Free Transcript of Episode 1.7 I Regret Not Knowing The Creative Power of Semiosis
Semiosis 101 Season 1 Video 7 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 14 Sep 2022, we will go a little deeper into Peirce’s language to begin to explain those terms in the context of semiotic sign-action. This video is a teaser to future videos where we will explore how Peirce’s terms relate into visual communication creative practice. We will explore what triads are AND take the first sneak peek at Peirce’s ten semiotic sign classifications.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…
…and here is the video’s transcript.
NOTE: As with any video transcript the tone used is conversational. The following transcript text features ad libs, and therefore should be read in the spirit of any semi-scripted video.
Let us get to the seventh episode on general Peircean semiotic theory for illustrators and designers. Last week’s video contextualised visual communication design with Peirce’s theory of Semiosis through Gestalt Theory. It introduced the three levels of Representation of a Concept:
Icon
Index
Symbol
Today in around 10-minutes, we will go a little deeper into Peirce’s language to begin to explain those terms in the context of semiotic sign-action.
This video is a teaser to future videos where we will explore how Peirce’s terms relate into visual communication creative practice. But today we will explore what triads are AND take the first sneak peek at Peirce’s ten semiotic sign classifications.
We will see how Peirce’s technical terms can be translated into designer-friendly language and applied into our ideation to enhance the effectiveness of visual communication outputs. In this video we begin this take back.
So, come and join me. Subscribe. Hit that bell button… and let us go.
Avanti!
Okay. So, in this video we are just going to explore a bit further, the triadic nature of Peirce's Semiosis. And just as a quick overview of this, if you come to this with your only understanding of semiotics being the SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED, that comes from the Saussurian Structuralist theory on semiotics, which is Semiology, which is dyadic in nature, (which is basically the SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED).
The whole of these videos that are on my channel are focusing on the Pragmatic, triadic nature of Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic theory of Semiosis. Semiosis is a term he uses for how the sign-action - or the action of the sign - works. I find that as a more useful term to explain semiotic theory in the context of Visual Communication Design - graphic design and illustration. So that is the focus of where I am coming from within this.
As I said in previous videos, Peirce's philosophy, in regards to semiotic theory, (which was written the same time, around about the same period of time, as Saussure’s was). Peirce was North American. Saussure’s semiotic theory of Semiology is European. But with Peirce's being Pragmatic, it is more about the practical nature of how [semiotic signs] works. And that is more beneficial as a [semiotic] theory in design - in my argument for this - that the Pragmatic nature of the action of how Peirce's semiotic theory works, in a triadic nature in a structure of threes, is really beneficial to visual communication designers - graphic designers and illustrators.
But what is problematic is his language, which is very obtuse in regards to accessibility to 21st century designers. In his triadic nature of how the Determination Flow, of how a semiotic sign works, he uses three terms:
• The OBJECT
• Its REPRESENTAMEN
• And its INTERPRETANT
…which means absolutely nothing to designers.
It may mean a lot to Peircean semioticians and philosophers but to designers these three words are problematic. So the whole focus of these videos is to unpack these and replace [Peirce’s] terminology, with more designer-centric terminology that is more accessible to visual communication designers - graphic designers and illustrators.
In previous videos, we have explored what this triad means. As designer-centric terms, we have got it down to Concept replacing OBJECT, Representation replacing the Peircean term of REPRESENTAMEN, and Interpretation replacing his term of INTERPRETANT. So, these three terms have come from workshopping the terminology from Peirce, by myself and Professor Paul Cobley, a semiotician, through a workshop we did [at] the Graphic Design Educators Network in 2018.
These are three words that are more designer-centric that I now use to replace the terminology that has actually been used in Peircean books, and by Peirce himself. So, these are more designer-centric terms. But in Peirce's language, his triads have more depth behind them. Not just the three [terms] that I have just mentioned there, but each of those three [terms] also has a triad inside of them, of theory (from simple to complex structures).
Now, I am not going to unpack what all these strange terms mean to anybody in this video, they will be subjects for future videos. Because most of the videos in the following year will be mostly focused on the OBJECT side of things - the Concept - how do you represent the context. But you can see here, the “problematicness” of the terminology that only Peirce uses. These are Peircean words. He created these words to explain his theory, which is one of the barriers immediately to understanding his theory, that as designers we need to overcome.
That is where my designer-centric research into how do we do that, has led to these videos. So, just very quickly, the the main triadic nature of the Determination Flow is:
• OBJECT
• REPRESENTAMEN
• INTERPRETANT
or in designer-centric terms
• The Concept
• How a Concept is Represented
• And how that Representation of the Concept is Interpreted
…which leads us back to the Concept, if Interpreted correctly by our target audience. But within each of those levels… are levels of complexity. Let us just jump to the two big problematic words:
REPRESENTAMEN
There is three new words there:
• Qualisign
• Sinsign
• Legisign
All you need to know at this stage is that within HOW something is represented, Peirce defines three levels of complexity. HOW something is interpreted has three levels of complexity. So, there is three levels of complexity
within the REPRESENTAMEN…
• Qualisign is the basic level…
• Leading up to Sinsign…
• And then eventually to Legisign.
We are not going to unpack them yet. They will be for future videos. In its interpretation… three words there… only one of those you might have a guess at what it means. But essentially we have here is…
• RHEME,
• DICENT
• ARGUMENT
…from simple to complex.
Simple = RHEME
DICENT = middle
ARGUMENT = high concept.
I want to draw our attention now to where we start from, which is the Concept - the OBJECT - of why we are creating visuals - semiotic signs - to help our visual communication of the Concept, the INTENTION behind the brief our clients has given us. That as designers, visual communication designers - graphic designers and illustrators - we do as our bread-and-butter work, and that.
Two words within his simple-to-complex structure, that Peirce has used, back in the 19th century/early 20th century, now in design, has two different contextual meanings in design, and I want to, straight away, get you to have an open mind and not think, that when we see "Icon," and when we see "Symbol," it means anything to do with Interface Design. Anything that you click on an interface to take us somewhere, or whatever.
What we will be unpacking in future videos is what these three terms mean to you. In other videos coming up, over the next few months, we will unpack them. To help us as visual communication designers, get over our other understanding of what these terms mean. Which is not what Peirce means. I prefer to use the terminology Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic …rather than Icon, Index, and Symbol. It is still problematic within those languages, because "iconic" has a different meaning in society… and "symbolic" has a different meaning in society… and Indexical is one of those words that needs to be unpacked further.
So, even in using those terms, to get away from what we understand in design an icon is, and what we understand in design what a symbol is, to actually see it, in a different context, from a semiotic point of view. I will use these other terms, going forward, in future videos. The only thing you really need to think about, here, is the levels, and that is all you need at this point in time to consider, from simple-to-complex. In Peirce's theory we start off with a very simple level of semiotic communication.
Okay? And these are the ones that are highlighted in yellow. What this mean? That is for future videos.
But then the next level of how effective the communication is, and how that level of communication is crafted, you can see that these middle grounds help you become more focused on how to communicate.
HOW that happens? That will be for future videos.
I cannot do everything in 10-minutes. Then finally, the high level of communication. You can see here is the Symbolic level of communication. Within that, these other two terms [Peirce] uses comes together. Well, what does all this mean at this stage? Since I am not, you know, explaining in 10-minutes what all these strange terms mean.
Well… In Peircean semiotic theory, through…
<ASIDE: …[Peirce] was a mathematician, as well as a philosopher>
…there is a lot of maths behind his Pragmatic theory to help explain "science". That is one of the remits of Peirce's philosophy, is how it can be applied to SCIENCE. But we are not SCIENCE, we are DESIGN. We are qualitative. But basically …just bear with me on this one …that Peirce defines 10 levels of semiotic signs - from the very basic simple (Sign 1) to the very complex (Sign 10).
So, in Peircean semiotic theory, he defines 10 levels of signs in which the sign-action is constructed between those three triads of:
• Concept
• Representation
• Interpretation
But each of these are using the theory to enhance itself, in different ways, for different purposes, from Sign 1 to Sign 10. Now I have purposely kept it simple at this stage. But in the next few slides I am going to show you - and it is only to show you - the complexity of Peircean semiotic theory - that over the coming videos I will translate into more manageable graphic design and illustration contexts, that you do not have to be a semiotic professor to actually make any sense of this before you can actually use it. So, I am going to, basically, in these videos, unpack all of these things over the coming years.
Okay? Let us just have a quick look to see what all this means. Well, first of all, what we talked about before about the Iconic signs (the very basic level of how to represent the concept) are here in the purple. The next level up - Indexical signs - are these four at the bottom of this inverted pyramid. And then, the Symbolic signs, are the last three in this… ten signs. So, what all does this mean to you guys?
Keep watching this channel to actually get more and more of this information over the coming weeks.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…