Subcellular Systems - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 302

Signifier (1)

Sign =

Object (2) Interpretant (3)

( Mechanisms )

(4)

Fig. 11.7 A diagrammatic representation of the sign as a signifier, distinct from the sign as a
function (see left ). Unless otherwise noted, the term “sign” will be used in this topic in the sense of
signifier, following the common practice in the semiotics literature

Table 11.2 Three kinds of signs and their examples
Sign Sign is related to object through Examples

1. Iconic Similarity (including structural

complementarity)

Statues
Portraits

2. Indexical Causality (deterministic, one-to-one) Smoke

Weather vane

3. Symbolic Conventions or codes (nondeterministic,
one-to-many, arbitrary, creative,
environment-sensitive)

Words
Sentences
Texts

sign as a representamen or sign vehicle (also called signifier) and (b) the sign as a
function (i.e., semiosis) which is triadic as discussed in Sect. 6.2.11 (see Fig. 6.9 ).
In Statement 11.2, as is the common practice in the semiotics literature, the term
“sign” is used in the first sense.
Statement 11.2 is essentially the same statement as Statement 6.19 of Peirce
(Buchler 1955, p. 99) and Statement 6.20 of Houser et al. (1998). Figure 11.7 is also
essentially the same as Fig. 6.2 .
Peirce distinguishes three kinds of signs as pointed out in Sect. 6.2.5 and
summarized in Table 11.2 .
It is assumed that Peirce's triadic division of signs is applicable to microscopic
signs as well, lending support to the notion that semiotics of Peirce can be divided
into two branches - macrosemiotics dealing with signs on the macroscopic level
(e.g., words, texts) and microsemiotics concerned with signs on the microscopic
level (e.g., molecules, DNA) (Ji 2001, 2002a). Some examples of signs, objects and
sign processing mechanisms (or interpretants) at these three levels of material
organization are listed in Table 11.3 .
Row (1) is concerned with macrosemiotics which is a further elaboration
of Table 11.2 . Row (2) is about microsemiotics which is here identified with
cell language (Sect. 6.1.2 ). Cell language (conveniently called cellese )isa
hierarchically organized system of four sublanguages - DNA language ( DNese ),
RNA language ( RNese ), protein language ( proteinese ), and biochemical language
( biochemicalese ). The question as to why the cellese consists of these multiple