Signification

The meaning of linguistic expressions is commonly described in terms of the notion of signification*: that is to say, words and other expressions are held to be signs* which, in some sense, signify*, or stand for, other things. What these other things are, as we shall see, has long been a matter of controversy. It is convenient to have a neutral technical term for whatever it is that a sign stands for: and we will use the Latin term significatum*, as a number of authors have done, for this purpose.

Many writers, in discussing the notion of signification, have drawn a distinction between signs and symbols, or between signals and symbols, or between symbols and symptoms. Unfortunately, however, there is no consistency in the way in which various authors have defined these terms. For example, Ogden and Richards (1923: 23) distinguish symbols as “those signs which men use to communicate with one another”, whereas Peirce (1940: 104), who also treats symbols as a subclass of signs, defines them, as we shall see, on the basis of the conventional nature of the relation which holds between sign and significatum. So too does Miller (1951: 5). But Morris (1946: 23–7), who follows Peirce quite closely in certain respects, says that “a symbol is a sign…which acts as substitute for some other sign with which it is synonymous” and that “all signs not symbols are signals”.