# The Sign, the Code and the Six Functions

Literature I · Introduction to Literary Theory · https://tryals.app/learn/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions

## Borrowing a Science

Between the 1920s and the 1960s literary theory borrowed its vocabulary from linguistics, and the loan shaped everything after it. Three ideas did most of the work.

### 1. The sign is arbitrary and relational

Saussure's *Cours de linguistique générale* (1916) defines the **sign** as the union of a **signifier** (the sound-image) and a **signified** (the concept). The link between them is **arbitrary**: nothing about the sound *tree* resembles a tree, which is why other languages use other sounds.

The consequence is more radical than it looks. If signs are arbitrary, they cannot get their meaning from resemblance, so they get it from **difference**: *in language there are only differences without positive terms*. The value of a word is fixed by what it is not, by the other words available in the same slot. This is why translation is hard even between close languages, since the neighbouring words that cut up the field are different.

### 2. Langue and parole

**Langue** is the system, the shared code, finite and social. **Parole** is the individual utterance, unbounded and personal. Saussure's decision to study langue gave literary theory its structuralist ambition: describe the system behind the works, as Propp did for the Russian folk tale and Genette would for narrative.

The relation between the two is generative, and it is arithmetic. A language of twenty words with three-word sentences already yields $20^3 = 8000$ sentences; a real lexicon of tens of thousands with unbounded sentence length yields a set that no speaker will exhaust. **A finite langue produces an unlimited parole**, which is why the system is the tractable object.

Saussure also separates **synchrony** (the system at a moment) from **diachrony** (its change through time), and insists a speaker uses the system without knowing its history. Etymology explains where a word came from, not what it now means.

### 3. Jakobson's six factors and six functions

Every act of verbal communication involves six factors, and each one, when the utterance orients toward it, produces a function:

| Factor | Function | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Addresser | Emotive | *Ugh!* |
| Addressee | Conative | *Come here.* |
| Context | Referential | *The train leaves at nine.* |
| Message | **Poetic** | *I like Ike* |
| Contact | Phatic | *Hello? Are you there?* |
| Code | Metalingual | *What do you mean by "sign"?* |

Six factors, six functions, and no utterance has only one, what varies is which dominates. The scheme is useful in criticism precisely because it lets you say *which* orientation a passage takes without claiming it takes only that one.

### Peirce's alternative

Charles Sanders Peirce cut the sign differently, into three kinds by their relation to what they stand for: the **icon** resembles (a portrait), the **index** is really connected (smoke, a footprint, a pointing finger), and the **symbol** is conventional (a word, a flag). The trichotomy survives in film and image theory, where resemblance and physical trace matter in a way they do not for the arbitrary word.

> **Common pitfall:** reading "arbitrary" as "random" or "individual". A speaker cannot decide that *tree* will now mean *rain*. Arbitrary means unmotivated by resemblance, and the sign is fixed for the individual precisely because it is a social contract, arbitrary at the origin, compulsory in use.

## Practice questions

6 of this lesson's 11 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Match each factor of communication to the function it supports.

**Answer:**

- Addresser → Emotive
- Addressee → Conative
- Context → Referential
- Message → Poetic
- Contact → Phatic
- Code → Metalingual

**Why:** The pairing is exact by design. "Is this thing on?" checks the contact, "what do you mean by that word?" checks the code, and a sentence whose interest is in its own shape orients toward the message. Most real utterances do several at once.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions/match-each-factor-of-communication-to-the-function-it-supports

### 2. For Saussure, a word's meaning is fixed by what it is not, as much as by what it is.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True.** Value comes from position in a system of contrasts, which is why a word with no near-synonyms behaves differently from one that competes with three. It is also why a bilingual dictionary is misleading: two words can point at the same object while dividing the surrounding field quite differently.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions/for-saussure-a-words-meaning-is-fixed-by-what-it-is-not-as-much-as

### 3. Complete the Saussurean vocabulary.

**Answer:** The sign joins a **signifier** to a **signified**, and their link is **arbitrary**. The shared system is called **langue**, and an individual utterance is **parole**.

**Why:** Note what is missing from the list: the **referent**, the thing in the world. Saussure's sign is a relation between a sound-image and a concept, both mental, and that exclusion is exactly what later critics, from Benveniste onward, pushed back against.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions/complete-the-saussurean-vocabulary

### 4. Saussure claims the linguistic sign is arbitrary, yet insists that no individual speaker can alter a word's meaning at will. Why is this apparent contradiction essential to how language functions?

A. Social convention fixes the unmotivated link so communication remains stable.
B. Individual agency is constrained by the physical iconicity of spoken sounds.
C. Speakers cannot change words because diachronic shifts determine current use.
D. Arbitrariness guarantees that every speaker creates an idiosyncratic system.

**Answer:** A. Social convention fixes the unmotivated link so communication remains stable.

**Why:** Confusing arbitrariness with personal licence misses that the sign is a collective contract. Etymology and physical resemblance do not govern synchrony; mutual agreement across the speech community is what prevents infinite individual variation from destroying shared meaning.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions/saussure-claims-the-linguistic-sign-is-arbitrary-yet-insists-that-no

### 5. Peirce divides signs by their relation to what they stand for. How many kinds does his trichotomy contain?

**Answer:** 3

**Why:** **Three.** The icon resembles its object, the index is really connected to it, and the symbol is purely conventional. Photographs are interesting precisely because they are both iconic and indexical, a resemblance that is also a physical trace of light, which is why they persuade us differently from paintings.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions/peirce-divides-signs-by-their-relation-to-what-they-stand-for-how

### 6. Why does Saussure insist a speaker uses the system without knowing its history?

A. Because historical shifts occur far too slowly for individual speakers to notice them
B. Because diachronic linguistics was rejected by structuralists as an unscientific approach
C. Because the value of a word comes from its current contrasts, not from where it came from
D. Because etymological origins are far too speculative to provide stable lexical meanings

**Answer:** C. Because the value of a word comes from its current contrasts, not from where it came from

**Why:** Because meaning is **synchronic**: it is fixed by the contrasts available now. A speaker who has never heard of Latin still uses the word correctly, which shows the history is not part of the competence. Diachronic study is legitimate and answers a different question, how the system got to be as it is.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/literature-i/the-sign-the-code-and-the-six-functions/why-does-saussure-insist-a-speaker-uses-the-system-without-knowing