Linguistics and Semiotics

抄録

Drawing from notions starting from Locke’s semiotics and extending through Peirce’s theory of signs, the author finds applications in the interpretation of various artistic works (with particular focus on Japanese works, including haiku) to show how an understanding of aspects of the nature of signs makes possible insights not available through linguistic analysis alone. The vagueness in one poet’s use of the abstract noun mono ‘thing’ is shown to force the reader to contemplate properties ascribed thereto at the phenomenological level Peirce calls “firstness”. Sound textures of words, visual components of Chinese characters, etc. are shown to produce powerful meaning effects beyond direct linguistic representation. Examples of one-to-many mappings from written characters to words, intertextuality, violations of selectional restrictions, and plays on words, etc. are examined to show how aspects of signs function to evoke layers of meaning easily ignored in linguistic analyses that concentrate only on the “thirdness” of everyday language.