The elements of the Peircean model which will be used here are summarised below:
- The Sign (sound-sign) comprising three parts: signifier, object, and interpretant.
For our purposes, the sound acts as the signifier. The object is whatever is being represented in the sound-sign. The object of the sound-sign need not be a physical object, rather simply whatever is being represented or signified: an idea, a person, an inanimate object, a film or anything else. The interpretant of the sound-sign is “the effect produced in the mind” (Peirce, Hartshorne and Weiss 1960: 8.343).
- The Universal Categories:
Firstness – which relates to a quality.
Secondness – which relates to a fact.
Thirdness – which relates to a thought.
- The types of reasoning used to determine the interpretant:
Abduction (possible inferences) – the hypothesis stage used to make a guess to explain some phenomena.
Induction (probable inferences).
Deduction (necessary inferences).
- Sign-object relations:
Iconic – (Firstness) characteristics of a sound, such as loudness, pitch, regularity, timbre and so on, without regard to anything else.
Indexical – (Secondness) facts about two Objects, such as a causal link between sound and its origin, or a sound representing a visual object.
Symbolic – (Thirdness) facts about several Objects, which can be described as a synthetic fact or "general rule", such as a spoken language, or a depiction of a romantic scene through a use of particular instrumental music.
- Division of the Object:
Immediate Object – the object referred to in the sign.
Dynamical Object – the object (from collateral experience), such as in a metaphor.
- Division of Interpretant:
Immediate Interpretant – surface level without any reflection upon it.
Dynamical Interpretant – the actual effect produced in the mind, the interpretation of the sign.
Final Interpretant – the end of the process of semiosis.