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Fuck this shit. I'ma rip this assignment a new ass face, hah. Disregard that, if you can!


Six Species of Signs, holy crud eh. Do I really have to write a response for this, it was so fucking.. bland. Or not. Or you know what, maybe it was.

I didn't get much from it, only that the terminology from different semioticians in the past, actually serve as synonyms.

The Bifacial sign is fairly simple to understand, there is the physical sign (spoken or written word, or visual) that is paired with its meaning (the concept).

Zero signs were a bit more tricky to understand. They used silences as an example, so I guess from what's not said, a lot is said. Like those awkward silences after someone farts in an elevator. The sign is the sound and smell of the fart, maybe even its detonator's blushing cheeks. Which would then signal that it was them. The reactions of the others trapped in the elevator signal the scent-disgust reactions, and also the social taboo of farting in public. But is that a zero sign? The look of disgust that one would probably give to the farter, or even the non-look, focusing their eyes to the ground.

Token/Type, Denotation/Designation. Token is the recurrence of a sign that denotes, and the type is the sub-categorization of what each of those signs designate. Words on a page; each word on a page denotes that it's going to be a word for some concept. And the Type is what concept each word designates. The type, is a designation of value (incorrect word), but of meaning.

And now for the actual six species of signs.

Well the signal is fairly obvious also. It is the object (visual, spoken/written word) that is trying to communicate its linked information to whomever is perceiving it. These interactions may be within systems of organisms, or machines.

The Symptom. Oh, so to reuse the analogy of the fart in the elevator... the blushing of the cheeks would be the Symptom of the farter, maybe even the non-farters, because blushing would be a symptom to signal embarrassment, which comes from the connotation of how we must react to farts in public.

Icon. Like how on washroom doors in public areas, there is an image of a 'man' and of a 'woman' to denote the sex of the persons whom are designated to enter each washroom. The black figures are icons, because they have a similarity to what they are representing.

Index. Again, using the above analogy.. The indexical sign in the elevator situation would be the smell and sound of the fart. Enough said? Enough said.

Symbol. So our middle finger is an obvious symbol in our culture of the word 'fuck', in an aggressive and offensive manner. (There are many connotations to the word 'fuck', but in this instance, I trust it is known what it means.) The middle finger is just a finger, but when it is singled out and pointed up, with its knuckle facing out, due to its social reoccurrance, it is a symbol and message of aggression and disrespect to whomever its knuckle faces, from its displayer.

Name was interesting. Because I never thought of the name as a sign, it was merely just present. But it is a sign! Even though there might be a cultural, or social meaning to a word, to a name ( ex. Gwenith Paltrow's daughter, Apple) a name is just a way to linguistically refer to an object, that in no way is to serve as a description to what that object is.