1911. The Course was published in Paris in
1915, and its first English translation appeared in 1959. Prior to
Saussure, the study of language had been subsumed to the disci-
pline of philology, which consisted of tracing the historical
(diachronic) development of individual languages and clusters of
languages. Saussure revolutionized the study of language by

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•*" Part I, Chapter 1, 'Meaning' supplies a useful companion piece to this
chapter.

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