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Part of
The Complexity of Social-Cultural Emergence: Biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies
Edited by Kobus Marais, Reine Meylaerts and Maud Gonne
[Benjamins Translation Library 164] 2024
► pp. 173–191

Chapter 8
The complex time of signs

| University of the Free State

Semiosis develops under the conditions of semiotic complexity. Translation directly addresses such conditions, like non-linearity, perspective pluralism, emergence, material diversity. In this work, I suggest that the complexity of sign processes is related to their time. I make use of C. S. Peirce’s theory of categories and process philosophy, to suggest that the complex nature of sign action is related to the way the time of signs is multilayered. In this framework, translation can be conceptualised as a temporal operation that redistributes the time of signs so that source signs habitually recur in target signs. This approach suggests a focus on the irreducible gaps in the time of signs, such as in situations of surprise, or break of habit.

Keywords: semiotic complexity, semiosis, translation, time of signs, C. S. Peirce, process philosophy
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The time of signs
  • Sign action as a triadic change
  • The multilayered time of signs
  • The time of indeterminate change
    • The time of irregular events
    • The time of general habits
    • Change of changes
  • Complexity in the time of signs
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.164.08ata
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