Abstract

The existence of fourfold typologies across a wide range of biological, sociological and humanistic studies as well as in economics and business management theory, suggests that they may also be expected to appear in the form of cultural varieties of semiosis. A problem recognized by many writers is the inadequacy of dualistic theories, and a major school of thought in social anthropology, known as Grid-Group Theory (GGT) offers a richer and empirically tested three-dimensional model in which four types of social environment arise together with the ideologies associated with them. GGT does not refer explicitly to semiotics, but by reconsidering its roots in work by Bernstein on social codes, together with the Systemic Functional Linguistics developed by his colleague Halliday, a route to understanding cultural variations of ideological and semiotic practices is uncovered. Jakobson’s Communication Theory is also considered in the light of GGT. Fiske’s Relational Models Theory produces a similar quadripartite typology with a basis in the Mathematical structures discovered by the Bourbaki Group, and GGT can also be understood in terms of mathematical structures such as groups and networks. A consideration of Peirce’s concept of degenerate signs, together with the three-dimensional model of signs suggested by Morris, leads to a cubic model which allows four types to arise naturally in a 3D-space. In the process of building this model it also brings into focus an issue involving the three dimensions of Cultural Theory – whether the third dimension needs to be independent of the other two or remain as an emergent combination of Grid and Group. The importance of ritual in managing communication is something that Neo-Durkheimian theory can bring to facilitate the application of semiotics to social processes.

Keywords: Degenerate signs, Grid-Group theory, Cultural theory, Institutionalization, Tropes, Peirce, Morris, Bourbaki, Ideology, Triads, Tetrads.