After Thursday’s
class, I left feeling like I had a lot to think about. Through our discussion
of semiotics I started to really think about how vital signs are in language. In essence, we couldn’t have language, convey language, or interpret language without them. Essentially,
one cannot convey thought without language, and language without signifiers and
that, which is signified, is vague and has no meaning.
Thursday
represented one of the United State’s most dreadful days in history, September 11th. As I
read the news, many of my thoughts were enforced by words I read or pictures I
saw in various media outlets. That’s when I started to think about how millions
of individuals were thinking different things about the same event, at the very
same time as I was. I thought about how, when reading certain articles, how I
would have explained the same feeling that the writer was interpreting in such
a different way. I could have explained the feeling of shock, terror and
heartbreak in so many other words, perhaps, with feelings of confusion, trauma,
fear, anguish and distress. So language really was arbitrary, wasn’t it?
Perhaps I could be feeling the same way as my mother when she expressed how
solemn of a day Thursday was, yet, through our language I detected many
differences.
She felt terror,
while I felt fear.
When someone
says September 11th, or 9/11, the initial image in my mind is that
of the twin towers burning, with pieces of it missing.
(http://www.concertblast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/towers_on_fire.jpg)
For me, this image is the ‘sign’ of 9/11. The sign itself is the burning towers. It signifies September 11th. But what is signified? Terrorism, fear and grief. At least, those are the thoughts, feelings and further words of explanation that such signification evokes from me.
Semiotics promise us though, that signs themselves can have more than one signification. Therefore, someone else’s interpretation of this event, and picture, may be completely different. Further, the thoughts and ideas of terrorism, fear, danger or tragedy may trigger different signs for many. For just as language is arbitrary, so is thought, and so is interpretation.
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