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Apparently this drunk stands for the equivalent expression, There is a drunken man, but things are not that simple. The physical presence of the human body along with its characteristics could stand either for the phrase There is a drunken man in this precise place and in this precise moment or for the phrase Once upon a time there was a drunken man; it could also mean There are many drunken men in the world. As a matter of fact, in the example I am giving, and according to Peirce's suggestion, the third alternative is the case. To interpret this physical presence in one or in another sense is a matter of convention, and a more sophisticated theatrical performance would establish this convention by means of other semiotic mediafor instance, words. But at the point we are, our tipsy sign is open to any interpretation: he stands for all the existing drunken men in our real world and in every possible world. He is an open expression meaning an open range of possible contents. |
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Nevertheless, there is a way in which this presence is different from the presence of a word or of a picture. It has not been actively produced (as one produces a word or draws an image)it has been picked up among the existing physical bodies and it has been shown or ostended. It is the result of a particular mode of sign production (Eco 1976:3.6). Ostension is one of the various ways of signifying, consisting in de-realizing a given object in order to make it stand for an entire class. But ostension is, at the same time, the most basic instance of performance. |
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You ask me, How should I be dressed for the party this evening? If I answer by showing my tie framed by my jacket and say, Like this, more or less, I am signifying by ostension. My tie does not mean my actual tie but your possible tie (which can be of a different stuff and color) and I am "performing" by representing to you the you of this evening. I am prescribing to you how you should look this evening. With this simple gesture I am doing something that is theater at its best, since I not only tell you something, but I also am offering you a model, giving you an order or a suggestion, outlining a utopia or a feasible project. I am not only picturing a given behavior, I am also in fact eliciting a behavior, emphasizing a duty, mirroring your future. In Jakobsonian terms, my message is at the same time a referential, a phatic, an imperative, an emotiveand (provided I move gracefully) it is aesthetic. By picturing your future way of dressing (through my present one) I have, however, added the verbal expression more or less. My performance, which was eminently visual and behavioral, has been accompanied by a verbal metalinguistic message establishing some criteria of pertinence. More or less signified making an abstraction from the particular stuff, color, and size of MY tie. It was a rather important device; it helped you to de-realize the object that was standing for something else. It was reducing |
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