Information Technology Reference
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tion of that relation in written language. Some attention to complexes of
signifier, sign, and signified was given when considering speech as marked
by freedom of combination, where a partial anticipation of the combina-
torial concerns of information theory was detected. Although Saussurean
linguistics focused explicitly on spoken language its concepts could be
and were applied to the understanding of written sequences (in chapter
6). In contrast, information theory focuses exclusively on communication
as signals or on the signifier, and does not consider the relation between
signals and meaning (see figure 7.1) (Shannon 1948/1993, 5). In its origi-
nal formulation, information theory was also limited to discrete rather
than continuous signals, although it recognized that continuous signals,
such as oral speech, can be transformed into discrete form (Shannon
1948/1993, 7-8, 50, 75).
This chapter examines the application of information theory to written
language in its aspect as signals, and develops from a suggestion—made
by Pierce (1980) in one of the few but not only less technical expositions
of information theory (Cherry 1978; Shannon 1968/1993)—that, in
applying information theory to written language, we may be
pushing a little beyond the mechanical constraints of language and getting at the
amount of choice that language affords. This idea suggests views concerning the
use and function of language, but it does not establish them. (Pierce 1980, 124)
Information theory is directly, rather than analogically, applied: the line
of written language would be one instance of the message of information
theory and can be revealingly understood from an information theory
perspective.
Analogies are established between fundamental concepts from lin-
guistics and information theory (that is, between the paradigm and the
messages for selection and the syntagma and the message). The analytic
advantages and interest of the analogies established follow from the con-
}
Information theory
Expression
Signifier
Signal
Linguistics
Relation
Sign
Content
Signified
Figure 7.1
Levels of analysis for linguistics and information theory.
