Thanks in large part to, Street, I am beginning to wonder about the extent semiotics plays into the world of linguistics. Obviously, there are logographic writing systems that are read and studied as part of linguistics, but they are essentially symbols with meaning behind them. Linguistics at it’s most basic definition studies structure. Semiotics at it’s most basic definitions studies the making behind a meaning. Simple.
But then Street throws a wrench into this simplicity, by saying that the ideological model of literacy, “view[s] practices as inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in society and to recognise the variety of cultural practices associated with reading and writing in differ contexts.” (Street 434). But the way that he is describing the model sounds very similar to the manner in which semiotics is used by researchers to understand how different things carry different meanings to different people because everyone is coming from different cultural contexts.
I think, I’m starting to lose the point I had going into this, so I’ll start wrapping it up. I am left wondering if the case of semiotics and linguistics is like that of a square and a rectangle. You know, all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Except in this case I’m left thinking it goes, all the ideological model of literacy is semiotics, but not all semiotics studies are rooted in models of literacy if that makes any sense. Let the record show that I am still developing this theory*.
*If this makes any sense at all when I look back at it.
