In the stillness of the fullness of time: relations of immediacy and simultaneity in the semiotics of Peirce and Saussure

Abstract The concept of “the synchronic” factors prominently in Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralist semiotic theory, while that of “the immediate” is of central importance in the post-1903 pragmaticist semiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce. Although the two sign theories are often characterized as fundamentally different, a point of articulation between the two is apparent when synchrony and immediacy are examined closely in their respective theoretical and semiotic contexts. In this regard, both the Peircean and the Saussurean traditions may be observed to deal comparably with a condition designated here as sign pregnancy . This point of articulation depends on the recognition of a potential aspect inherent in the definition given to the synchronic dimension of Saussure’s approach.