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TWO SIDES OF A SIGN

The notion of sign, so important for linguistics, was first proposed in a science called semiotics. The sign was defined as an entity consisting of two components, the signifier and the signified.Let us first consider some examples of non-linguistic signs taken from everyday life.

· If you see a picture with a stylized image of a man in a wheelchair on the wall in the subway, you know that the place under the image is intended for disabled people. This is a typical case of a sign: the picture itself, i.e., a specific figure in contrasting colors, is the signifier, while the suggestion to assist the handicapped persons is the signified.

· Twenty Mexican pesos have two equally possible signifiers: a coin with a portrait of Octavio Paz and a piece of paper with a portrait of Benito Juárez. The signified of both of them is the value of twenty pesos. Clearly, neither of them has this value, but instead they denote it. Thus, they are two different but synonymous signs.

· Raising one’s hand (this gesture is the signifier) can have several different signifieds, for instance: (1) an intention to answer the teacher’s question in a classroom, (2) a vote for or against a proposal at a meeting, (3) an intention to call a taxi in the street, etc. These are three different, though homonymous, signs.

LINGUISTIC SIGN

The notion of linguistic sign was introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure. By linguistic signs, we mean the entities used in natural languages, such as morphs, lexemes, and phrases.

Linguistic signs have several specific properties, the most obvious of which is that they are to be combined together into larger signs and each one can in turn consist of several smaller signs. Natural language can be viewed as a system of linguistic signs.

As another property of linguistic sign, its signifier at the surface level consists of elementary parts, phonetic symbols in the phonetic transcription or letters in the written form of language. These parts do not have any signified of their own: a letter has no meaning, but certain strings of letters do have it.

We have already mentioned other notation systems to represent words of natural language, such as hieroglyphic writing. Each hieroglyph usually has its own meaning, so a hieroglyph is a linguistic sign. The gestures in the sign language for deaf people in some cases do have there own meanings, like hieroglyphs, and in other cases do not have any meaning of their own and serve like letters.

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