The Arbitrariness of the Sign

Workshop orgnanized by  Jean-Yves Beziau

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ
Brazilian Academy of Philosophy - ABF
Brazilian Research Council  - CNPq

Theme: 

The topic of this workshop is THE FIRST PRINCIPLE stated in the second section of the first part of the Course in General Linguistics: THE ABRITRARINESS OF THE SIGN.

The workshop will develop discussions according to three perspectives:

• The details of the formulation of this principle in the Course, its proper place (cf. the following sentence of section 2: "No one disputes the principle of the arbitrariness of the sign but it is often easier to discover a truth than to assign it its proper place"). Discussions about the question of arbitrariness of the sign in works by Saussure before the Course are also welcome.
• How the arbitrariness of the sign has been formulated and stressed before the Course by other people than Saussure, in particular, but not exclusively, by people of the second part of the XIXth century. Three important names: Boole, Peirce, Bréal.
• The import and value of this principle and the criticisms it received after the publication of the Course. Special focus will be given on the opposition between arbitrary sign and symbol (as characterized in the Course: "the symbol is never arbitrary; it is not empty, for there is the rudiment of a natural bond between the signifier and the signified") in the context of mathematical and logical languages (visual reasoning), traffic signs and pictograms (cf. Neurath's Isotype), typefaces (cf. the work of Adrian Frutiger).

After the workshop a book with full papers will be prepared with an academic international publisher.

Programme

References:

E.Benveniste, "Nature du signe linguistique", Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 1 (1939), pp.23-29.

G.Boole, An investigation of the laws of thought on which are founded the mathematical theories of logic and probabilities, MacMillan, London, 1854.

M.Bréal, Essai de sémantique – Science des significations, Hachette, Paris, 1897.

R.Engler, "Théorie et critique d'un principe saussurien: l'arbitraire du signe", Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 19 (1962), pp.5-66.

A.Frutiger, Type, sign, symbol, ABC, Zurich, 1980.

D.Holdcroft, Saussure: Signs, system, and arbitrariness, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991.

J.E.Joseph, "Iconicity in Saussure's linguistic work, and why it does not contradict the arbitrariness of the sign", Historiographia Linguistica 42/1 (2015), 85-105.

C. Lehman, "Arbitraire du signe, iconicité et cercle onomatopéique", pp.107-123 in L. de Saussure (ed), Nouveaux regards sur Saussure - Mélanges offerts à René Amacker, Droz, Genève, 2006, pp.107-123.

O.Neurath, International picture language, Kegan Paul, London, 1936.

C.S.Peirce, Semiotics and significs, edited by C.Hardwick, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1977.

M.Serfati, La révolution symbolique – La constitution de l'écriture symbolique mathématique, Petra, Paris, 2005.

P.Swiggers, "L'arbitraire du signe linguistique", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 85 (1984), pp.401-404.