Sign

From Geography

The word sign has various meanings. This section is about language as a system of signs.

The traditional linguistics see words as symbols standing in for objects in the world. In this traditional view meaning comes from the connection between the word and the real thing that the word refers to. Language is seen as a mirror of reality (Gibson-Graham, 2000, p. 96). This view was rejected by Ferdinand de Saussure. This Swiss linguistic is known as the ´father of modern linguistics´. For human geography, not his extensive linguistic work, but his view on representation is relevant. De Saussure argued that words are signs. "Sounds, images, written words, paintings, photographs, etc. function as signs within language only when they serve to express or communicate ideas..." (Hall, 1997, p. 31). The sign consists of two parts: the signifier (the form) and the signified (the idea or concept of the form in our head). These two elements together, and the relation between them, make up representation. Representations, or the meaning of words, are also shaped by cultural and linguistic codes. Meaning is created by social constructs so signs do not possess a fixed or essential meaning. "There is no natural or inevitable link between the signifier and the signified." The meaning of a sign is determined by the relation to other pairs of elements in the system of signs.

For example the word "school" in the traditional linguistic view refers to a building where people are educated. In Saussure’s view the word "school" is a sign that consists of both the spoken or written word SCHOOL and the IDEA (or concept) of a building that is different from other buildings like an office or a house because of the culturally encoded practices that take place in and around it like teaching. So the meaning of the word "school" is not pregiven, but is signified in our minds. The meaning of the signifier-signified pair is constituted in relation with signs of other kinds of buildings.

A good example in real life of Saussure's distinction between signifier and signified is de Zeche Zollverein in the former industrial Ruhr district in Germany. After the decline in industrial activity in that area, the factories where transformed to cultural centres that host all kind of cultural events. As a result this area became cultural capital of Europe in 2010. In this way the word "factory" changed meaning from a, pre-Saussurian meaning as a "building where production takes place" (Gibson-Graham, 2000, p.96), to a meaning that "is created within a complex social structure of relation and difference" (Gibson-Graham, 2000, p.96).

This view on words and language is a structuralist one. The complex social phenomena associated with signs are underlying structures that have to be traced and examined.

Thinkers belonging to the poststructuralist approach do not agree with this structuralist view. They think it is impossible to fully understand the ´truth of language´ by discovering underlying structures. A fixed relationship between a signifier and the signified is denied by poststructuralist philosophers. They think language is a set of continually reshaped relations. This constitution of meaning can be a subject of struggle between different groups in society. For example, feminists will try to enlarge the amount of meanings of the word ´woman´ that have emancipating meanings. At the other side they attempt to diminish the usage of meanings with patriarchal associations (Gibson-Graham, 2000, p. 96).

References

• Hall, S. (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage publications.
• Gibson, Graham, J.K. (2000). Poststructural Interventions. Oxford: Blackwell.

Contributors

• page created by --SusanVerbeij and --BoudewijnIdema 10:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Edited by Thaddeus Bergé, 12-11-2011