Semiotics [semiology]

(from Gk. Sēmeion: ‘Sign’).

The science of signs.

1. Models in general semiotics.

2. Musical semiotics.

NAOMI CUMMING

Semiotics

1. Models in general semiotics.

Two thinkers may be credited with developing this study in the 20th century. Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857–1913), who used the term ‘semiology’, instigated a systematic approach to the
study of language, based on the observation of binary contrasts as constitutive of the ‘meaning’ of
units at any level of generality. The signifying unit, or ‘signifier’, does not bear any intrinsic
relationship to the object or idea that forms its ‘signified’ content. This content is purely arbitrary
and is determined by the relationship of the term to others, in binary pairs. ‘Bit’ and ‘Bat’, for
example, are distinguished by the binary contrast of their vowels. Saussure's manner of analysing
language as a relatively stable system of such contrasts, existing synchronically, contrasts with the
‘diachronic’ or historically-based approach to word meaning found in traditional philology. His
further distinction between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ is based on the assumption that a synchronic
system (langue) is internalized by speakers and reflected in their individual utterances (parole).

The term ‘semiotics’ is more commonly used in traditions influenced by Charles S. Peirce (1839–
1914), who developed his thought on signs (independently of Saussure) as part of a broader
project in the study of logic and epistemology. Signs are not limited, in Peirce's thought, to
elements of a language, but may include anything that ‘stands to somebody for something’. He
characterizes signs as having a three-part structure: sign (representamen), object and interpretant.
The sign is an item observed as having a capacity to represent. Its ‘object’ is the idea conveyed by
the sign, which may or may not be an idea of a concrete thing. The ‘interpretant’ (in its simplest
form) is that by virtue of which the sign and object are linked. An interpretant may be a
conventional code, arbitrarily formed, to give a kind of meaning consistent with that observed by
Saussure. An organized system is not, however, necessary to Peirce's notion of sign. To account for
non-conventional signification, he allows that the interpretant may also be grounded on apparent
‘likeness’ or a causal relationship between the sign and its object. The triad of terms most
commonly taken up from Peirce's semiotics reflects these possibilities. The ‘icon’ signifies by
likeness, the ‘index’ by causal connection and the ‘symbol’ by stipulated convention. Broader
factors relevant to the understanding of a sign may include not only ‘interpretants’ of how its
relationship to an object is grounded but also a network of further signs. ‘Cat’ is a ‘symbol’, with a
purely stipulative relationship to its object, a kind of animal. If ‘mammal’ is invoked in defining it,
another symbol has become an interpretant, and may activate an ongoing chain of interpretants.
This is the process taken up by Umberto Eco, Floyd Merrell (1997), Jean-Jacques Nattiez and
others as constituting ‘infinite semiosis’.

Although Saussure and Peirce have been highly influential it would be mistaken to assume that
their contributions have led to an orthodox ‘methodology’ for the study of signs. Rather than
denoting a unified discipline, the term ‘semiotics’ covers a diverse collection of projects relating in
some way to ‘semiosis’. This last term refers to the activity of signs and may be found in contexts
ranging from bio-semiosis (representation in biological systems) to cultural or social semiosis. The
patterns of inquiry set by Saussure and Peirce would suggest that systematicity in the study of
signs is a primary concern, pointing to a new ‘discipline’, with definable boundaries and some
degree of consensus about its basic terms. Thomas Sebeok promoted the development of such a
discipline in his introductory books, drawing on Peirce's divisions of signs. Eco (1976), also, went
some way towards marking the boundaries of semiotic study, although he questions the
usefulness of such basic terms as Peirce's ‘icon’. When semiotics is brought into dialogue with
deconstructive and postmodern thought, the very notion of a unified ‘methodology’ comes under
stronger question. Postmodern habits of questioning unified systems of meaning work against the
completion of a project such as that envisaged by Peirce, where an architechtonic system
organized in ‘trichotomies’ (such as the icon, index, symbol) is ordered to embrace every possible
mode of signification. Discourse engaged with deconstructing binary oppositions also opposes
Saussure's structuralist bent. Evident in the narratology of Algirdas Greimas is a problematizing of
binary oppositions, with the formation of a new pattern of contrasts featuring not two but four
terms. Other semioticians (Eco) explore codes without particular concern for oppositional
relationships. Deconstructive and postmodern trends do not extinguish projects of semiotic study
but call for a constant revision of what that study entails, and renegotiation of its boundary with
other disciplines.

Semiotics

2. Musical semiotics.

Studies in musical semiotics reflect the diversity of ‘semiotics’ generally. They may be divided into
two broad types: the structuralist and the semantic or referential. Leonard Meyer (1956)
suggested that the latter might be divided into an ‘internalist’ and ‘externalist’ form, a distinction
that still holds to some degree. Jean-Jacques Nattiez is a dominant figure in structuralist studies,
which were given their first impetus by Nicholas Ruwet's segmentational analysis of a Geisslerlied
(1972). This method of analysis reflects the goals of scientific objectivity set up by Saussure's study
of language. Drawing also on the French theorist, Jean Molino, Nattiez postulates a tripartition of
musical activity into three domains: the poietic, concerned with modes of creation; the ‘neutral’,
or that which is immanent in the score, and the aesthetic, or domain of a listener's response.
Nattiez's form of semiotic analysis belongs properly to the second of these; not concerned with
mental acts of either composer or listener, it seeks to elucidate the structures of the score through
processes of segmentation and comparison. Recurrent events are identified as belonging to a
paradigm, to be tabulated on a vertical axis, while contiguous events appear horizontally, to form
the axis of the syntagm. Internal relationships only are of concern. Each segmentational unit is a
‘sign’, held in relation to other ‘signs’, without regard to such things as effective connotation or
cultural reference.

An internalist semantic approach begins with structures in the score, but seeks to relate them not
only to other structures but to ideas with extra-musical reference. These forms of content were
labelled by Wilson Coker as ‘extrageneric’, in contrast to the internal, or ‘cogeneric’, content
derived from purely structural analysis (Coker, 1972). The indirect influence of Peirce is evident in
Coker's account of musical ‘gesture’, which he treats as an aural ‘icon’ of non-musical gesturing.
Coker became conversant with a behaviourist adaptation of Peirce's theory of sign through the
work of Charles Morris, which was also influential in Meyer's account (1956) of meaning as
expectancy. A more directly Peircean account of musical content, in which gesture receives some
emphasis, is given by David Lidov (1987), who seeks to explicate the affective content of musical
gesture as an icon of expressive movements with distinctive psycho-physiological motivation. The
trichotomy of icon, index and symbol explicated by Lidov is also central to Vladimir Karbusicky's
theory (1986) of musical semantics. Karbusicky differs, however, in placing greater weight on
music's capacity to create a variety of directional indices (1987). He is concerned, furthermore,
with the broad range of interpretants that may be brought by a listener to the hearing of a work.

Peirce's thought plays a subsidiary role in the work of other musical semioticians. Robert Hatten's
account (1994) of semantic content in Beethoven relies more on a theory of ‘markedness’
developed by the linguist Michael Shapiro (1976). Shapiro identifies paired semantic oppositions
as typically having a single ‘marked’ term, one that is more distinctive or limited in its application.
Hatten applies this idea to oppositions of stylistic categories or ‘topoi’ within a composition
(Ratner, 1980). Gesture plays an important role in his theory, as it does in those of Coker and
Lidov, but Hatten places greater emphasis on its contextualization in a stylistic framework where
paired oppositions of gestural types may be observed. A development of the Peircean view of
iconicity is implied. In place of an ‘iconicity’ based on a perception of likeness between musical
and non-musical movements, Hatten proposes a theory of correlation between the pairs of terms
used to identify marked oppositions in music and their application in non-musical contexts. The
need expressed by Eco for a definition of ‘icon’ that does not rely on a vague notion of similarity
finds one solution in this way.

Oppositionality also plays a central part in Eero Tarasti's account (1994) of ‘actoriality’, a term
used to convey the idea of anthropomorphic content (such as ‘wilfulness’) in tonal processes.
Algirdas Greimas's narratological theories are the main impetus for Tarasti's semiotic theory, and
also inform Márta Grabócz's analysis of narrative ordering in Liszt. In these semiotic approaches,
musical themes or motifs are conceived as functioning symbolically as ‘actors’ or ‘actants’ capable
of assuming distinctive ‘attitudes’ and following a narrative course similar to that found in
literature. Greimas's theory of narrative ordering is based on two axes. A term (A) and its negation
(not A) are placed on one diagonal axis; a complementary or contrasting term (B) and its negation
(not B) on an opposite diagonal axis, forming a cross. A paradigmatic narrative is taken to follow
the course A–not A–B–not B. ‘Excessivity’ (A) might, for example, be contrasted with ‘insufficiency’
(B) in such a scheme, forming a narrative in which the negation of insufficiency (not B) is the final
resolution – a state of sufficiency (Tarasti, 1994, p.53). This sequence of events finds application to
musical contexts in which the opposition and complementarity of different ‘actorial’ units may
readily be identified.

Other approaches to referential analysis are both flexible and syncretic. A number of authors show
a concern for stylistically established ‘codes’ of meaning, styles and topics, such as those identified
by Ratner (1980). Eco's notion of ‘code’ (1976), developed from Peirce's ‘interpretant’, allows for
an on going process of interpretation, based on the application to music of typologies of varying
degrees of generality. Codes of meaning are not approached necessarily in binary pairs, but may
be organized in many ways. Their variety is explored by Roland Barthes in S/Z (1970). When Gino
Stefani describes musical codes, under Eco's influence, he identifies a number of discrete types
(Stefani and Marconi, 1987). Robert Samuels (1995) argues instead for a flexible approach, in
which the coding strategies used by listeners have no pre-defined limit or technique of analysis.
Kofi Agawu (1991) is similarly concerned with developing a multi-dimensioned view of the sign,
and particularly with showing the mutual interdependence of stylistic topics and internal
structural relationships in the Western classical idiom.

Accounts of musical signification with an ‘external’ or ‘cultural’ emphasis have been put forward
by authors who do not identify themselves as ‘semioticians’. The factor distinguishing an approach
as ‘semiotic’ might be taken as a concern with systematicity, starting any investigation with a close
structural or stylistic analysis. This is, however, a generalization that is not intractable. A musical
interpretation may be less concerned with identifying systematic bases for the attribution of
meanings to units than it is with creating a richly described account of how the place of music in its
cultural context creates codes of meaning or association. These need not be systematically formed
and appraised so long as they are repeated sufficiently often to be recognizable by a given
community. The account is ‘semiotic’ in its broadest sense if it is concerned with the relationship
between musical units and other signifying units in a culture. Potential links between a semiotic
approach to musical meaning and a wide range of postmodern thought have been explored by
Raymond Monelle. The study of musical signification crosses boundaries between the domains of
structuralist and cultural study, or the disciplines of ‘theory’, ‘history’ and ‘ethnomusicology’. It is
not a ‘discipline’ with a closed set of methodologies, authorities and topics, but a wide-ranging set
of interpretative projects in which aspects of musical content are appraised both ‘internally’ and in
relation to other cultural domains.

See also Analysis, §I, 5 and 6; Deconstruction; Hermeneutics; Postmodernism and Structuralism,
post-structuralism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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