Sign Systems
A sign system is a key concept in semiotics and is used to refer to any system of signs and relations between signs. The term language is frequently used as a synonym for a sign-system. However, the term sign-system is preferable to the term language for a number of reasons. First, the use of the term language tends to carry with it connotations of human language, particularly human spoken language. Human spoken language is only one example of a sign-system; albeit probably one of the most complex sign-systems known. For example, in traditional forms of face-to-face communication, humans communicate through non-verbal as well as verbal sign-systems; colloquially referred to as body language. Hence, humans communicate a great deal by way of facial movements and other forms of bodily expression. Such expressions are also signs and an organised collection of such signs would be considered a sign system. Second, the same concept of a sign-system can be used in considering a vast range of communication forms such as animal communication and man-machine communication. Examination of simpler forms of such systems of signs within non-human communication can help to illuminate some of the essence of communication and in particular can help to provide tentative answers to the question of the nature and function of communication.
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Famous quotes containing the words sign and/or systems:
“Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.”
—St. Francis Of Assisi (c. 1182–1226)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)