DOI: 10.24308/iass-2014-107

University of Torino, Italy

mattia.thibault@gmail.com

Abstract

Nowadays academical interest towards video games is endemic, however, many other playful activities are ignored, despite their cultural importance. Among these activities, toy-play is a potentially fruitful object of analysis.

There are rather few works that focus on toys: psychologists  Donald Winnicott and Erick Erickson both dedicated important essays to them; Eugen Fink and his “Oasis of Happiness” bring a valid contribution to the study of toys and Gregory Bateson underlines the importance of the material characteristics of toys. Jurij Lotman is the only semiotician whose interest for toys is more than episodic: he investigates on the differences between statues and dolls, on the role of fantasy in toy-play, and on the latter own modeling ability.

However, despite the fact that toys are a relevant cultural phenomenon, a systematic semiotic approach to them has never been implemented, although, in the author's opinion, it would be strongly desirable.

The aim of this paper, hence, is to promote an extended semiotic study on toys, by providing a heuristic definition of this object of study as well as some tools of analysis – based on Graimas, Hjemslev and Lotman's theories and a semiotic survey on the non-semiotic works of many scholars.

In particular the author will give a definition of toys based on Caillois forms of play, and argue that the objects that we call toys can be considered signs. Hence, the author focuses on the definition of the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the linguistic-like activity of playing with toys, in order to shed some light on its mechanics and implications.

In the conclusions the author claims that toy-play can be considered an activity in between authorship and readership, and serve the purpose of autocommunication, as described by Lotman.

1. Introduction

Toys are relevant. They are between the most ancient artifacts created by man: found both in Egyptian tombs and in the excavation of the Indus valley: a toyless human civilization doesn't exist. Nowadays toys are an industrial mass products, and one of the most popular western festivities – Christmas – has become centered around them. Toys, in addition, are linked to puppets, to animated films and, of course, to videogames; even the main characters of successful films as Toy Story, Small Soldiers, Lego the Movie and many others, are toys.

Despite all this, toys are generally neglected in Academia. A few works focusing on toys does exist, but they mainly focus on the psycho-therapeutic functions of toy-play, or on the history of toys. Even fundamental works on play, such a Caillois (1967) and Huizinga (2002[1938]) fail to focus properly on toys or, in the latter case, to even mention them.

Among the few works on toys we should mention Erikson's (1977) and Winnicott's (1971) works about toys and psychoanalysis, Fink's (1969[1957]) Oasis of Happiness, in which the German philosopher focus briefly on toys. Finally, Bateson (1956) makes some consideration about the connection between toys and lightness.

Semiotics also has generally ignored toys: Barthes (1957: 55–56) dedicates a couple of pages of his mythologies to criticize contemporary French toys and Lotman (1980) focuses on dolls and puppets from a semiotic perspective.

A semiotic theory regarding this aspect of the human playful behavior is, in my opinion, strongly desirable. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to promote the establishment of such theory by outlining the basis of a semiotic analysis of toys.

2. What are toys?

By definition toys are related to playfulness. However, the semantic field of the word “play” is very vast and heterogeneous, ranging from videogames to theater or illusions. If we want our analysis to be pertinent, we will have to restrict our definition of play. As Huizinga (2002[1938]) second chapter shows, the semantic field of “play” is greatly contrasting in different languages. It would be appropriate, then, exclude from our definition of play, all the activities that – even if semantically related to it – are not universally considered playful: for example every form of show (music, theater, cinema, etc.), hoaxes and illusions, all considered “play” only in a limited amount of languages.

In the same way we should exclude all metaphoric uses of the words related to playfulness – as, for example, expressions like “toy-boy” – from our analysis.

Finally we should exclude the digital supports of videogames (as well as similar analogue supports for book-games) from the list of items used to play: in this case playfulness is not related to their material ontology, but to their being media.

2.1. Playful items and Caillois' forms of play

Even if Roger Caillois didn't write anything relevant on toys, his famous typology of play should help us investigate the different kinds of items used to play. The sociologist (Caillois 1967, the English translations have been found in Salen and Zimmerman 2006) draws a typology of four forms of play, which appear to focus on the (pleasurable) sensations given by different ways of playing. These categories should help us differentiating the many items used to play, on the basis of the form of play involved.

2.1.1. Agon

First of all we have agon, which involves, basically, competition and puzzle solving. Caillois describe it like:

a combat in which equality if chances is artificially created, in order that the adversaries should confront each other under ideal conditions, susceptible of giving precise and incontestable value to the winner's triumph. (…) Such is the case with sports contests and the reason for they very many subdivision. (…) In the same class belong the games in which, at the outset, the adversaries divide the elements int equal parts and values.

Salen and Zimmerman (2006: 131)

The author also gives some examples, as polo, tennis, football, fencing, golf, athletics, checkers, chess and billiards.

The items necessary to play an agon game, thus, consist of the many kinds of balls, clubs, bats and, in general, of every kind of sport equipment. In addition, many of the items related to boardgames pertain to agon too, as boards, pieces and playing cards.

All these items are necessary to execute some kinds of activity: they can be both objects of value (like balls or flags) or helpers and competences (clubs or ice-skates) in order to allow the player to perform the game.

2.1.2. Alea

The second form of play is alea, which comprehends all play based on chance and randomness. According to Caillois alea designates:

all games that are based on a decision independent of the player, an outcome over which he has no control, and in which winning is the result of fate rather than triumphing over an adversary. Perfect examples of this type are provided by games of dice, roulette, heads or tails, baccara, lotteries etc. Here, not only does one refrain from trying to eliminate the injustice of chance, bu rather it is the very capriciousness of chance that constitutes the unique appeal of the game.

Salen and Zimmerman (2006: 133)

Items related to alea, then, are dice, playing cards (because of their being shuffleable), roulettes, slot machines, bingo counters and electronic random number generators.

These items substitute the player's performance, giving an unpredictable and unquestionable outcome. In complex games exploiting alea items, as role-playing games, the player's competences may be represented as modifiers to the result of the dice (e.g. a 10 faced die's result, plus 2) which indicates a higher or lower likeliness of succeeding in the performance (the sanction being generally based on a numeric value to reach with the combination of the die throw and the modifiers).

2.1.3. Mimicy

Mimicry, is the form of play that involves imitation and disguise. Caillois describe it as:

a diverse series of manifestations, the common element of which is that the subject makes believe or makes others believe that he is someone other than himself. He forgets, disguise, or temporarily sheds his personality in order to feign another.

Salen and Zimmerman (2006: 135)

His examples focus mainly on self disguise, and comprehends role-playing and carnival-like activities, which involve items such as masks, costumes and replicae of objects or people (like toy-swords and human-sized dolls). However, another form of mimicry that is very common involves the creation of another world in a smaller scale. Even if Caillois doesn't mention it in his book, this form of play is clearly related to mimicry because its features of imitation and make believe. Items related to this kind of mimicry are construction sets, puppets, figurines and models.

These objects are able to play many different actantial roles in a play session – especially the figurines – their key characteristic it in not the structural place that they occupy in the canonical narrative schema, but the fact that they all play important thematic roles – their thematic nature being precisely what makes the make-believe possible.

2.1.4. Ilinx

The last form of play is ilinx, from the ancient Greek word for “dizziness”, vertigo. According to Caillois it:

consist of an attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon the otherwise lucid mind. In all cases, it is a question of surrendering to a kind of spasm, seizure, or shock which destroys reality with sovereign brusqueness.

Salen and Zimmerman (2006: 138)

Therefore to ilinx pertain all the kinds of play that involve a rapid and/or spinning movement which produces a state of dizziness in the player. Items related to ilinx are: trampolines, sleighs, carousels, roller coasters, ice-skates, pogo sticks, skateboards and so on.

These items don't play any actantial or thematic roles, nor they simulate a performance, but they appear as devices aiming at recreating a sort of artificial saisie aestéthique ('aesthetic seizure', Greimas 1987) overloading the player's senses and lowering the control on his own body.

These four forms of play aren't exclusives, but they can be present, in different measures, in different games and items. Merry-go-rounds, for example, although being spinning devices dedicated to ilinx, are also related to a theme (e.g. the baroque horses of the ancient carousels) which bring them closer to mimicry. On the other hand, the first performance in many team sports it's a coin toss to decide which team will kick-off, mixing alea with agon.

This overview on the items commonly used in the different forms of play, gives an idea of their number, variety and differences. It also shows that, even if toys are items used for play, not all items used for play are toys.

2.2. Defining toys

The Online Oxford dictionary defines a toy as: “an object for a child to play with, typically a model or a miniature replica of something”. This definition both circumscribe an audience – a childish one – and underline a characteristic – being a replica of something else. However, toys are rarely a perfect replica of something, they rather are a support that, featuring some basic formal resemblance to a referent, is invested by an interpretative/imaginative activity that transforms it during the play. This hypoiconic nature makes toys a subset of the items used in mimicry, in particular those that involve a free, unregulated and creative play behavior, typical of children – what Caillois names paidia.

Fink (1969 [1957]: 9) states that toys are objects of a particular kind because they have different values according to the point of view – playful or not – adopted. Seen from outside play, toys are perceived as a commodity, an object covering the function of entertaining children. On the other hand, toys seen from inside play, have some “magic” feature that transforms them into something else, something more. This magic feature, in semiotics terms, is nothing else than semiosis, which arises only when the competence in the semiotic domain of play (Nieuwdorp 2005) is activated.

2.3. Toy, signs and texts

Toys, therefore, are not only cultural texts, but they can be considered individual signs. According to Oxford’s definition of toys being “replicae” of something, we can assume that they consist mainly in hypoiconic signs, imitating some of the features of their model. As many different types of toys exist, however, we can individuate both quite complex and very simple signs.

In addition, the degree of resemblance between toys and models can variate a lot. Toys are not always manufactured: also a stone or a stick can be used as toys, basing their meaning in a vague resemblance with some human artifact (Fink 969 [1957]: 8). There are several different degrees of detailedness, then, that separate the ideal referent from the actual toy-sign.

3. Toy-play as a language

Toy-play, hence, consists in the discursive organization of a certain amount of toys-signs. This kind of playful activity firstly organizes a limited amount of toys – those who are owned by the player – in a system and subsequently exploits this system in order to give birth to a discursive utterance. Toy-play puts together a system of signs and utterances, a langue and a parole, and thus it can – and should – be considered a language.

In this third section, therefore, we will investigate the features of toy-signs – in particular their form and substance of expression (Hjelmslev 1943) – and then attempt to outline the structure and working of toy-play, focusing on its syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

3.1. Substance of expression

Toys' substance of expression is simply the material of which toys are made. The material features of a toy, however, are particularly important both because of the toy's purpose of being handled and for the metonymic or onomatopoetic relationship that certain materials are able to evoke. A rather interesting example on the importance and meaningfulness of the substance of expressions of toys can be found in Barthes (1957).

Beaucoup sont maintenant moulés dans des pâtes compliquées ; la matière plastique y a une apparence à la fois grossière et hygiénique, elle éteint le plaisir, la douceur, l'humanité du toucher. Un signe consternant, c'est la disparition progressive du bois, matière pourtant idéale par sa fermeté et sa tendreur, la chaleur naturelle de son contact ; le bois ôte, de toute forme qu'il soutient, la blessure des angles trop vifs le froid chimique du métal ; lorsque l'enfant le manie et le cogne, il ne vibre ni ne grince, il a un son sourd et net à la fois ; c'est une substance familière et poétique, qui laisse l'enfant dans une continuité de contact avec l'arbre, la table, le plancher. Le bois ne blesse, ni ne se détraque ; il ne se casse pas, il s'use, peut durer longtemps, vivre avec l'enfant, modifier peu à peu les rapports de l'objet et de la main ; s'il meurt, c'est en diminuant, non en se gonflant, comme ces jouets mécaniques qui disparaissent sous la hernie d'un ressort détraqué. Le bois fait des objets essentiels, des objets de toujours. Or il n'y a presque plus de ces jouets en bois, de ces bergeries vosgiennes, possibles, il est vrai, dans un temps d'artisanat. Le jouet est désormais chimique, de substance et de couleur : son matériau même introduit à une cénesthésie de l'usage, non du plaisir. Ces jouets meurent d'ailleurs très vite, et une fois morts, ils n'ont pour l'enfant aucune vie posthume.

Barthes (1957: 56)

[Current toys are made of a graceless material, the product of chemistry, not of nature. Many are now molded from complied mixtures; the plastic material of which they are made has an appearance at once gross and hygienic, it destroys all the pleasure, the sweetness, the humanity of touch. A sign which fills one with consternation is the gradual disappearance of wood, in spite of its being an ideal material because of its firmness and its softness, and the natural warmth of its touch. Wood removes, from all the forms which it supports, the wounding quality of angles which are too sharp, the chemical coldness of metal. When the child handles it and knocks it, it neither vibrates nor grates, it has a sound at once mumed and sharp. It is a familiar and poetic substance, which does not sever the child from close contact with the tree, the table, the floor. Wood does not wound or break down; it does not shatter, it wears out, it can last a long time, live with the child, alter little by little the relations between the object and the hand. If it dies, it is in dwindling, not in swelling out like those mechanical toys which disappear behind the hernia of a broken spring. Wood makes essential objects, objects for all time. Yet there hardly remain any of these wooden toys from the Vosges, these fretwork farms with their animals, which were only possible, it is true, in the days of the craftsman. Henceforth, toys are chemical in substance and colour; their very material introduces one to a coenaesthesis of use, not pleasure. These toys die in fact very quickly, and once dead, they have no posthumous life for the child.] (Barthes 2013: 54–55)

Barthes criticism of the “French toy”, although drove by nostalgia, shows the importance of the sensory feeling while dealing with toys and, at the same time, underlines the emerging opposition between reality and play. Playfulness tend to escape from reality and the material dedicated to it reflect this tendency. In particular, Bateson (1956: 54) notes that toys are related with unreal lightness, both for concerns of safety and because play often take possession of everything that feels unreal (let's think, for instance, at the effect that a sudden snow has on people and animals), however also bright colors and smoothness are typical toys' “unreal” characteristics.

Some particular malleable materials made especially for play, as Plasticine and Play-doh, let players to shape toy-signs at will. These materials are not toys, but a substance of expression thought to allow an easy sign creation for a language that, typically, uses manufactured signs.

3.2. Form of expression

The importance of details is underlined also by Lotman (1980) who investigates the links between dolls and statues. According to him, the main difference between toys and work of art is the amount of details that they feature. Statues have many details in order to convey the artist's message, while dolls have less details, leaving to the player the freedom of completing their meaning. We could say that, if for art the textual nature is predominant, toys are meant to be used as part of a system.

The amount of details among toys, however, is also changeable and meaningful, varying the amount of information that the toy-sign is able to convey. Considering toys as part of a narration will allow us to borrow Greimas' terminology in order to differentiate three kinds of toys:

· Actant toys: those are the less detailed toys, generally they are not manufactured objects (as sticks and stones), objects made for other purposes (corks, pens) or toys and playful items converted (marbles, construction bricks). They are both the less meaningful and the more versatile toys. Providing a simple support for the player's creativity, they can fulfill basically any position in the actantial model and play any thematic role.

· Thematic toys: those are probably the most common kind of toys, featuring enough details to indicate a precise thematic role or figure (ranging from a farm, to a sword, from a pirate to a Ferrari toy car). These toys are less versatile – their thematic role is fixed – but their meaningfulness is increased as well.

· Actor toys: this kind comprehends all toy-signs which represent an actor both animate (Batman, Barbie) and inanimate (Excalibur, Back to the Future's Delorean or even the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry). Their intertextual nature makes these toys particularly meaningful, as they carry with them roles, figures, relations, background narrations and thymic values. This increased meaningfulness, however, is parallel to a decreasing versatility of the toy, that will always be susceptible of reinterpretations, but for which it will be harder to escape from his predetermined meaning. Actor toys are the closest to statues and their adult versions, action figures, are no longer for play but of aesthetic decoration.

Parallel to these three, a fourth kind of toys exist, including those toy-signs, as Lego and construction sets, which are made of discrete parts and have a modular nature. Their peculiar form of expression allows the player to recombine them in order to create new toy-signs belonging to any of the three categories above.

3.3. Toy-play syntax

Toy-play is a peculiar language, similar to idiolects. Its main feature is that the system comprehends a very small amount of signs, including proper toys and objects that cover the function of toys. This set of signs is hardly the same for two different players: toy-signs cannot be easily produced, and are generally purchased. However, toys are industrially produced by thousands and very different types do exist. In addition, many different objects can, unpredictably, become improper toys. Non manufactured toys, finally, come in all shapes and forms, as they are subjects of natural creation. Every player, therefore, own a very personal set of toy-signs, often accumulated in years, that is highly different from any other. Still, not only the types of toy-signs, but also the number of owned tokens is relevant: at every moment of the utterance – the play-session – each toy-sign can be used only once for every token owned.

The literacy in toy-play language, hence, doesn't depend only on the player's competence in the syntactic rules, but also on the possession of the necessary toy-signs.

If the signs belonging to the system are always different, their organization in utterances appear to be far more regular. According to Erikson (1977) and Winnicott (1971) each play-session (utterance) is articulated in two moments.

Firstly toys are chosen, distributed among players, and arranged in space. This is a synchronous phase of creativity and it is highly meaningful: in this stage children playing with toys always create a scene. The reciprocal position of the objects in that scene, shapes the syntactic links and relationships between all the toy-signs. The toy-signs are arranged in positions of domination and subordination, can be close or distant from each other and form groups and oppositions. An in-depth analysis of all those relationships and their thymic values would be, obviously, impossible here. At any rate, it is important to underline the importance of the creation of the scene, which is the most meaningful phase of the utterance.

After the creation of the scene, a second, more dynamic phase begins. The toy-signs are moved, used, removed, displaced, disassembled and sometimes even destroyed. The scene evolves the meaning of toys and their relationships change. The initial situation becomes the starting point of a narration in which toys become actants and their thematic roles, when present, participate in the creation of a setting. This phase is probably more “playful” and less serious than the first one: entertainment becomes prominent, overshadowing the communicative aspects of toy-play.

Both moments are eventually accompanied by onomatopoetic sounds and pieces of dialogues, sometime only thought, produced by the player(s) which explicit and emphasize the utterance without being part of the toy-language.

3.4. Toy-play semantics

We have seen that toys, as replicae, can be considered hypoiconic sings and thus have a direct, explicit relationship with their referent. Toy-signs place in the discourse, so, is often isomorphic to the position hold by their referent. A toy-policeman will probably chase toy-thieves a well as a toy-sword's function is to pretend to cut other players or invisible enemies. However, as we have said above, a degree of semantic manipulation is always possible: actant toys are open to infinite interpretations, thematic toys can cover different actantial roles and even actor toys can be resemantized by the player's authorship. This versatility of toys-signs is necessary to remedy at the limitations of the sign system: with only a limited number of versatile toy-signs the player will be able to create many different narrations.

Toy-play, however, appear to have also a second, underlying semantic system. According to Winnicott (1971) children while playing with toys, do re-enact the ideas that occupy their lives. This representation is never explicit, but proceed with metaphors, in particular, the creation of the scene is strongly influenced by the symbolic values attributed to the different toy-signs. Even if the psychological implications of this theory are not of interest for semiotics, I believe this second semantic system still worth of investigation. This implicit re-enactment of the player's life, is not a simple unconscious reflex, but also an act of self-communication. In other words, the player's utterance has two layers of possible interpretations: one about the scenes and events narrated in the play session, and the other being an expression of the player himself.

Both these messages, however, are extremely difficult to decode and interpret apart from the sender and the designated receiver – which are often the same person. The meaning investment of toy-signs, due to their versatility, is strictly related to their interpretation. If a player wants to share his play session with another player or an audience, he must explain every sign he exploits, by using another – typically verbal – language to explicit its meaning. The specific semantic value of a toy-sign in an utterance, then, is not explicit, but it is an interpretative choice of the player, which is, at the same time, a reader and an author.

3.5. Toy-play pragmatics

Due to the difficulty of interpretation of toy-play semantics, playing with toys mainly assumes the form of a monologue. The player plays alone, focused, needless of an audience. The player chooses the toy-signs to use and, after giving a particular meaning to each, starts to build the scene and after that, to develop a narration.

Winnicott (1971: 178) writes that a child playing with toys is communicating with himself, with his own, observing, ego. In (more accurate) semiotic terms toy-play pertain to the culturally relevant activity that Lotman (1990) defines “auto-communication”. According to the Tartu-Moskow scholar:

In the I-I system the bearer of the information remains the same but the message is reformulated and acquires new meaning during the communication process. This is the result of introducing a supplementary, second, code; the original message is recoded into elements of its structure and thereby acquires features of a new message. (…) the I-I system qualitatively transforms the information, and this leads to a restructuring of the actual I itself.

Lotman (1990: 22)

In this case the “second code” is the language of toys, and, according to this point of view, its peculiar rules and limitations that we have analyzed above, are meant to complicate the re-coding, eventually allowing new meaning to rise.

One could object that toy-players aren't always alone, but often play in groups. Although some differences – a contact is generally made, a theme chosen, there is a distribution (sometimes “appropriation”) of toys, and thus of communicative power – it is important to underline that, even if it involves a great deal of communication between the players, playing together is not about communicating to each other using toy-play language, but it is an activity of co-authorship, in which each player tries to create is own narration inside a collective utterance.

4. Conclusions

Considering toys as signs and toy-play as a communicative phenomenon in between readership and authorship, mainly oriented to autocommunication is, in my opinion, not a conclusion, but a starting point. Much work as yet to be done, notably on the position that toys hold in culture, on their intertextual characteristics and on their relationship with animation and digital games (can we consider avatars digital toys?). Besides, the other items used for play, even if less prone to a semiotic analysis, should also be taken into consideration in future research as well: artifacts such as balls and playing cards would be probably very interesting objects of analysis.

As already said in the introduction, then, this paper's aim is to promote and open a discussion – and hopefully a research trend – among semioticians. Playfulness, even if it's often felt this way, it is not marginal and it has never been.

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