FLOYD MERRELL’ S
CONTRIBUTION TO THE
FIELD OF SEMIOTICS
Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi Ouzou
2nd year Master degree
Mdule of Semiotics
Presented by: BELGACEM Leila
The content:
- Biography
- Introduction
- Merrell’s explanation of the sign:
A/How sign happen
B/A Tale of three signs
C/The categories
-Conclusion.
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Biography of Merrell:

Floyd Merrell was born in Duncan, he took a
BA in 1964 and PHD in 1973 he taught
Chemestry and physics at the higher school
level from 1964 to 1970 and Latin American
literature in the Departement of foreign
Languages and literature at purdue University
from 1973 to 2011. During that time he wrote
32 books in latin American literature, cultures
and communication theory (semiotics) .
INTRODUCTION:


Floyd Merrell was highly influenced by Charles Senders
Peirce, he based on his thinking and discussed the
semiotic process according to his work . As Merrell
declared: »I began dabbling in Peirce, than I read the
collected papers from over to over, and I was hooked
on signs » and from this he began his studies on sign
and meaning.
Floyd Merrell demonstrates throughout Peirce signs and
meanings that Peirce's view remains dynamically
relevant to the analyses of subsequent work in the
philosophy of language , he also demonstrates how
quests for meaning inevetably falls victim to vagness in
pursuit of generality.


He also suggest that vagness generality,
overdetermination, underdetermination and Peirce
phenomonological categories of Firstness, secondness
and Thirdness must be incorporated into notions of sign
structure for a proper treatement of meaning, he also
argues that the twentieth Century search for meaning
has placed an overbearing stress on language while
ignoring nonlinguistic norm sign and meaning.
Merrell’s explanation of the sign:
Merrell explained the sign according to the Peirce’s
concept of the sign:
a/How signs happen :
In its simplest form ,the peircean sign has been defined
as something that relates to something else for
someone in some respect or capacity, he describes
Peirce’s sign sports three component : what usally goes
for a sign in evry day talk, peirce called a repesentamen,
something that enters into relation with its object, he
allude to Peirce’s object as the « semiotic object » it is
that to which the sign relates, the third component of
the sign is the interpretant : the interpretant relates to
and mediates between the representamen and the
semiotic object in such a way as to bring about an
interrelation with them.
A fully fledged sign must have a representamen, a
semiotic object , and an interpretant ,and each of these
sign components must enjoy the company of the other
two , if not there is no sign.
b/ A Tale of three sign:
The most basic classes of signs in Peirce's managerie are
icons, indices and symbols.
An icon: is a sign that interrelates with its semiotic object
by virtue of some resemblance or similarity with it such
as a map and the territory it maps .
An index: is a sign that interrelates with its semiotic
object through some actual or physical or imagined
causal structure connexion : a smoke is an index of fire.
A symbol is somewhat complicated, that is to say there is
no necessary natural link( as the index) or a link due to
some resemblance or similarity ( as with the icon)
between the representamen and the semiotic object.
(The Routledge companion to semiotic and linguistic,
Floyd Merrell. 2005)
C/ The categories as explained by Merrell:
Peirce developed the categories in order to account for
the feeling , sensation, experience and conceptualization
of signs these categories make up Peirce's fundamental
triad of relations as follows :
1-Firstness: what there is such as it is, without reference
or relation to anything else.
2-Secondness: what there is such as it is ,in relation to
something else, but without relation to any third entity.
3-Thirdness: what there is such as it is, in so far as it is
capable of bringing a second entity into relation with a
first one and into relation with each of them.

Firstness is a quality ,secondness is effect ,and thirdness
is product in the process of its becoming . Firstness is
possibility, (a might be), secondness is actuality (what
happens to be at the moment),and thirdness is
potentiality, prrobability or necessity (what would be ,
should be or could be, given a certain set of conditions)
 Merrell explaineed some aspect of semiotic according
to Peirce’s view and was against him in some other as
he sad: I must express my displeasure with the concept
of signs « standing for something »more properly a
representamen, interrelatedly and interdependently
emerges with all other signs at the same time ,it
intrrelates and participate with something and the

Representamen and its semiotic object are mediated by
a third term the interpretant. As a result of such
mediation, the sign takes on value meaning and
importance as a representamen doing its thing along
with its neighbors within the vast river of semiosis.
In this light (merrell says) I would rephrase the
customary peircean definition of the sign as: any thing
that interdependently interrelates with its interpretant
in such a manner that that interpretant
interdependently interrelates with its semiotic object in
the same way that the semiotic object interdependently
interrelates with it , such correlations serving to
engender an other sign from the interpretant, and
subsequently the process is re- itreted.
Conclusion:
Floyd Merrell in his work has tried to explain and
simplify some aspect that Charles Sanders Peirce has
dealt with and expressed his displeasure to other
aspects as he suggested a different definition mainly to
the sign
REFERENCES:
-The Routldge companion to semiotics and linguistics
edited by Paul Cobley, 2005 (PDF).
-Sign system studies, Floyd Merrell .2005(PDF).