Chapter 2 Peirce and Meaning-Making

The inner semiotic activity of pupils which is the focus of this study is a meaning-

making activity. This view of semiosis as meaning-making activity derives from

Peirce who sees all human semiosis as a grounded meaning-making event in which

the relationship between signifier and signified is mediated by human activity. For

Peirce, semiosis is meaning-making activity. For many years, the prevailing view of

semiosis has been not Peirce’s, but Saussure’s. None the less, Peirce has remained a

pervasive influence and of late, growing dissatisfaction with the limitations of

Saussure-inspired theory has led increasing numbers of semioticians to take a more

active interest in Pierce’s semiotics. This is particularly true of social semioticians

where Peirce’s notion of sign-making as grounded in human meaning-making activity

has proved consonant with their construal of sign-making as a ‘motivated’ activity

reflecting the sign-maker’s ‘interests’ (Kress….). This process has climaxed recently

with a fully explicit synthesis by Paul J Thibault of key concepts from Peirce,

Saussure and Halliday as well as thinkers such as Bakhtin, Vygotsky, Lemke and

Salthe in his eco-social semiotic theory.

Since Peirce is of central importance to this study. I will devote a whole chapter to an

exploration of his semiotics and the place he ascribes in it to persons, events and

meaning-making before going on to give an account of Thibault’s eco-social semiotic

theory and its implications for the study of reading as a meaning-making activity.

And since the tradition of reader-response theory which this study addresses is one

which also recognises the limitations of structuralist theory, it is both appropriate and

convenient base my account of Peirce’s semiotics on John K Sheriff’s The Fate of

Meaning (1989) which in its first section problematizes Saussurean linguistics as an

‘analytical mode of thinking’ that ‘divides the world into subjects and objects’

(Sheriff 1989: 4) and then goes on to give a cogent and highly relevant synthesis of

Peirce’s semiotics.

Sheriff main aim is to show that Peirce makes a much better starting point for the

study of the nature of literary reading rather than Saussure primarily because he sees

semiosis as a grounded meaning-making activity. He argues that notions such as

Derrida’s ‘differance’, where meaning is endlessly ‘deferred’ in a system of

‘differences’, arise from the way in which Saussure posits the system, langue, as

existing independently of persons and events. This view in turn is rooted in the

dualism of Saussure’s linguistics. Sheriff aligns himself with Martin Heidegger who

points out that

the inability of theoretical disciplines, including literary theory, to deal with

meaning is inherent in the analytical mode of thinking that for heuristic

purposes divides the world into subjects and objects, which are then thought of

as independent entities. So long as language and texts are treated as institutions

or artefacts existing as systems or objects independent of persons, events, and

other objects, we will not be able to talk intelligently about meanings. This

seems to be what has happened in most of the literary theory that takes its start

from Saussure and linguistics. (Sheriff 1989: 4)

Theorists’ reliance on Saussure has led to ‘the prevailing orthodoxy’ that ‘in language

there are differences without positive terms. A sign has no meaning in itself but has

meaning in relation to other signs. Consequently, meaning depends on the system…’

(Sheriff 1989: 10-11). If meaning is a system of signs then it is the system of signs

that is the source of meaning, not the individual (Sheriff 1989: 14). In theoretical

approaches such as structuralism, where the system of signs, exclusive of reader (and

quite often the context) is viewed as the source of meanings, this ascription of

meaning to the system rather than to the activity of individuals who ‘use’ the system

leads to a number of problems.

One of these is a tendency to reductionism. Since structuralists describe systems, in

literary contexts they tend to make an analogy between sentence and text and look for

the grammar of the text. Sheriff cites in this context Todorov’s “The Grammar of

Narrative” (16). The problem with Todorov is that in order to find the grammar in a

narrative, Todorov resorts to summarising the text. His analyses then become

reductionist as they deals with a summary rather than the whole text. Reductionism

also occurs where theorists shift their attention from the structures of the text to the

reader’s experience of the text, as Stanley Fish does when he argues that ‘interpretive

communities make the texts have the meanings they do’ (Sheriff 1989: 24). Sheriff

points out that since the meaning of the text now relies on the interpretative strategy

of the community, theorists end up by supplanting ‘the text and its meaning with a

textual strategy just as Todorov supplants Boccaccio’s stories with propositions

[reductions of them].’ (Sheriff 1989: 25 – my bracketed addition). Reader-orientated

theories which trace their origins back to Saussure can be as reductionist as ful-

blooded structuralist theories.

Another danger of theories which are rooted in a notion of the sign derived from

Saussure is their tendency to subjectivity. Where theorists turn their attention to

reader-text relations, they end up producing complex analyses which run the danger

of subjectivity. Through dissatisfaction with structuralist approaches to the text,

Sheriff argues, ‘Barthes and reader-response theorists shift their focus from the text to

relation-of-the-reader-to-the-text’ (Sheriff 1989: 20). But these reader-response

analyses become ‘very complex…They assume that two entities come together

(reader and text)…and they wish to define the contribution of each to a new entity –

the text as read’ (Sheriff 1989: 21) and they show a tendency to subjectivity where the

observer ‘fail[s] to separate himself from what he sees, or better yet recognize himself

in what he sees’ (Sheriff 1989: 23).

A third danger of structuralist theory is tendentious. Because all ‘meaning’ is in the

system, we know in advance what we are going to find: the theory tells us. Because

structuralist theory works with closed systems, it does not generate new meanings

through its analyses of texts. Yet, of course, many literary critics and philosophers

would contend that possible the major function of literary art is to do just that, to

create meanings that cannot be created in other ways. This is a point that I will expand

on later in the chapter.

But, for Sheriff, as I have already intimated, the most disabling characteristic of

structuralist theory is its predisposition to locate meaning ‘outside of or behind

statements’ (Sheriff 1989: 27). This results in Derrida’s deconstructionist account of

meaning: on the one hand, the source of meaning is a kind of ‘nothing’, simply the

process of structuralization itself; on the other hand, since meaning does not reside in

‘the structure of content, the system of signs’ which is ‘anterior to all meaning’

(Sheriff 1989: 33) meaning itself is endlessly differed. Language is a system of

differences in which meaning is endlessly deferred: hence Derrida’s formulation of

‘differance’, which combines difference and deferral in one word. Derrida tries to

deconstruct the structuralist’s enterprise whilst accepting and making his starting

point the structuralist notion of the sign. He wants to ‘make enigmatic’ ideas such as

‘immediacy’ or ‘presence’ (Sheriff 1989: 34) rather than find a place for them in his

account of language and meaning, as Peirce does. But the source of the problem is not

the nature of language but the theory: in particular, Derrida’s making Saussure’s

notions of the arbitrary nature of the sign and the primacy of langue his starting

points. It is these starting points in Saussure that lead deconstructionism to declare

that meaning arises from ‘nothing’ and is endlessly deferred. Thinking based on the

notion of the Saussurean sign has led to a position where we can no longer discover

and ‘assign determinable meaning’ (Sheriff 1989: 49). Structuralists can only tell us

how signs mean: they cannot tell us what they mean. (Sheriff 1989: 47)

Sheriff’s solution is to replace Saussure’s semiology as a starting-point for the

understanding of literary reading with Peirce’s semiotics. The difference of emphasis

between the two approaches to semiosis is already implied in the different suffixes

employed in naming them. As Sheriff points out, the –ologies tend to be theoretical.

They are rooted in what Peirce would identify as ontological Thirdness, the realm of

argument, symbols, systems. The –otics tend to be more practical in orientation and

are rooted in ontological Secondness, the realm of fact and practical activity.

Meaning’s being rooted in an activity rather than a system is therefore already clearly

implied in the name of Peirce’s approach.

Sheriff then gives the following account of the place of meaning-making in Peirce’s

semiotics. His starting-point is Peirce’s idea of the sign. For Peirce this is triadic, not a

dyadic, concept. A Sign comprises three elements: respresentamen (sometimes rather

confusingly also called ‘sign’), object and interpretant (or ‘sign in the mind’). To

avoid confusion I shall use a capital to designate the combination of the three

elements (Sign) and a lower case to designate a single element (sign). One of Peirce’s

own definitions of a Sign runs as follows:

A sign or representamen is something which stands to somebody for something

in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is creates in the mind

of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. The sign

which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for

something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in

reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the

representamen. (quoted Sheriff 1989: 56)

A representamen is roughly equivalent to the Saussurean signifier and an object to the

signified. Where Peirce strongly differs from Saussure is in his inclusion within the

sign of an interpretant and a ground. As Peirce himself says, the interpretant is a new

sign created in the mind of a person addressed by the representamen. There are two

crucial points to make here. First, the presence of an individual is essential for the

creation of a Sign. Without the presence of a person to be addressed by the

representamen, the reprensentamen remains a sign. The interpretant created when the

representamen addresses a person has a different relation to the representamen and the

object. Since the representamen is a sign, the interpretant as a sign in the mind

demonstrates what Sheriff terms an understanding of it. For Peirce, signs create

interpretants that relate signs to objects on certain grounds; the interpretant, therefore,

is ‘the “meaning” or “understanding”’ of a particular sign’ (Sheriff 1989: 100).

‘“Understanding” cannot be separated from what we refer to as “experience of

the literary work” or “reading.” There is no work apart from “understanding”.

“Understanding” is our grasp of signs in use, of the language game we are in…

It is the interpretant of the sign. It is not an object or entity but our mode of

experiencing signs. “Understanding” is contextual, determined not by the

character of transcendental objects or the whims of transcendental subjects, but

by…ground…’ (Sheriff 1989: 100-101)

However, if the relationship between interpretatnt and representamen is one of

understanding, the relationship between interpretant and object is one of

interpretation. Although every sign involves the understanding of the representamen,

it also involves the interpretation of the object. This is because the sign in the mind

interprets the relationship between the representamen and its object. By including the

interpretant as the mediator between the representamen and the object, Peirce closes

the gap between the signifier and the signified that, Sheriff would argue, Saussure

leave open.

Of equal importance to the three elements of aspects of the Peircean sign is his notion

of ground on or within which the Sign-making takes place. As can be seen, Peirce

himself is quite vague as to the nature of the ground, glossing it as ‘a sort of idea’.

Sheriff, drawing on Wittgenstein, suggests that the easiest way of seeing the ground is

‘the context or language game within which the sign relates to its interpretant’

(Sheriff 1989: 56). So this ‘sort of idea’ is the interpretant’s basis for determining the

relationship between sign and object.

From this description of Peirce’s Sign, it becomes a little clearer how he avoids the

endless deferral of meaning. Meaning is inherent in the sign-making process. Or, to

put it the other way round, sign-making is, exactly, meaning-making.

When we begin with Peirce’s definition of a sign, the theory of “gaps” must

give way to a theory of “grounds”; the theory that separates text and meaning

must give way to a theory in which sign-object-interpretant are inseparable.

Language, human action, and world are inseparably united in the triadic sign.

(Sheriff 1989: 92)

However, there are some qualifications that need to be made about Peirce’s view of

the way Signs generate meaning. In essence, during meaning-making activity of the

Sign choices are made: to put it crudely, people choose grounds. There are any

number of grounds which people can choose to determine the relationship between

sign and object. Sheriff cites the instance of Rose of Sharon’s breast-feeding a

starving migrant in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. There are numerous ways of

responding to this episode. It can be seen as distasteful to the point of pornography, or

it can be seen in the light of Christian motifs of Christ feeding mankind with his

blood. In either case, the reader chooses the grounds on which to make sense of this

episode. (A Thibault would be likely to stress, however, that the grounds are

affordances of the reader’s eco-s0cial environment; but more of this later in the

study.)

A consequence of people choosing grounds is that a form of subjectivity and

relativism is inevitable. This is not the same as claiming that this makes any kind of

truth impossible. Rather, truth exists inside time, place and history; and there are

many standards for judgement of truth, depending on people’s time and place in

history. However, there is no way of achieving final explanations or ultimate truth,

and in Pierce’s philosophy ultimate truth and final explanations are infinitely

deferred. This, though, is quite different from claiming that all truth and all

explanations re infinitely deferred; and this is one of the features that distinguishes

Peirce’s thinking from deconstructionism. It is also worth pointing out that Peirce

makes no link between difference and deferral. His semiotics does not entail a system

of differences, even though it does encompass an idea of infinite deferral.

The idea of ground also permits rationally-grounded disagreement. You can choose

your grounds for judgement and another person can reject the grounds on which your

judgments are made and choose some more instead. But there are no absolute or

ultimate grounds on which or within which this disagreement can be decided. The

agree ment might be decided by reference to other, possibly shared, grounds. But even

then there is an element of choice, even though in an actual case one or both of the

parties may feel an element of compulsion influencing their choice of grounds.

Since a sign or representamen must stand for something to somebody in reference to a

ground, then the ground must be chosen. This means that semiosis is not a rule-

governed activity and it is probably better, therefore, to understand Peirce’s notion of

the Sign as a set of operating principles rather than a description of a mechanism or a

system.

Sheriff makes an interesting correlation between Peirce’s concept of ground and what

he conceives as comparable terms in the writings of other thinkers, several of whom

seem to take a similar view of the nature of language to Peirce:

Thinker: Peirce Wittgenstien Heidegger Gadamer Hirsch [Thibault]

Concept: ‘ground’ ‘language games’

‘world’ ‘horizons’ ‘genres’ [‘context’]

‘Genre, world or horizon, like ground or language game, is pre-supposed in every act

of knowing. The experience of a literary work, like the experience of any sign, is not

outside these contexts, but through them’ (Sheriff 1989: 95). I have added Thibault

and the social semiotic term ‘context’ to this list. It will be useful to remember when

we come to explore Thibault’s incorporation of Peirce into his eco-social theory that,

although the grounds determine how people understand signs and interpret their

relationships with objects, people none the less choose the grounds that determine the

meanings of Signs. If social semiotic’s equivalent ‘sort of idea’ to Peirce’s ground is

context, then it will be important to remember that people choose the contexts that

determine the relationship between signified and signifier and that contexts do not

determine this relationship without this prior act of choice.

To sum up the discussion so far. First,

[t]here is no sign that acts as a sign apart from a contemplating subject, and

there is no gap between sign and meaning, because every sign embodies the

relationship of its representamen to its object and interpretant according to some

ground or language game (Sheriff 1989: 97).

Second, all acts of understanding and interpretation involve human subjects;

consequently, all rational activity is provisional, limited and subject to disagreement.

Third, whilst Derrida and other theorists who start from Saussure’s sign and langue

objectify meaning and set it outside language, Peirce incorporates meaning inside the

Sign-making activity. Finally, interpretants choose, one way or another, the grounds

that determine the relationship between sign (representamen) and object. It is the

choice of grounds that determines the interpretant’s understanding of the sign and

interpretation of the object, not grounds (or context) per se.

It is now time to make clear the ontological grounds of Pierce’s approach to

semiotics. Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness are the ontological categories which

shape his view of Sign-making activity. From there is it will be necessary to create a

picture of Pierce’s Trichotomies, without an understanding of which, it will be

virtually impossible to comprehend his view of the nature of literary reading.

In the context of logic and philosophy, Peirce makes constant use of three

conceptions: First, Second, Third:

First is the conception of being or existing independent of anything else. Second

is the conception of being relative to, the conception of reaction with, something

else. Third is the concept of mediation, whereby the first and the second are

brought into relation (quoted Sheriff 1989: 62).

In the context of a refutation of nominalism, he writes:

My view is that there are three modes of being…They are the being of

qualitative possibility [Firstness], the being of actual fact [Secondness], and the

being of law that will govern facts in the future [Thirdness]. (Sheriff 1989: 63)

Firstness, then, is the mode of being that is possibility because it is independent

existence without reference to anything else. This means it is inaccessible by anything

else as, once anything else appears that independence is compromised. Qualities of

phenomena, such as the redness of a rose, are such modes of being, as they have

always existed as possibilities before their embodiment in phenomena. The type of

sign (representamen) which partakes of Firstness is the Qualisign.

Secondness is the mode of being of fact, actuality, and the ‘sense of actuality’

involves ‘a two-sided consciousness of effort and resistance’ (quoted Sheriff 1989:

63). So Secondness is binary or dyadic in nature and involves a sense of friction of

one thing with another. The type of sign (representamen) that partakes of Secondness

is the Sinsign.

Thirdness is the mode of being that involves the tendency to make things habitual,

predictable or rule-governed. The type of sign (representamen) that partakes of

Thirdness is the Legisign.

In the context of consciousness, which perhaps provides the most relevant treatment

of the categories for an understanding of semiosis, Peirce writes:

…the true categories of consciousness are: first, feeling, the consciousness

which can be included with an instant of time, passive consciousness of quality,

without recognition or analysis; second, consciousness of an interruption into

the field of consciousness, sense of resistance, of an external fact, or another

something; third, synthetic consciousness, binding time together, sense of

learning, thought (quoted Sheriff 1989: 64).

Firstness is the most difficult category because by its nature it is difficult to talk about.

It is, though, particularly important because Seconds and Thirds tend to emerge from

or otherwise depend on Firsts. A quality of ‘immediate consciousness’ (quoted Sheriff

1989: 64) is feeling, which is a state rather than an event (Secondness) and does not

have any consciousness of itself (Thirdness). Firstness ‘is so tender that you cannot

touch it without spoiling it’ (quoted Sheriff 1989: 64) and it can only be contemplated

indirectly. However, unlike Derrida who wishes to make the immediate enigmatic,

Peirce suggests that we are in touch with the immediate in this way:

[W]hatever is in the mind in any mode of consciousness there is necessarily an

immediate consciousness and consequently a feeling…[T]he feeling is veiled

from introspection, for the very reason that it is our immediate consciousness…

[A]ll that is immediately present to a man is what is in his mind at the present

instance…But when he asks what is the content of the present instance, his

question always comes too late. The present is gone by, and what remains of it

is greatly metamorphosized (quoted Sheriff 1989: 65).

A consciousness of Secondness entails a sense of reaction: ‘[W]e have Sensations of

reaction; as…when we make a muscular effort, or when any feeling gives way to a

new feeling…’; or polarity: ‘While I am seated in the dark, the lights are suddenly

turned on…I have a sense…of there being two sides to that instant. A consciousness

of polarity…describe[s] what occurs’ (quoted Sheriff 1989: 65).

Thirdness entails a consciousness of a process of change rather than an instant of

reaction or polarity:

It differs from immediate consciousness, as a melody does from one prolonged

note. Neither can the consciousness of two sides of an instant, of a

consciousness that binds life together. It is the consciousness of synthesis

(quoted Sheriff 1989: 66).

Thibault makes use of First, Second and Third in his elaboration of the idea of self,

other and the relationship between self and other in an eco-social environment. The

self is a First. In its earliest existence is in a state of topological-continuity with its

environment. The other is a Second. The First becomes conscious of the other as it

emerges from its state of topological-continuity with its environment into an

awareness of difference between its self and its environment, including other-selves-

as-objects. The relationship between self and other as mediated within and by the

affordances and constraints of its eco-social environment is a Third.

I would now like to deal with the relationships between signs in Peirce’s semiotics as

an understanding of this and his Trichotomies is essential to an understanding of the

nature of literary reading (or reading of any kind) as a meaning-making activity.

For Peirce, it is axiomatic that the interpretant of one Sign can become the

Representamen of another Sign. How this works is as follows. If we visualise a Sign

as a triangle with the interpretant (I) as an apex below the axis between the

representamen (R) and the object (O), we get this arrangement:

Ri Oi

Ii

In a new Sign the relation of the representamen to its object (R-Oi) becomes the

object of the interpretant which becomes the representamen (Ii) in the new triad:

Rii (Ii) Oii(R-Oi)

Iii

‘And so on on endlessly’ (quoted Sheriff 1989: 60)

Riii(Iii) Oiii(R-Oii(R-Oi))

Iiii

This is a potentially infinite process, curtailed only by death. Peirce’s notion of

semiosis again parallels Derrida’s in this respect. However, owing to his inclusion of

meaning within semiosis, it is a constantly meaningful process and not one in which

all meaning is infinitely deferred.

It also leads to the possibility of extremely complex objects in which a huge number

of previous signs are embodied: ‘The Objects – for a sign may have any number of

them – may each be a single known existing thing or thing believed formerly to have

existed or expected to exist…’ (quoted Sheriff 1989: 61). This complex object can

also firmly embed the Sign in the past, the present or the future – in history – and

provide a link with past meaning-making activity.

The Sign also makes use of each of the three modes of being. Within the Sign, the

representamen is a First. To its interpretant it has any number of possible relations to

an object until the grounds are chosen. It is also a First to the extent that it is

immediately present to consciousness:

Whenever we think we have present to the consciousness some feeling, image,

conception or other representation, which serves as a sign …to some thought

which interprets it (quoted Sheriff 1989: 61).

The object is a Second. It is ever exists in a binary or dyadic relationship with the

representamen. The interpretant is a Third. It mediates the relationship between the

representamen and its object on certain grounds.

Peirce’s Trichotomies can be summed up very simply; but given the oddity of

Peirce’s terminology, they are less easy to understand. I have already introduced his

terms for the three types of sign (representamen) above:

[A] sign [representamen] is one of three kinds (Qualisign, Sinsign, or Legisign);

it relates to its object in one of three ways (as Icon, Index, or Symbol); and it

has an interpretant that represents the sign as a sign of possibility, fact or reason

(that is, as Rheme, Dicent Sign or Argument) (my square brackets Sheriff 1989:

66).

In tabular form, the summary looks like this:

Ontological or material categories

Phenomenological or formal categories

Firstness Secondness ThirdnessFirstness a sign is: a “mere

quality”

QUALISIGN

an “actual existent”

SINSIGN

a “ general law”

LEGISIGNSecondness a sign relates

to its object in having:

“some character in itself”

ICON

“some existential relation to that object”INDEX

“some relation to the interpretant”

SYMBOLThirdness a sign’s

interpretant represents it (sign) as a sign of:

“possibility”

RHEME

“fact”

DICENT SIGN

“reason”

ARGUMENT

(Sheriff 1989: 67)

Significantly, given Sheriff’s antithetical stance in relation to Saussure’s notion of the

sign, Peirce’s idea of the material aspect of ontological Thirdness ‘is analogous to that

of langue as described by Saussure’ (Sheriff 1989: 68):

[T]he third category…is an essential ingredient of reality, yet does not by itself

constitute reality, since this category…can have no concrete being without

action, as a separate object on which to work its government, just as action

cannot exist without the immediate being of feeling on which to act (quoted

Sheriff 1989: 68).

The reliance of Secondness and Thirdness on Firstness in Peirce’s thinking has been

noted above and is another feature which distinguishes him from Saussure:

Just as Dicent Symbols always involve Firstness as part of their object,

Argument involves Rhemes and Dicent Symbols [cf. Thibault and the way

symbols are embedded in icons and indices]

and

We conceive of “one” as qualitative possibility; “two” incorporates “one” in our

consciousness of relation; “three” incorporates “one” and “two” in our

consciousness of synthesis or mediation’ (my additions in square brackets,

quoted Sheriff 1989: 125).

and

Symbols grow. They come into being by development out of other signs,

particularly icons…(quoted Sheriff 1989: 128)

The question now is: what does Peirce’s theory of signs tell us about the nature of

literary reading and aesthetic experience? Given the triadic nature of the sign, ‘the text

and our experience of it are given together’ (Sheriff 1989: 73). An understanding of

the nature of the text involves seeing where it stands in his classification of signs. If

we reduce the above table to a simple outline and make links between the elements,

we create a diagram of three of the ten classes of Peirce’s signs, which relate in turn to

literary art (8), criticism (9) and theory (10):

I II IIII Qualisign Sinsign Legisign

| | |II Icon Index Symbol

III Rheme8

Dicent Symbol9

Argument10

(Sheriff 1989: 74)

Within this classification, ‘Literary art…partakes of Thirdness (is a Symbol), but it

creates an interpretant that has the mode of being of Firstness (is a Rheme)’ (Sheriff

1989: 76). What is produced in the reading of a text is a ‘Rheme’ (Sheriff 1989: 81).

If anyone speaks or writes about this, then the interpretant (Rheme) produced in

reading becomes the representamen in a new sign. The reading of a literary therefore

has the mode of being of possibility and feeling rather than the mode of being of fact

(actuality) or argument.

In a sense, therefore, Peirce sees literary reading as concerned with issues which have

the corollary in those explored by thinkers such as Heidegger; and Heidegger’s

treatment of art ‘in Poetry, Language, Thought, helps us to see what it means to think

of art as a sign of ontological Firstness. He says, “The art work opens up in its own

way the Being of beings”’ (Sheriff 1989: 80). Peirce believes that ‘art gives us access

to a level of reality which cannot be reached in any other way.’ (Sheriff 1989: 88):

Without denying that we cannot escape from language, from Thirdness, Peirce

shows us that Thirdness (linguistic, symbolic signs) can symbolically represent

Firstness. According to his theory of signs, literary art is language (Rhematic

Symbol) used to show, picture, symbolize the quality of immediate

consciousness that can never be immediate to consciousness…If we deny or

totally ignore being and assume that form (linguistic structures, difference) is

all, we will find nothing unique about art…His claim is that our experience is

not broader than signs, but that it is broader than the signs in our conscious

thought (Sheriff 1989: 89-90).

Whereas Derrida asserts that immediacy and presence are ‘enigmatic’, Peirce asserts

that through art we can establish a semiotic connection with Firstness, immediacy,

aspects of experience that are otherwise inaccessible. Rather than building on

‘nothing’, more accessible forms of semiosis ‘act upon’ Firstness and are embedded

in it: ‘Peirce …makes it much clearer than Derrida in what sense all linguistic signs

derive their meaning from “trace”, from the character of signs that remain outside

human consciousness, that cannot be mediated [Firsts]’ (my addition in square

brackets Sheriff 1989: 130).

On the basis of his description of Peirce’s semiotics, Sheriff asserts that the traditional

notion of the ‘autonomy’ of the text must be revised.

A literary text is not autonomous in the sense that it exists separately from any

interpretant, any sign in the mind…there are no texts-in-themselves [Peirce

abjured Kant’s proposition that a thing-in-itself can be conceived]; there are no

aesthetic objects apart from Rhematic interpretants; there are no literary objects

except as denoted in signs subsequent to those in which representamens of a text

are embodied (my additions in square brackets Sheriff 1989: 83).

For if there is no sign without an interpretant, then there is no literary text without a

reader. The marks on the treated surface of the page are not the text. In Peirce’s

semiosis, they must have the status of the representamen of the Sign. Far from being

outside the Sign the other components, the interpretant (the sign in the mind of the

reader) and the complex object of the Sign are present within every Sign experienced

by the reader (Sheriff 1989: 83).

Peirce’s theory gives a basis for the following kind of assertion about the relationship

between the literary text and any interpretation of it:

A text of a literary work (note the distinction) mediates new events that we will

understand, just as we do all events, simultaneously with our experience of

them, instantaneously, without being conscious of the ground or foreknowledge

that makes our understanding possible…what we understand is the event – not

the print, not the author, not an aesthetic object, not the world out of which the

text came. We are in the event, the happening; for us, experience and meaning

are interdependent and inseparable. The meaning (i.e., understanding) of

Nicholas Nickleby is that signs symbolizing subjects and people and events of

the novel occur in our experience (Sheriff 1989: 100)

The ‘literary work’ is an interpretant, the ‘text’ a representamen. As noted above,

although every sign involves the understanding of the representamen, it also involves

the interpretation of the object. So if the interpretant of Nicholas Nickleby, which is a

Rheme, becomes a new sign with a new ground, the new interpretant “understands”

the new representamen (the former interpretant) but “interprets” the preceding one

which is now inside the new object. This gives us a way of understanding Gadamer’s

claim that ‘understanding is always intepretation’ (quoted Sheriff 1989: 101). The two

come together in every sign and are indistinguishable in experience. It therefore

follows that:

According to Peirce’s theory of signs,…not only “understanding” of literary

works, but any interpretant (sign-in-the-mind; i.e. all “understanding”) is silent.

What is spoken or written down is not a triadic sign, but merely its

representamen. Therefore neither understanding [of the representamen] nor

interpretation [of the object within the Sign of the literary text] gets “written

down”. Rather signs (representamens, words) of the text create interpretants that

we call “understanding” of the text; but for us understanding and text are one

and the same thing. Interpreters write and speak using representamens that are

other than the representamens of the text but whose “objects” are the signs

[representamens] of the text as understood in the interpreter’s previous

interpretants…(my additions in square italics Sheriff 1989:105).

In essence, therefore, the literary text is silent. Its ‘expression plane’ (see discussion

of Thibault below), written or spoken, is the representamen of a Sign. Its ‘content

plane’ (ditto) is the object of that Sign. Its understanding and interpretation are the

work of an interpretant of that Sign, and the interpretant is itself a ‘sign in the mind’.

So although text as expression, content and understanding are all part of one Sign, that

Sign has a ‘material’ dimension and a ‘mental’ dimension, is simultaneously ‘outer’

and ‘inner’.

Since both Rosenblatt and Thibault see memory as a significant factor in reading, it is

worth noting here that Sgeriff also sees memory as playing an important role in

reading: ‘Strictly speaking, the speaker only has a memory of experiencing a Rheme

(which is the same as saying a poem, since it is the only poem there is for him)’

Sheriff 1989: 106), and ‘…we put the work (actually our memory of the work) into

contexts like putting words into sentences… (Sheriff 1989: 109)’. His view of

memory’s role is therefore twofold. On the one hand, what the person who speaks

about a poem has to work on is simply a memory, which as Peirce himself notes (see

above) involves a certain degree of ‘metamorphization’ of the original experience. On

the other hand, the memory of the work undergoes a process of contextualisation by

the reader which is analogous to the way words fit into sentences. In other words the

memory of the work becomes part of a larger work or discourse. These are both points

that will considered more fully later in this study.

There are just two more issues to consider before concluding this survey of Sheriff’s

exploration of Peirce’s semiotics: the nature of intention in the literary work and its

relationship to wider contexts.

Sheriff attributes queries about the role of the author’s intention in the literary work to

the same dualistic thinking that distorts our understanding of meaning: ‘It is our

objectivist thinking that causes us to try to separate a player from the game, the author

from the work’ (Sheriff 1989: 111). Since the author was an actual person who

actually made the marks on the page, he or she did so following the same semiotic

principles governing all human semiotic activity. The author creates signs which are

meaningful within and which are determined by his chosen grounds. However, the

reader has a choice of grounds or language game and it is this choice which will

determine his or her understanding of the work’s intention. Intention is something

which is part of the chosen ground or langage game of reading or writing: ‘The

author’s intention, then, cannot differ from the rules of the language games or grounds

he chooses. Neither can a reader’s perception of intention differ from the language

games or grounds he (the reader) chooses’ (Sheriff 1989: 111). So for Sheriff, every

linguistic sign must be peceived as intended since intention along with meaning and

understanding ‘describe our experience as sign users. They are for us’ (Sheriff 1989:

112).

This leads directly into Sheriff’s view of the extent of the context or grounds provided

by the game being played, the bread of context in which writing and reading take

place: ‘Peirce would agree with Gadamer that there is no text independent of the

human mind, and of those expectations and possibilities of understanding that

characterize the interpreter’s life-world (Gadamer calls these historicity and

linguisticality, and they are synonymous with langue games and grounds)’ (111). As

Gadamer writes:

The real meaning of a text, as it speaks to the interpreter, does not depend on the

contingencies of the author and whom he originally wrote for. It is certainly not

identical with them, for it is always partly determined also by the historical

situation of the interpreter and hence by the totality of the objective course of

history.

and

Not occasionally only, but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author.

That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive, but always a productive

attitude as well.

and

[T]he discovery of the true meaning of a text or work of art is never finished; it

is in fact an infinite process (quoted Sheriff 1989: 112-113).

However, even though Sheriff regards meaning as for us, it cannot be divided from

custom and society: ‘All linguistic signs are…signs that are social conventions…’

(Sheriff 1989: 113). This is because all linguistic signs are Legisigns, which are

interpreted as symbols. Language is thus governed by ‘habit’ and conventions and

‘laws’. In using these signs we follow custom. Choice comes in the grounds on which

these signs are used; in the language-user’s interpretation of context. It is here that

human freedom is located: ‘The notion that is both implicit and explicit in

deconstructive theory – that a particular interpretation of a text or a particular

worldview is somehow mandated or determined by the “nature of language” – is

baseless’ (Sheriff 1989: 120).

The following points perhaps summarise Sheriff’s argument in favour of making

Peirce the starting point in any exploration of literary reading:

1. Peirce’s theory of signs incorporates meaning.

2. For Peirce language is social in nature and but at the same time all meaning is for

us.

3. Peirce’s theory incorporates the iconic and the indexical as well as symbols.

4. Peirce makes imagination and reality etc. [see above] interdependent, not

antagonistic.

5. For Peirce, humans are freed, not enslaved, by language.

6. Peirce’s theory is more comprehensive than any structuralist theory.

I am now going to explore Peirce’s ideas about dialogue as a prelude to discussing

social semiotic theories. Dialogues and exchange are key terms in social semiotics

and it will be helpful to establish a continuity or at least level of comparability

between Peirce and these writers in this respect. However, since this study deals with

‘private’ reading, I am going to approach this topic through the notion of the internal

conversation as discussed by Margaret Archer in her sociological study of people’s

inner conversations as a form of reflection on their social situations in relation to

current concerns and projects. In the course of exploring this question she elaborates a

pertinent view of the character of inner speech as dialogue.

She sees Peirce as poised between ‘an under-socialised and over-socialised

conception of humankind’ (Archer 2003: 64). For Peirce’s internal conversation is

neither simply a feature of ‘individual psychology’ nor solely a manifestation of

‘social psychology’ (Archer 2003: 64) and Peirce stands somewhere between William

James and his individualistic deliberations on introspection and George Herbert Mead

and his conviction that ‘sociality is primitive to our self-consciousness’ (Archer 2003:

81).

Archer’s claim is that:

Peirce was the first in the Western world to take up the classical insights into

silent speech and transform them into a theory of the internal conversation.

Simultaneously, he was quite aware that he was presenting an alternative model

to that of introspection, a model of how we come by self-knowledge of our

mental activities (Archer 2003: 65).

Peirce remarked in 1868 that ‘Thought, says Plato, is a silent speech of the soul with

itself’ (quoted Archer 2003: 65). A consequence of his taking this idea up was that he

avoided the debated over introspection that embroiled James. His view was that

‘introspection is necessarily retrospection’ which as we saw above is

‘metamorphosizing’. Having discarded this view, his own alternative view was, as

Colapietro suggests, that:

[T]he principle function of internal reflection does not reside in taking stock of

what we have already thought or in attempting to view what we are presently

thinking; it resides in engaging in an inner dialogue – indeed an inner drama –

in judging the outcome of that dialogue or drama (quoted Archer 2003: 65-66).

The problem of introspection is in part another problem created by dualism which

requires a split between observer who sees and observed which is seen (subject and

object). He reconfigures this relationship of observer and observed as an activity of

speaking and listening and responding (Archers 2003: 66). He was able to make this

transition because he viewed all thought as dialogical: ‘Thinking always proceeds in

the form of a dialogue’, ‘All thinking is dialogic in form’, ‘meditation is dialogue’

(quoted Archer 2003: 66).

Archer sets Peirce’s dialogism in the context of a developmental account of how ‘a

subjective perspective is elaborated from the objective affordances of language’ (68).

The full realisation by individuals of their inner world is highly dependent on ‘the

private use of the public media’ (69).

Peirce took a stratified and emergent view of the self that allowed him to conceive of

‘a dialogue between different phases of the ego’ (quoted 71). In this view, the ego is

divided into past, present and future. From one perspective: past = Third; present =

Second; future = First. The past is a Third as it is the repository of everything the ego

has learned: conventions, rules and habits. The present is a second because it is the

locus of dialogic activity. The future is a first because it is the realm of possibilities.

The ego develops by constantly adding to the past-self by realising the possibilities of

its future self by constant dialogic activity in the present. This accords well with

Archer’s other perspective on this triadic self that the past is object, the present

representamen and the future interpretant. The I is constantly in process of becoming

the R and each is eventually embodied in an ever-growing O.

Peirce envisaged conversation between these three phases of the self in which the

present self persuades the past self to change whilst at the same time painting pictures

in words or the imagination (‘preparatory meditation’ quoted 76) to the future self

about the possibilities it could realise.

James never moved from the idea of the internal monologue to the idea of the internal

conversation, because he never thought in terms of ‘turn-taking’, such as is evident in

questioning and answering.

Archer is of course interested in issues such as the emergence of subjectivity and the

way individuals’ internal conversations lead to actions which influence society.

However, she does subscribe to a view of inner speech as a form of dialogue.

She also provides evidence of Peirce’s sense of the multimodal nature of inner

semiotic activity when she mentions Peirce including ‘musement’ (musings) in the

present self’s conversation with the future self: ‘every man who accomplishes great

things is given to building elaborate castles in the air and then playfully copying them

on solid ground’ (quoted 77).

Our exploration of social semiotics should provide a much more substantial notion of

dialogue and exchange applicable to inner semiotic activity, including the notions of

exchange and multimodality, but Peirce is fertile ground.