Semiotic Sandwich Hell

For many years, I have been alternately bothered and bemused by the fact that people from the United States call fried chicken burgers “fried chicken sandwiches”. Not just the act of the calling itself, but of what it implies. If a chicken burger is actually a chicken sandwich, in US English, does a “burger” necessitate ground beef or a ground beef-like substance shaped into patties? My intuition tells me that the defining aspect of a burger is the bun, followed closely by its oiliness in contrast to a “sandwich”. Since the implication of calling a chicken burger a “sandwich” conflicts with my mental model of what a burger is and what a sandwich is, this annoys me, and I have long sought a good argument of why a burger is not a sandwich.

Of course, a burger is in fact a sandwich in the sense that the word sandwich includes any food filling between two other flat-ish pieces of food, or a single folded roll. But in reality, if you were on a diet and your dietician asked what you ate for lunch, and you said “a chicken sandwich” but really you ate a KFC Zinger Stacker, I think most people would consider you a liar. The words “chicken sandwich” conjure different images, create a different understanding than the words “chicken burger”. So in this sense, it can be said that a burger is not a sandwich*.

So if a burger is not a sandwich because the two words convey separate ideas, why is it that the dictionary definition of the word “sandwich” is so broad? Surely it should exclude burgers explicitly, as well as excluding other things such as hot dogs? Why is the response to the question “Is a burger a sandwich?” invariably “Technically, yes”?! How can it be technically true if in practice it is not?

In pursuit of this understanding, and simply because it is interesting to me, I have begun reading about semantics and semiotics. The extent of my semantics learning has been the wikipedia article on prototype theory, but this led me down another rabbit hole - semiotics. I’m beginning this quest for burger understanding by reading Semiotics for Beginners, an online resource which has also been turned into a textbook. I’ll be writing my thoughts down as I read it, with the quote from the site that inspired the thought as a reference. If you like, you can read along with me!

My ultimate goal: to formulate a short, convincing argument (with rebuttals to common objections) that explain why a burger is not a sandwich. Wish me luck!

The word “butterfly” is not one idea. It’s a word that represents millions of living beings. Who decides what qualifies as a butterfly, and what doesn’t? We do, as English speakers. In contrast, French doesn’t differentiate between moths and butterflies in common parlance. Individual things in reality (for example, the butterfly I’m looking at as I write this) fit into categories (words -- in this case “butterfly”), which we just make up out of convenience.

Words are categories for real things, that we’ve just made up out of convenience.

This is something to keep in mind when learning a language. Your native language’s words will not correspond 1-to-1 with another language’s words, because convenient categories will differ between cultures.

Chapter 2 Part 8

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 7

Here is a homely example of levels of verbal abstraction in relation to a cow called ‘Bessie’:

1. The cow known to science ultimately consists of atoms, electrons etc. according to present-day scientific inference… 2. The cow we perceive is not the word but the object of experience, that which our nervous system abstracts (selects)… 3. The word 'Bessie’ (cow) is the name we give to the object of perception of level 2. The name is not the object; it merely stands for the object and omits reference to many characteristics of the object. 4. The word 'cow’ stands for the characteristics we have abstracted as common to cow, cow, cow… cow. Characteristics peculiar to particular cows are left out. 5. When Bessie is referred to as 'livestock’ only those characteristics she has in common with pigs, chickens, goats, etc. are referred to. 6. When Bessie is included among 'farm assets’ reference is made only to what she has in common with all other saleable items on the farm. 7. When Bessie is referred to as an 'asset’ still more of her characteristics are left out. 8. The word 'wealth’ is an extremely high level of abstraction, omitting almost all reference to the characteristics of Bessie. (McKim 1972, 128; the origins of this example are in Korzybski, via Hayakawa 1941, 121ff)

Holy shit. This is extremely helpful to my sandwich research. I suppose the main message of what is being said here is that certain words operate on different levels of abstraction of the physical object - “abstraction” in this case meaning how many characteristics of the object are being referred to or having attention called to them. The smaller the number of characteristics, the higher the level of abstraction.

Also worth mentioning is that the more “general” a term is (i.e. the more physical objects that it could reasonably refer to), the higher the level of abstraction it operates on (due to the number of characteristics shared between all possible objects being smaller). It’s like a Venn diagram. The more circles involved, the smaller the overlapping portion in the centre. (However, this raises another question, how do you determine whether a term refers to a particular word in the first place - this is the question when asking if a hot dog is a sandwich) 

Another thing I’d like to note is that in the above “levels” of abstraction, it feels like a nested abstraction. The word “cow” groups and refers to characteristics shared by the individual objects themselves, but the word “livestock” groups and refers to characteristics shared by more specific words that fall under its umbrella, and does not refer to characteristics shared by the individual objects themselves.

If I made a burger and called it “Florbimo”, when I use the word “Florbimo” I am referring to all of its characteristics. When I use the word “burger” to refer to Florbimo, I am calling attention to the characteristics that it shares with other objects that people refer to as “burgers”. When I use the word “sandwich” to refer to Florbimo, I am calling attention to the characteristics that it shares with all other objects that people refer to as “sandwiches”.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 6

Critics of structuralist approaches emphasize that the relation between signifier and signified is subject to dynamic change: Rosalind Coward and John Ellis argue that any ‘fixing’ of 'the chain of signifiers’ - is both temporary and socially determined

The other day I had a heated discussion with one of my more philosophically minded friends about “meaning”. The discussion leaned more towards linguistics (specifically, second language acquisition) than towards semiotics, but it still seems very relevant. I was arguing that meanings of words are not fixed, but agreed upon by the “linguistic community” i.e. all speakers of that language. He was arguing that words themselves have fixed meanings, and it is the responsibility of the linguistic community to ensure words are used in the correct way; in other words, correct people when they use a word “incorrectly”. (I was reminded of this discussion because of the above quote’s assertion that any fixing of meaning to a sign is socially determined.)

At the time, although his argument didn’t sit right with me, I couldn’t refute the fact that there are incorrect ways to use words. I attempted to cite “peruse”, “toothsome”, and “nonplussed” as examples of words whose meanings had changed as a result of a change in the consensus of the linguistic community, but while these examples provide evidence of my argument, they don’t seem to refute his point that saying “I’m going to drink this cat” while clearly holding a beer is capital i incorrect.

What makes usage of a word (or sign) incorrect?

Another question I would like to ask is “At what point did nonplussed stop meaning surprised and start meaning unperturbed?” This one I actually can answer myself: the answer is, to put it through the lens of semiotics, that sign only has meaning when interpreted by someone. A word has meaning only when someone hears, sees, or otherwise interprets it. So there was no point at which the word can be said to have “changed” meaning, because the word’s meaning is ephemeral to the moment of interpretation by the interpreter. To put it another way, there is no official mapping of the word “nonplussed” to a particular meaning. In their attempts to be helpful, dictionaries have deceived us. There is only the meaning created in one’s mind when they read the word.

To my friend I ask “what does a closed bathroom door mean?” A closed bathroom door is a sign in that it is interpreted to have meaning, just like a word. It could have a few meanings depending on the person interpreting it. Some households leave the bathroom door open to show no one is in there: to these people it is likely to be interpreted to mean “someone is inside”. Others always close the bathroom door even if no one is inside: to these people it is likely to not mean anything. Yet another interpretation could be that no one is inside, but it is inadvisable to enter due to big stinky poo poo. The bathroom door as a sign and a written word as a sign are no different, so perhaps this example may help to illustrate that signs only have meaning when interpreted - which by extension implies that there is no official meaning associated with a sign. Any formal “definition” of a sign is merely an attempt at documenting the most common interpretation or interpretations of that sign at the current point in time.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 5

Peirce himself frequently mentions ‘the sign’ when, strictly speaking, he is referring to the representamen. It is easy to be found guilty of such a slippage, perhaps because we are so used to 'looking beyond’ the form which the sign happens to take. However, to reiterate: the signifier or representamen is the form in which the sign appears (such as the spoken or written form of a word) whereas the sign is the whole meaningful ensemble.

This is a good reminder of a confusing concept.

For Peirce, a symbol is 'a sign which refers to the object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the symbol to be interpreted as referring to that object’

What the fuck… I understand what’s being said after a few read-throughs but wow, this is the most difficultly worded sentence so far.

As Kent Grayson puts it, 'When we speak of an icon, an index or a symbol, we are not referring to objective qualities of the sign itself, but to a viewer’s experience of the sign’

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 4

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?

I am currently in the depths of a very dense and complex section. This quote seems to summarise my confusion on two levels. The first is that the above quote is referring to the multitude of interpretations the semiotic triangle model can have (which I assume is why I find it so confusing - I can’t anchor it to a real example because it’s expressed in such vague terms). The second level is that this quote is itself dense and confusing, and serves as a good exemplar of the content of this section. Though I understand the general point it’s making about multiple interpretations and the model being too abstract, there are many details that my mind zones out while reading over. “Psychological or ontological status of B” - What?!

Unlike Saussure’s abstract signified (which is analogous to term B rather than to C) the referent is an ‘object’.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 3

As an example of the distinction between signification and value, Saussure notes that ‘The French word mouton may have the same meaning as the English word sheep; but it does not have the same value. There are various reasons for this, but in particular the fact that the English word for the meat of this animal, as prepared and served for a meal, is not sheep but mutton. The difference in value between sheep and mouton hinges on the fact that in English there is also another word mutton for the meat, whereas mouton in French covers both’

I don’t think I agree that they have the same meaning if one refers to meat and animal, and the other refers to just animal. How can it be said that sheep and mouton have the same meaning if we look at these adjoined subdivisions of thought and speech (which Saussure used himself)?

Is Saussure saying that the “value” of a sign is based on how many disparate concepts it can refer to?

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 2

Within such a framework the signifier is seen as the form of the sign and the signified as the content. However, the metaphor of form as a 'container' is problematic, tending to support the equation of content with meaning, implying that meaning can be 'extracted' without an active process of interpretation and that form is not in itself meaningful

The idea that a “sign” has no inherent meaning without a process of interpretation is something that seems to makes sense, but is somehow hard for me to wrap my brain around. It’s the “if a tree falls in the forest” meme, but in this case the tree actually does not make a sound without someone there to hear it. I suppose in order to understand this concept better, I need to relate it to something practical that I already understand!

One example could be a word written in a language that no one understands. However, the fact that something is written down has meaning in and of itself (the fact that someone, at some point wanted to convey some information), and depending on where it’s written, the font, the material it’s written with, more meaning can be attributed to it without actually understanding the word. This is all part of an “active process of interpretation”. The act of reading and actually understanding the written word would, again, just be another part of that active process of interpretation.

As I was writing the above, I realised that prescriptivists of language might assert the opposite - that the sign has meaning without interpretation. The reason they might argue this, is that a prescriptivist believes that there is a “wrong” and a “right” way to use language, outlined by a set of rules (contrasted by a descriptivist who believes the only “wrong” way to use language is in a way that cannot be understood by the listener). A prescriptivist might suggest that a word has a set, unchanging meaning. In doing so they are also intrinsically suggesting that no matter who reads (interprets) it, it has that set meaning. This means that they are suggesting that meaning is not created from the interpretation of a sign, but contained, unchanging, within the sign.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 1

Saussure's original model of the sign 'brackets the referent': excluding reference to objects existing in the world. His signified is not to be identified directly with a referent but is a concept in the mind - not a thing but the notion of a thing.

This recalls the prototype theory - a word represents not a thing, but a preconceived exemplar notion of a thing.

Symbols are not proxy for their objects but are vehicles for the conception of objects... In talking about things we have conceptions of them, not the things themselves; and it is the conceptions, not the things, that symbols directly mean. Behaviour towards conceptions is what words normally evoke; this is the typical process of thinking'. She adds that 'If I say "Napoleon", you do not bow to the conqueror of Europe as though I had introduced him, but merely think of him'

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Preface Part 1

Note: I read chapter 1 before the preface. I then revisited the preface afterwards.

so much of what is written about semiotics is written as if to keep out those who are not already 'members of the club'.

The author of Semiotics for Beginners seems to have picked up on the obscurity of the language used in semiotics. Refer back #1 (chapter 1 part 1). It is interesting to me that despite deriding less accessible semiotic works, his own writing is difficult to read in its own right.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 1 Part 3

'Semiosis', a term borrowed from Charles Sanders Peirce, is expanded by Eco to designate the process by which a culture produces signs and/or attributes meaning to signs. Although for Eco meaning production or semiosis is a social activity, he allows that subjective factors are involved in each individual act of semiosis.

This seems to be giving a name to the process in which prototype-first vs definition-first words come about (which I talked about in my last post).

It can help us to realise that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 1 Part 2

The meaning of a sign is not in its relationship to other signs within the language system but rather in the social context of its use.

This reads similarly to my interpretation of prototype theory. I believe that concepts (represented by dictionary words) exist within the minds of speakers of a language. In each speaker’s mind, there is a prototype of each act, quality, or thing which each word they use refers to. Dictionary definitions (or any definition, really) are a feeble attempt at describing each prototype in general terms, and in a way that captures the most appropriate amount of things that are like that prototype. Thus, words are “more powerful” than their definitions. They encapsulate more meaning than the most carefully worded definition could ever express. Let’s call these words prototype-first.

However, this is not true for all words. Some words are beholden to their definitions, especially words used in an academic or specialist context. The word “couch” might be more powerful than its definition, but the word “spider” is not. “Spider” is defined rigidly under biological constraints. New information can come to light about various species which might exclude or include new members into the “spider” definition, but the definition remains rigid*. But new information coming to light will never cause existing pieces of furniture to newly be considered “couches” where they weren’t before. “Spider” is an example of what I’ll call definition-first words.

*given enough radical new information, the definition may be completely done away with.

A great trap many fall into is confusing definition-first words with prototype-first words. People online often ask facetiously if, for example, a taco is a sandwich, or if a hotdog is a taco. Such questions are useless beyond their (dubious) comedic value, because these food terms are prototype-first. Any definition you attempt to ascribe to the concept of “sandwich” will inevitably be inadequate. When I read the definition of “sandwich” from a dictionary, I am reminded of Plato’s definition of “a man”.

Behold, a sandwich!

In the original English translation for the Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko, in which a group of shapeshifting tanuki try to reclaim their habitat from housing development, tanuki (たぬき) was translated as “raccoon” even though the two animals are only superficially similar and are not closely related. The predominantly American audience for the translation would understand “raccoon” and would not understand “tanuki” (especially at the time of the film’s release), and the specifics of animal taxonomy are irrelevant to the plot of the film.

If language’s purpose is to be understood, true translation involves using terms that are understood by the listener. To give an example, imagine the following scenario happens in an Australian TV show, resulting in Character A becoming violently ill as a plot point:

Character A: “A fucking ibis just took a bite out of my sandwich”

Character B: “You threw it out right? I heard you can be hospitalised from eating food ibises have touched”

If the episode never again mentions the ibis and never shows the ibis on screen (instead focusing on the resulting illness), is it necessary to specify that it was an ibis, when translating?

If you were to translate this directly to another language, you might transcribe ibis as a loan word. In Japanese I’d translate it as 

さっき(just now)くそ(fucking)アイビス(ibis)は俺のサンドの一口(a bite of my sandwich)を食っちゃったよ(ate)！

However, the goal of language is a shared understanding. Is there ever a time when you would substitute “ibis” for another animal when translating? After all, the specific species of the animal that took the sandwich is not important. What is important is that:

It’s a disease ridden pest.

It’s an animal that is not afraid of approaching humans, and that humans are not afraid of.

It’s a large bird with a long beak, allowing it to snatch food.

If we were to choose a substitute animal based only on one of each of the criteria, we might choose a rat (ネズミ) for number 1, tanuki (たぬき) for number 2, or heron (サギ) for number 3. However, none of these perfectly conveys the same meaning (I believe tanuki is the closest).

Hypothetically, let’s say there was a species of mammal common to urban areas of Japan called a subia (スビア). This mammal is omnivorous, stinky, not aggressive, does not have sharp claws or teeth, commonly eats human scraps, and generally avoids coming within 2 metres of humans but is otherwise comfortable at close proximity. Though it’s a mammal rather than a bird, would it be more correct to translate the above exchange by substituting “ibis” with “スビア”?

The film Pom Poko used the word “raccoon” because American raccoons are similar in behaviour and perception to Japanese tanuki, despite the distant evolutionary relation. This is the same situation as the hypothetical subia. Unfortunately, when engaging in this type of translation, some things are always going to be left out. In Japanese folklore, tanuki can shapeshift by placing leaves on their head, and use this ability to get up to mischief. They’re often the subject of statues around shrines. This kind of reverence does not exist in the relationship between Americans and raccoons, which causes some scenes in the translated film to land improperly. In the above case of the sandwich-eating ibis, the animal itself is extremely unimportant, so conveying the surface level information via the substitute word スビア is probably good enough (but then, also consider the possibility that this causes Japanese viewers to assume スビア also exist in Australia).

If the species of the animal mattered slightly more, maybe a more effective translation would be something like “Ibises are Australian birds which scavenge human garbage and live in close proximity to people in parks and urban areas, and one of them just took a bite out of my sandwich!” But then again, putting it in subtitles as if the character was actually saying it would convey the incorrect notion that Character B didn’t know that information. The only real solution seems to be a “translator’s note” briefly describing the animal, external to the conversation. Perhaps the correct course of action for the translators of Pom Poko would have been to add a short translator’s note at the start of the film.

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 1 Part 1

When we use a medium for any purpose, its use becomes part of that purpose.

This sentence took a long time for me to read. I think this sentence is representative of the main problem with studying semiotics and other equally abstract fields (such as philosophy or computer science). That problem being that the language used must also be sufficiently abstract. Human minds seem to work well when given practical, relatable examples. In fact, just now I’m beginning to think that is the only way the human mind works: comparing new ideas to old experiences. If that’s the case then this (necessarily) abstract vocabulary hinders the reader’s understanding. If the reader must compare a given idea to one or more prior experiences in order to understand it, then it will only be made more difficult the further the idea gets from anything concrete. I feel like I only understand ideas, like the one in the above quote, when I can apply it to at least two real-world examples that are distant enough that the idea can be extrapolated into a general concept.

Once the idea has been extrapolated, I then am the one cursed with the understanding of the general concept, not able to properly impart it to another person without them forming a similar extrapolation using their own lived experiences.