FROM CODPIECES TO SPOONERISMS: SEMIOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO COMMUNICATION IN CULTURE

Original at http://www.csun.edu/~vcspc005/codpie92.html

07/06/00

FROM CODPIECES TO SPOONERISMS SEMIOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO COMMUNICATION IN CULTURE by Alan C. Harris

(an essay presented for the panel, Approaches to a Semiotics of Language Behavior, WSCA Annual Meeting, 1992, Boise, Idaho)

Most generally, Semiotics is the scientific study of signs and sign functions. It includes the most characteristic operation of all living organisms--communication or the interchange of messages.

To a medical doctor, a given spot on an x-ray may signal or communicate the possibility of a tumor in a patient's lung;

for a meteorologist, a rise in barometric pressure may provide a clue that communicates some aspect of the next day's weather;

for an anthropologist, the verbal and nonverbal complex of reciprocal gift-giving reveals and communicates essential elements of the social organization of a people;

to a political scientist, the perception and observation of some aspect of public comportment may signal or communicate a change in ideology;

in a forensic and judicial setting, a fingerprint may lead to a communication that allows for the identification and conviction of a criminal;

to a person face-to-face with a snarling dog, the snarling behavior may telegraph and communicate the strong possibility of the dog's intention to attack. . .

Thus, we are led to say that semiotics is an interdisciplinary study which entails, comprehends, and informs itself of all conceivable message exchanges--all communications, whether verbal or not, whether the interactants are humans or speechless creatures, or even whether the exchange is with or among such instruments as computers, or among living entities as diverse as plants or planets.

Traditionally and historically, the most formalized branch of semiotics has been one that examines and deals with human phenomena centrally, i.e., linguistics or studies that we may term or categorize most generally as philosophy of language. Other programs, however, have been equally concerned with human communication by nonverbal means, including studies of facial expression, mutual gaze, gesture, and posture, as well as of sign languages, whether of the deaf, of aboriginal peoples, of monks, or as a part of the communicative behavior of animals.
Author defines a linguistic semiotics or, more precisely, a "semiolinguistics" and talks about semiotics in clothing, fashion, and textile.

	To a medical doctor, a given spot on an x-ray may signal or communicate the possibility of a tumor in a patient's lung;
	for a meteorologist, a rise in barometric pressure may provide a clue that communicates some aspect of the next day's weather;
	for an anthropologist, the verbal and nonverbal complex of reciprocal gift-giving reveals and communicates essential elements of the social organization of a people;
	to a political scientist, the perception and observation of some aspect of public comportment may signal or communicate a change in ideology;
	in a forensic and judicial setting, a fingerprint may lead to a communication that allows for the identification and conviction of a criminal;
	to a person face-to-face with a snarling dog, the snarling behavior may telegraph and communicate the strong possibility of the dog's intention to attack. . .