Signifier and Signified

Conceptual Overview

These two terms represent an important distinction in the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and, though not exclusive to his theory of linguistics, they are almost always used in this context. Although Saussure worked in relative obscurity in his own lifetime, since the 1960s Saussurian linguistics have become influential as the conceptual underpinnings of the heterogeneous group of approaches to social theory often termed poststructuralism and postmodernism. The most popular representatives of this scholarship are Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, although they are but two among quite a large and heterogeneous group. The distinctive assumption of Saussurian linguistics is that the signifier is arbitrary, from which it follows that language is a social construction, not something that can have a natural or objective reference point.

Suppose a child points to a white bird in the park and says “duck.” The word “duck” is the signifier. All birds to which the child might point when using this word are the signified. The signifier and signified together form the sign. A fourth term is necessary for this explanation: referent. The particular bird to which the child is pointing is the referent. This term is not frequently encountered, but it is important to bear in mind so that one is aware of the distinction between the category (“duck”) that is bounded by the sign and the specific referent (“this duck I am feeding”), which is but one example of the things to which the sign applies. Thomas Kuhn uses the example of birds in the park to discuss the role of boundaries in determining signifiers and the signifieds to which they are applicable. It is quite possible that at one point in a child's life every bird that swims in the pond is “duck,” and at a later point a boundary is drawn between the signifier “duck” and the signifier “swan.” If the child grows up to become a bird watcher, a very great many boundaries will eventually balkanize the once-broad community of “duck.”

Two related terms one frequently encounters are signification and signifying. Both terms identify the act of producing signs. Frequently, these terms “signify” that the speaker/writer is drawing attention to the features of one of more discursive systems (see the Discourse Analysis entry). For instance, there has been an ascendance of individuals with master of business administration degrees in American healthcare management in the last 30 years, accompanied by a decline in the influence of individuals trained in the area of public health. One might look at management and public health as two discursive systems relative to signifying patient care. One might, for instance, note that as management has become more influential, patient care is signified less in terms of community welfare and more in terms of financial efficiency and effectiveness. Thus, signification of what healthcare means can have quite different meanings depending on whether one is signifying within the discourse of management or the discourse of public health.

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