Review by A. Nicholas Packwood
York University, Toronto, Canada

This book is an interdisciplinary introduction to semiotics as an expository model and could also claim to be an introduction to the history of the study of sign systems. It is a work which attempts to serve as a "handbook" for researchers and students by introducing terminologies and typologies in historical context and with reference to parallel semiotic schema. Although the book reflects a comprehensive engagement with its subject matter it is unclear whether this book should be read as an introductory reader, a reference manual, or as a history book.

It is hardly necessary to comment on Thomas Sebeok's towering role in anthropology and semiotics both individually and with collaboratively with figures such as Umberto Eco and Marcel Danesi. This introduction to semiotics is more precisely an introduction to Sebeok's intellectual project. The first section introduces Sebeok's vision of semiotis as more than a "modelling system" (p. 4). Such a system would exclude the natural semiotic systems from which examples are drawn thoughout the book. Semiosis is defined by the exchange of messages regardless of whether these messages are being passed between humans, non- humans or even in conjunction with supernatural entities. The only limit imposed on information exchange is the minimal unit of the cell (p. 6 ). It is this attention to non-human semiosis which distinguishes Sebeok's work from a text in literary criticism or linguistics. Semiotics is never separated from the sub-disciplines of zoosemiotics or phytosemiotics. The "biosemiotics" advanced finds its place alongside ethology and developmental psychology (p. 39) and more broadly as a master-science encompassing not only these parallel disciplines but the entirety of physics (pp. 6-7).

The second section is perhaps the most useful aspect of the book to readers new to the study of sign systems. With many overlapping and sometimes contradictory typological schema for classifying signs Sebeok advances his model which incorporates "six species of signs" which he elaborates on with separate sections for signals, symptoms, icons, indexes, symbols and names (pp. 17-38). The following six chapters devoted to these "species" make up the bulk of the remainder of this work with each term being situated in relation to each other in Sebeok's typology and in relation to other uses of the term in other semiotic models. In addition to these six general types a further two sections (chapters six and seven) explore fetish signs and language signs. Sebeok's rejoinders to pejorative uses of the term "fetish" make up one of the liveliest sections of the book (p. 94). These definitions and little histories are a boon to the jargon befuddled student once unclear as to these distinctions. It is a further help to clarity in anthropology as a discipline to have an authoratative reference such that scholars working in semiotics need not argue at cross- purposes over semantics.

Sebeok's semiotics reflects a reverence for the work of American philosopher and linguist Charles Saunders Peirce (1839-1914). Pierce's linguistic model is often distinguished from Ferdinand de Saussure's in its introduction the "interpretant" into the otherwise bipartite nature of the sign as part representation and part real. This model is articulated in the context of the "medical origins of semiotics." (pp. 48-60) Sebeok articulates this relationship between medicine and semiotics acknowledging Michel Foucault's contemporary work and bridging back through Peirce to classical Greek philosophy. Pithy outlines of Hippocrates as father of medicine and father of semiotics are supplemented by a brief and clear demonstration of Galen' relationship to Hippocrates (pp. 50-54).

The final section of the book focuses on the "primary modelling system" of human verbal communication. Diagrams make an otherwise daunting complexity relatively straightforward for readers new to the subject. This focus allows Sebeok to delineate the models of the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics and their debt to the work of Jakob von Uexkull (pp. 117-124). A final response is made to the concerns of these approaches using Peirce and Sebeok's interest in ethology as contrasting and, in Sebeok's view, ultimately more comprehensive models.

While there is much to recommend in this introduction to semiotics there are a few caveats for the prospective reader. For students new to semiotics Sebeok's unabashed allegiance to the work of C.S. Peirce should be balanced with readings in F. de Saussure and A.J. Greimas. These structuralist linguistic alternatives find there way into anthropology in important ways and particularly through the structuralism of Claude Levi- Strauss. There is a sense of "Peirce as master" which underlies Sebeok's approach which should be taken with a grain of salt. In addition to this general concern for an introduction to semiotics is the failure of this work to acknowledge or address more radical alternatives to the linguistic heritage of Pierce and de Saussure. While Foucault is generously credited for elaborating on the relationship of the symptoms and syndromes of medicine to those of language his critique of totalizing models such as that offered by this book are neatly side- stepped. Similarly the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida and the pragmatism of Gilles Deleuze are ignored altogether. This is a shame as Sebeok's certain criticism could have shed interesting light on broader intellectual debates between Anglo-American and Continental philosophy.

One of these debates concerns the empiricist and natural science reading Sebeok offers for communication. References to animal models are made throughout the work in the context of ethology. The approaches of ethology and sociobiology are controversial in their appplicability to human culture and society. Some of this controversy may find itself played out in readings of this book. Sebeok asserts that sign systems are characterized by inverse variations in oppositional terms where "left terms" are subordinate to "right terms" (pp. 39-40). This assertion finds a parallel with the dualisms of aggression/submission and maleness/femaleness (p. 103) offered by Sebeok and which are typical of the logic of ethology. Such an assertion is undoubtably controversial and should have been addressed as such. There is an almost admirable light in which Sebeok attempts to articulate his project in these terms without in any way acknowledging the contentiousness of his outlook. While his audacity is to be appreciated this controversy should have been broached by the book first to establish its epistemological position within the social sciences and second to establish its model in contrast with those from linguistics or literary criticism.

A remaining concern for the reader new to semiotics is the sometimes gnomic exposition of differing typologies and often eulogistic descriptions of semioticians. These make this introcution somewhat awkward as such when compared with the introductory text produced by Sebeok's colleague Marcel Danesi: "Messages and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics." (Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press, 1994). The occasional anecdote from Sebeok's personal history of conference attendance (p. 15, pp. 117-118) does not add to the work and lends a clubby air to the work which, when read alongside to accolades to Peirce, can begin to grate. With these reservations this introduction is a good place to begin work in semiotics both for the beginner and also for the researcher who will find Sebeok's bibliography and exposition throughout to be an invaluable resource.