BAC

Variants of Peirce’s triad are often presented as ‘the semiotic triangle’ (as if there were only one version). Figure 1.5 shows a version which is quite often encountered and which changes only the unfamiliar Peircean terms (Nöth 1990, 89). One fairly wellknown semiotic triangle is that of Ogden and Richards, in which the terms used are (a) ‘symbol’, (b) ‘thought or reference’ and (c) ‘referent’ (Ogden and Richards 1923, 14). The broken line at the base of the triangle is intended to indicate that there is not necessarily any observable or direct relationship between the sign vehicle and the referent. Unlike Saussure’s abstract signified (which is analogous to term B rather than to C) the referent is an ‘object’. This need not exclude the reference of signs to abstract concepts and fictional entities as well as to physical things, but Peirce’s model allocates a place for an objective reality which Saussure’s model did

not directly feature (though Peirce was not a naïve realist, and argued that all experience is mediated by signs). Note, however, that Peirce emphasized that ‘the dependence of the mode of existence of the thing represented upon the mode of this or that representation of it . . . is contrary to the nature of reality’ (Peirce 1931-58, 5.323). The inclusion of a referent in Peirce’s model does not automatically make it a better model of the sign than that of Saussure. Indeed, as John Lyons notes:

There is considerable disagreement about the details of the triadic analysis even among those who accept that all three components, A, B and C, must be taken into account. Should A be defined as a physical or a mental entity? What is the psychological or ontological status of B? Is C something that is referred to on a particular occasion? Or is it the totality of things that might be referred to by uttering the sign . . .? Or, yet a third possibility, is it some typical or ideal representative of this class?