Allusion as a Semiotic Surplus of Joint Experience

Abstract

The traditional interpretation of the relationship between the signifier and the signified assumes an overlap between these two entities. The signified signifies a concentrated content: an idea concentrated from processed impressions and from situational variables. As this assumption also holds that concentration is, at the same time, abstraction, the signified as an elaborated unit can be defined accurately, and the signifier can fully cover the signified and be its complete equivalent. If we adhered persistently to this notion of the semiotic basic relationship, we would conceive of it as a simple duplication of the model of the idea—word relationship, seeing the difference between them purely in that they represent the same content on different levels of reality, in the different provinces of meaning.