NINETEENTH-CENTURY

SEMIOTIC
GROUP 3

4.1.1 THE ROMANTICS

The

neglected chapter about history of semiotics exist from

the period of romanticism (between 1790 and 1830), which
emphasized in the particular writing of Friedrich Wilhelm
Schelling (1775-1854), Novalis (=Friedrich von Hardenberg,
1772-1801), and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (17681834; cf. Hermeneutics 2.2.1).

 According

to Gipper & Schmitter (1975), the point of view of the general

theory of signs, the interpretation of the concepts of symbols, image and sign
and all of those aspects are included in the special interest.

According

Fichte, human cognition has an iconic nature, since all

knowledge is only representation and requires something corresponding to
the image.

A system of knowledge is necessarily a system of mere images, without any

reality, meaning, and purpose (quoted in Oehler 1981b:78).

4.1.2. HEGEL

Hegel defined sign (Ziechen) as any immediate perception

(Anschauung) which is representing content by itself,
whereas, perception in this case of a sign is not produced by
itself, but as representing something else.

In this reflection on the semiotic foundations of aesthetics,

hegel defined art as a phenomenon whose essence is
neither in the perception of an immediately give signifier,
nor in the awareness of the signifier-signified difference
which characterizes signs

4.1.3 HUMBOLDT
Humboldt defined that words as not belonging to the class
of signs. The basis of this definition was Humboldt's thesis of the
inseparability of language and thought, of the signifier (word) and
the signified (concept). In this respect, words are different from
signs, since signs, according to Humboldt, are tools for
referring to entities existing independently of the signifier.
Humboldt also developed ideas on language which are semiotic in a
broader sense, particularly when he defined language as being
both iconic and arbitrary. In view of this twofold characterization
of language as being sign and transcending the nature of signs,
Schmitter (1985; 1986; 1987) concludes that Humboldt's approach
to language and the arts is based on a transsemiotic model.

4.1.4. BOLZANO
After Lambert, Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848) was the

first
philosopher who resumes the tradition of explicitly semiotic
research.

Bolzano underlined the syntactic dimension of

semiosis
when he examine about a characteristics of our minds in
which the associated ideas will revive each other.

Meaning

Signs

Its Sense
or
Significanc
e

4.1.5 ADDENDA TO NINETEENTH-CENTURY SEMIOTICS

Further nineteenth-century, the authors having the writings

that is relevant to semiotics historiography can be
mentioned only briefly.

-Eschbach (1978) rediscovered Benjamin Humphrey

Smart (1786-1872)
-Walther (1974), Karl Cristhian Friderich Krause (17811832) author of metaphysical theory of sign, and so
on (page 34)
-the work of Victoria Lady Welby whats meaning? and
Signific and Language
In her work Lady Welby argued new science of meaning
and communication named significs the study of
significance nature in all its form and relations

 cohort study is a longitudinal survey design in which a

researcher identifies a subpopulation based on some specific

characteristic and then studies that subpopulation over time. All
members of the cohort must have the common characteristic,
such as being 18 years old in the year 2001. If age is that
characteristic, the researcher studies the group as the group ages.

For example, a cohort group of 18-year-olds is studied in the year

2001. Five years later (in 2006), a group of 23-year-olds is studied.
A group of 28-year-olds is studied. While the individuals studied
each time might be different, they must have been 18 years old in
the year 2001 to qualify as representatives of the cohort group.

4.2.1. HUSSERL AND

PHENOMENOLOGICAL SEMIOTICS
Semiotic threshold lies between the spheres of
immediate perception and the symbolic perception.
At the level of perception, an object is given in its
immediate appearance. At this level, the essence of
things can be grasped only by phenomenological
intuition.

4.2.2. CASSIRER PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC

FORMS
Cassirer
Cassirer distinguished the

Pansemiotic
Epistemology

Symbolic Foms

perspective function
evolution of human semiosis
into:

1. The function of expression

2. The function of
representation

3. The function of
Language, myth, art,
religion, science and
history.

signification

. Cassirer defined three similar

phases in the as mimetic,
analogic and symbolic
expression.

4.2.3 OTHER CLASSICS OF TWENTIETH

CENTURY SEMIOTICS
Karl Buhler (1879-1963):

a. the expressive function of nonverbal communication (Buhler 1933a)

b. the theory of metaphors and the semiotics foundations of language
(Buhler 1933b; 1934)

c. proposals for a general theory of signs (sematology).

d. Two field theory of language. It focuses on the difference between two

elementary languages function, namely: index field (zeigefeld) and

symbol field. The index field itself concerns with the speech situation by
means of pointing or presenting (deixis, anaphora, etc.) while symbol field
concerns with the contextual or syntactic dimension of linguistic semiosis.

Jakob Van Uexkull: a forerunner in biosematics and phytosemiotics.

A research: the role of environmental (umwelt) factors in human
and animal semiosis. Cassirer uses Uexkulls theory of
environmental semiotics to espouse his own view toward the
specificity of human semiosis. every organism has its special
umwelt and its special inenwelt.. the anatomical structure of an
animal gives the clue to the reconstruction of its inner and
outward experience, no common world for objects that is one
and the same for men and for all animal species

 Thomas Albert Sebeok

Is the major figure in twentieth century. Sebeoks special
merit in semiotics is in his contribution to semiotics from its
mainly philosophical and linguistic tradition to a larger
biosemiotic field not only covering anthrop semiotics, but
also zoo semiotics and endosemiotics, including semiotics
interpretations o immunological reaction and of the metabolic
and genetic codes.

4.2.4. ADDENDA TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY

SEMIOTICS
Logical positivism (Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Rudolf
Carnap)

Logical semantics and linguistic phylosophy (Alferd North

Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Psychology and philosophy of sign (Richard Gatschenberger

and Heinrich Gomperz)

Cultural Semiotics (Paul Valery- Semeiologie and semiotique)

 Starting from the end of the 1960s the study of semiotics was

influential as the structuralism of socio semantic with

investigations in the field of art, literature and mass media
(Koch 1971b). And that's structuralism sociosemiotic
developed into the theory of evolutionary cultural semiotics,
the study of semiogenesis and with special attention to the
evolution of culture and nature (Koch 1986a; Koch. Ed.1982;
Koch1983; 1986b; c).

 (cf.

Coward & Ellis 1977, Bentele & Bystrina 1978 :. 50-63

Heim1983, special issues of Versus 23 [1979] and Zeitscrift
fr semiotic 10,1- 2 (1988]).

Lasar

O. Resnikow (cf 1964, 1977) and Adam Schaif (b 1913)

(Lih1960 and Fischer-Lichte 1979: 81-98), Georg Klaus (19121974) (cf. KalkoFen 1979) and Ferruccio Rossi-Landi (19211985) cf. Bernard & Withalm 1986, Sebeok, ed. 1986 482-83).