Generalizing to semiotics

• trouble with the forefathers:
  • Saussure’s “semiology” fails to account for the inevitability of change and dynamics
  • Peirce’s “semeiotic” stresses the individuality of signs too far—the theory lacks the concept of semiotic system
• codes do not exist prior to utterance, they emerge in the act of speaking
• systems are the outcome of decontextualization
• discourse genres provide the intermediate step:
  • in themselves, they decontextualize unique utterances
  • but they still show strong ties to the context or context type
  • …thus getting in between the unique and the typical