WHAT IS A LETTER?
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Abstract
“What is a letter?” may at first seem to be a grammatological question; a question for those who study writing systems. Historically this question has often been seen as unproblematic – letters are symbols for sounds organised according to the alphabetic principle wherein each letter stands for a single phonetic segment. That alphabetic orthographies often depart from the alphabetic principle has, historically, not been taken as counter evidence undermining the legitimacy of the alphabetic principle but as evidence that letters have been misused (Harris 1986: 101). More recent studies of English orthography, such as those of Geoffrey Sampson (1985) and more recently and thoroughly Des Ryan (2011) have provided accounts of the variety of functions a letter can fulfil within alphabetic writing systems, rather than simply judging orthographies as they exist as degenerate realisations of an ideal principle.
Beyond grammatology, the extra-linguistic meanings attributed to “visual” or “material” aspects of letters is of increasing concern – notably in growing field of Linguistic Landscapes, as well as the semiotics of typography (Van Leeuwen 2005; 2006). For the grammatologist letters are differential units of orthography; for the visual-semiotician or sociolinguist the letter is often a polysemous aggregate of connotations. The non-positive, differential account of the letter and discussion of the semiotics of the embodied letter have at times been presented as fundamentally at odds with one another (cf. Drucker 1994: 44; Seargant 2012: 188). It will here be argued that rather than these two positions contradicting one another, each describes the letter in a different semiotic context.
Nevertheless the primacy of the differential nature of the letter will be here asserted; yet at the same time it will be argued that the differential letter is independent of language and orthography. Section five below provides a provisional sketch of a fundamental semiotics of the letter, underlying both the grammatological and visual-semiotic. By “fundamental semiotics of the letter” it is meant the semiotics of the letter prior to its exploitation in any particular sign-function or semiotic system. Regardless of any semiosis the letter enters into (be it within an orthography, a mathematical notation system, or in a linguistic landscape), the letter is in some sense, prior to any functional context, semiotic.
1. The immaterial controversy
The subject of this paper is the letters of the alphabet, yet this is not an investigation of the varieties of letters existing in history and the present. In discussion is the twenty-six or so letters of the modern European alphabet, derived from the Roman, used in various orthographies, notation systems and forms of graphic communication. When looked at orthographically, one could say that in each language that uses the alphabet, the letters (having special functions native to an orthography) are not the same (Crystal 1996: 292). However, my aim is to discuss the letter prior to its utilisation in a particular functional context. These twenty-six or so symbols have been developed into a set of components that can be used in a vast array of semiotic contexts.
Saussure (1974: 119–20) famously explained the non-positive nature of the phoneme by metaphorical reference to the letter ‹t›. Saussure provided three renderings of the letter and stated that they remain functionally identical whether rendered on a different surface or in a different manner. All that is necessary for a mark to function is recognition of its identity as ‹t› and recognition that it does not have another identity, such as ‹l›, etc. That Saussure was not attempting to develop a theory of writing, but to explain the phoneme is frequently overlooked. Nevertheless, we can accept that Saussure did (albeit indirectly) assert a theory of the semiotics of the letter through use of this metaphor. Saussure’s simple statements about the letter – that its identity is not tethered to any particular graphic realisation; that its purpose is to be differentiated from other letters – does not imply that the only possible semiotic function a letter can have is non-positive and differential, he simply gave the subject no attention.
Van Leeuwen, who in the opposite manner to Saussure explains writing with reference to speech, writes
This view of the ‘distinctive’ role of speech sounds is quite similar to the view that letterforms have no meaning in themselves […] In my view, however, distinctive features can become meaningful […] The same reasoning can be applied to the distinctive features of letterforms (2005: 141).
Van Leeuwen is of course correct: an embodied speech segment, or letter, can enter into any number of semioses. Yet it is vital to note that sound or graphic qualities communicate in addition to, not in contradiction with, the differential role of the phoneme in a phonology, or the letter in an orthography. As Umberto Eco wrote
a sign-function is realised when two functives (expression and content [or signifier and signified]) enter in a mutual correlation; the same functive can also enter into another correlation, thus becoming a different functive and therefore giving rise to a new sign-function. Thus signs are the provisional result of coding rules which establish transitory correlations of elements, each of these elements being entitled to enter – under given coded circumstances – into another correlation and thus form a new sign (1976: 49).
That is to say, whether a letter is taken as a “purely negative and differential” unit – whether three renderings of the letter ‹t› are taken to be functionally identical, as Saussure noted – or the three renderings provide independent meanings, depends upon what we are asking of the letter. Whether the three ‹t›s are dispersed in a text whose linguistic content is being deciphered, or whether they are seen as indexical evidence of the presence of particular authors (or any other semiosis) is not fixed. As expression functive substance the graphic mark is not obligated to any content.
Nevertheless all things are not equal. There is a fallacy in arguments that suggest that recognition of meaningful differences in rendering of letters contradicts the Saussurean point that letters are first of all differential units independent of any substantial realisation. As will be elaborated below, the fallacy lies in the fact that recognition of “visual”/“material” significance is dependent upon a prior recognition of the differential and non-material nature of the letter. It is only when a letter’s identity is recognised, that a particular embodiment can be taken as meaningful.
2. Potestas
David Abercrombie (1949: 59) defined the three attributes of the letter in classical grammar as follows – “figura was the letter as written, potestas as pronounced, and by its nomen it could be identified for discussion”. Although Abercrombie was concerned with the letter within orthography, this paper uses expanded definitions of these three attributes to discuss the fundamental semiotics of the letter.
If we begin by thinking about the semiotic function of the letter within alphabetic orthography, as noted above, the letter is often supposed to function according to the alphabetic principle: a letter’s potestas should be one sound, and one alone. Yet, that the alphabet was most likely invented (or developed) as a set of symbols standing for individual segments, does not explain the synchronic function of letters in actually existing orthographies.
As we know, the alphabetic principle does not account for English orthography. A very simple example: the letter ‹c› frequently stands for [s] and [k], sounds also indicated by ‹s› and ‹k›. In other contexts ‹c› can indicate [?] as in ‹precious›. And so on. English orthography cannot be explained as having a few anomalous deviations from the alphabetic principle. Even if one were to map all the possible sounds a letter or letter combinations refer to, this would still fail to explain the function of letters within English orthography. Even those orthographies which are said to be highly alphabetic, such as Finnish, depart from the alphabetic principle in their use of upper and lowercase letters as differences in symbols occur for reasons other than differences in sound. Often letters make visual distinctions which the spoken language fails to represent. It has been demonstrated by Sampson (1985: 203–204), that English orthography has tendencies towards logography, as letters combine not simply to stand for sounds but to form word symbols (logographs) allowing graphic distinction for homophones such as the various meanings and spellings for [ra?t]. Ryan has examined aspects of writing normally considered to fall outside of the English writing system, including constructed homophony (a form of non-standard spelling) (2011), and the use characters intentionally rendered to have more than one reading (2015). Ryan argues that these fringe activities serve to demonstrate the interaction of phonetic and graphic functions of letters in writing. There have also been numerous sociolinguistic studies into the role of non-standard orthography (or transgression of “highly-regulated” orthography) in the construction of cultural identity (Sebba 2012).
We need not go through this in further detail. It suffices to say that even within “standard” orthography the roles which letters play are varied and not yet fully understood. We can therefore expand Abercrombie’s sense of potestas from “sound” to any use to which the letter is put in a given system. Rather than thinking of a letter as relating to a particular sound in a given language, a letter is better thought of as a component used in writing; a component which we can put to various uses. The same components are used in various orthographies, in which they may have similar or entirely different functions. We can expand the meaning of potestas further, beyond the linguistic-orthographic, as letters can be, and in fact are, used in numerous notation systems, such as algebra and symbolic logic. Therefore the potestas belongs to a system but the letter does not. In a structural sense, the letter pre-exists the potestas which it is given.
The second definition for “letter” provided in Florian Coulmas’ (1996: 292) Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, is a function-based definition of letter as “a graphic symbol that represents one or more phonemes of a language [...] defined in terms of its function within a system that represents speech”. The potestas is the letter as it functions in a system. Although the system need not be orthographic-linguistic, we can (akin to Saussure and van Leeuwen), explain potestas with reference to the phoneme. In a phonology a phoneme is not defined by its positive phonetic substance, but according to its non-positive and differential nature. The term “grapheme”, in analogy with “phoneme”, has been used to describe the non-positive and differential nature of letters within orthographies (Vachek 1966). Others, notably Peter Daniels (1991), have rejected the term grapheme as theoretically imprecise.
There are several reasons why the term “grapheme” is here avoided. Firstly Daniels’ critique is valid: it seems inappropriate to apply a common term to such divergent writing systems as Chinese and English. Even within alphabetic orthographies there are difficulties with the term (cf. opposing views on whether upper and lowercase letters constitute independent graphemes in Crystal 2008: 220; and Sampson 1985: 25). More directly relevant, it is necessary here to assert that the letter is differential regardless of particular linguistic-orthographic contexts. “Grapheme” is a term used to describe a letter attributed with a particular non-positive differential role. But that to which is given a graphemic function – the letter itself – is already non-positive and differential.
As Sampson (1986: 20, 25) notes, a blackletter character and its roman type equivalent can be considered to be functionally identical despite differences in style. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, whether printed in blackletter or roman, involves functionally identical strings of letters: a sonnet read from either book would be the same sonnet. Within this specific semiotic context the visual difference would be functionally irrelevant. Another example is the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic which famously was printed in such haste that more than one typeface was used in the body of the text. The switches in typeface are orthographically irrelevant (however, their orthographic irrelevance does not preclude other semioses, as the presence of variations in character style is a necessary index of an authentic copy).
But there are notation systems which rely on letters in a similar manner to linguistic orthographies, as differential units, in which differences in typeface style is of vital importance. In the mathematical notation shown in figure one, blackletter and roman characters have been assigned precise potestates such that if the character set in blackletter were set in roman the equation would cease to make sense. This greater precision in differentiation does not mean the letters now function owing to graphic substance, or due to their “materiality”. What matters is that a distinct postestas has been applied not only to letters (e.g. ‹a› ? ‹b›) but to the particular style of the letters (e.g. ‹a› ? ‹a›).
It might be argued that mathematical notation is irrelevant: that it just so happens that letters are used when any other set of symbols would do. Such an argument would prioritise the letter’s historical role as indicator of sound and ignore its synchronic existence. Letters are graphic components used in various sorts of notation and are not tethered to the denotation of sound, nor linguistic use. Letters are symbols that have been developed into a uniquely vast inventory of stylistic variations that can be rendered with a great many technologies (from pencil to specialist software LaTeX) and can be recognised with even greater rapidity and ease. Letters certainly do not construct mathematical meaning (they are arbitrary), but they are the best materials available.
That the letter is not tethered to sound can be clarified with reference to Saussure’s explanation of linguistic identity through the metaphor of the 8.25am Geneva to Paris train. Regardless of whether the train is composed of new carriages and passengers each day, we recognise that it is the same train each day owing to its being functionally identical (Saussure 1974: 108). We need to reverse this metaphor to understand the letter. To prioritise the letters linguistic function over all others is akin to calling a car that once carried passengers to the capital of France, “to Paris”. The letter has an identity prior to any of its functions.
3. Figura
If the letter is not defined according to a particular potestas, but is rather that to which a potestas is given, must it be defined as figura – as shape?
As already discussed letters come in different shapes, and we have seen that sometimes these different shapes are given precise potestates (as in the mathematical notation), and sometimes variations in letter style will not carry such a precisely defined function (as in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic). In each of the tens of thousands of typefaces available the letters are designed slightly differently. The letters will further be rendered differently depending upon the quality of printing or digital display they are realised through. And each person’s handwriting will render letters differently again. Yet, we recognise such variations not as unique symbols but as different renderings of the same letters. This identity is independent of attributed potestas: the mathematical notation supplies potestas to different versions of the same letter, and the Proclamation does not.
On the book cover shown in figure two there are two styles of letter. The letter ‹a› in ‹graphics handbook› and in ‹Ken Garland› is orthographically identical. Yet clearly the shapes are communicatively different. It is not my purpose to develop an analysis of the visual semiotics involved here, but let us say for the sake of demonstration that the author’s name being set in a sans-serif connotes matter-of-factness, and the title lettering being composed of a modular units is iconic of the modernist approach to graphic design which the book endorses. Such semiotics of the letter can be referred to as the connotative or semantic values associated with letterforms. Whatever the meaningful difference between the styles, this connotative semiotics of the letter is not of the same nature as the differences in letter style in the mathematical notation example. In the mathematical notation a precisely and unambiguously defined difference in potestas is applied to the letter styles and on the book cover it is not. Nevertheless, the following point is both fundamental and crucial: just as in the orthographic context the recognition of (connotative/semantic) meaningful differences in the styling of letters on the book cover is completely dependent firstly on recognition of the two differently-styled shapes sharing, in an abstract sense, the same identity. The different meanings attributed to each letter ‹a› must follow recognition that both are in fact ‹a›: both belong to the same abstract conventional category, and it is the differences in realisation of this identical abstraction that allows semantic/connotative meaning to enter.
4. Nomen
Ultimately, if a letter is neither function (potestas) nor shape (figura), the letter is to be understood as nomen. Here nomen does not mean literally “name”, as name varies across languages, but the associative category to which the letter belongs. This is Charles S. Peirce’s symbol at its fullest degree of abstraction – its meaning conventionally established independent of particular instances of its occurrence. Peirce’s explanation of the symbol with written and spoken words as examples applies equally to the letter:
[the symbol is] itself a kind and not a single thing. You can write down the word ‘star’, but that does not make you creator of the word, nor if you erase it have you destroyed the word. The word lives in the minds of those who use it (1931–58: 169).
And,
we speak of writing or pronouncing the word ‘man’; but it is only a replica, or embodiment of the word, that is pronounced or written. The word itself has no existence although it has a real being, consisting in the fact that existents will conform to it (1931–58: 165–66).
Likewise, the embodied letter regardless of the peculiarity of its embodiment is a token of a non-embodied abstraction. This definition of the letter as nomen is similar to the first definition of letter supplied by Coulmas in his encyclopaedia of writing systems:
[a letter is] one of a class of shapes which are recognized as instances of abstract graphic concepts which represent the basic units of an alphabetic writing system. Each of these units has a name, for example ei, si, kei. Thus the letter em is the class of all Ms no matter how they are shaped; more precisely, it is the class of all conceivable letter shapes to which the name em applies (1996: 292).
To this we must, however, add several qualifications. Firstly, as already noted, letters are not united under a “name” tethered to a specific phonetic/orthographic realisation such as “em”, but are held in a general category here called a nomen. More importantly, the “alphabetic writing system” to which a letter belongs need not be linguistic-orthographic. Finally the definition of letter as an associative category uniting various shapes is not one definition of the letter sitting next to the Coulmas’ orthographic definition (see section two above), but structurally must precede the exploitation of the letter with attributed potestas in a given orthography or other system.
5. Paradigm figura
Coulmas (1996: 292) notes that regarding the variety of shapes held to be the same letter, “it is difficult, if not impossible, to define these prototypes in terms of invariant graphical features”. Coulmas is correct that a definitive inventory of the shapes united under a nomen cannot be provided. However we can, with the aid of a metaphor of Peirce’s, shed some light on how it is that certain tokens are united under the same nomen.
Between the pure abstraction of the symbol and its particular substantial realisation as token, there are what are here called paradigm figura. On the one hand, these paradigm figura are what particular letter tokens approximate, and at the same time, the paradigm figura result from a generalisation of all prior letter tokens. When the typeface designer opens FontLab, or when we lift a pen, we approximate a particular paradigm figura. At the same time, the sum of such approximations leads to a continual morphing of the paradigm itself.
Peirce’s metaphor of the composite photograph is here relevant. The composite photograph was a nineteenth-century technique in which photographic portraits were overlaid in an attempt to determine human types. Despite the scientifically dubious nature of this practice, Peirce found it useful in metaphorically describing the nature of certain concepts. The idea of ‘yellow’ is not held mentally as a specific light-wave frequency, but rather as an approximation based on previously experienced yellows (Hookway 2002: 29). Likewise, when we think of an object such as a ‘chair’ we conceive of a mental composite image of previously encountered chairs, the overlay of which forms the general idea of chair. In a similar way we can think of paradigm figura of letters not as precisely defined schemas, but as soft-edged composite images.
The uppercase ‹A› in most roman typefaces and non-cursive handwriting adheres approximately to the following structure: two lines descend diagonally left and right from an apex, linked by a horizontal line. An inscribed letter that adheres to these rules is a token of this paradigm figura. That a serifed ‹A› has ‘feet’ and a bold sans-serif ‹A› has a flat rather than pointed apex are the details with softer edges in the composite image of the paradigm: their presence or absence does not inhibit recognition of the figura.
The symbol is entirely abstract. All that the symbol demands of its paradigm figura is that they are agreed to be, by convention, paradigm figura of the symbol. The paradigm figura is also abstract in that it is independent of any substantial realisation. However, unlike the relationship of symbol to paradigm, the relationship of token to paradigm figura does demand that certain attributes be approximated. In Eco’s terms (1976: 184), the type/token ratio is one of ratio facilis meaning that for the token only “some features are pertinent and some others are variable and inessential for the isolation of the given-unit”.
It is overly simplistic to imagine that letter-tokens are independent realisations of paradigm figura: letter-tokens are most often realised as members of alphabets – typeface or lettering styles. These alphabets themselves impose constraints and conventions on how the token realises the paradigm. In a sans-serif alphabet – such as that of Helvetica – every stroke will most likely be in reference to a paradigm figura. In contrast, in a script typeface some strokes will be flourishes that do not relate to a paradigmatic form but to the typefaces own native stylistic conventions. In essence each alphabet establishes native coding conventions determining how the letter-tokens fulfil paradigms. Such native coding conventions are unique to each alphabet, but they are not entirely freely invented, as native coding conventions are themselves often governed by more general conventions – which we can call paradigm coding conventions.
Returning to figure two, ‹graphics handbook› is rendered in a modernist modular style. Such alphabets are constructed with a minimum of possibilities – all letters the same width, all strokes the same thickness, all curves perfect circle arcs, etc. Thus the design method forces the letters to depart from paradigm figura due to adherence to native coding conventions at the expense of paradigm coding conventions.
In contrast, a more conventional printed alphabet, such as that found in the typeface Times New Roman, is governed by conventions not only found in Times. Certain strokes are heavier than others – it is “stressed” – and serifs of a particular style occur at particular points. The placing of serifs and stress are more or less the same as many other roman typefaces. In that sense they follow a paradigmatic sets of coding conventions. But what makes Times Times is the subtleties in the exact application of the coding conventions. It is in this sense that they are “native” to Times. Further native conventions determine, among many other things, the relative proportions of the letters – in the case of Times there is a large x-height and short ascenders and descenders – and equally all exceptional “conventions” which may have only one application.
Conclusion
Letters pre-exist – structurally if not historically – the systems (or contexts) that supply them with functions. Nevertheless, letters are not semiotically neutral prior to their exploitation in particular semiotic systems. Letters have been developed into a uniquely vast range of styles that can be rendered and recognised with ease in an array of functional contexts. What allows this is recognition of the letter as nomen – it is only when the identity of letters is recognised that visual similarities and differences can become meaningful. Saussure was more or less correct in his description of the letter as non-positive and differential, but this applies to letters more broadly, not just within alphabetic orthographies. Whether ‹t› looks like any of his three examples is not at first important, as long as each is recognised as ‹t›. It is only after this recognition of identity that the visual semiotician can note differences in renderings of ‹t›, and thus detect a specific content.
The semiotic richness of the letter resides in the fact that prior to its exploitation in a particular sign-function or semiotic system, there are several stages to its realisation, and at each of which a precise potesatas can be applied, or a visual-semiotic distinction can be made. This is the fundamental semiotics of the letter, which underlies the use of letters in any particular semiotic context. In standard orthographies the potestas is applied at the level of symbol. As we have seen, in certain forms of mathematical notation, different paradigm figura of a symbol (themselves governed by paradigm coding conventions) can be supplied with potestates creating a greater degree of differentiation than is found in standard orthographies. The example of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic demonstrates that this richness is also at work in semiotic contexts not governed by strict potestates. Orthographically all the symbols that are realised as differently styled tokens on the Proclamation have the same potestas. However, because the symbols have slight differences in their approximation of paradigm figura, the tokens are then able to serve as indices of the authenticity of the document.
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