Discourse Emblems as the Object of Semiotic Analysis

The study deals with discourse emblems treated as recognizable identifying signs of communication participants. They occupy a certain place in a general system of semiotic interpretation of reality - they are indices characterizing the pragmatic vector of a sign, according to Ch. Morris. The difference between emblems and allegories or symbols consists in their main quality - the former should be immediately recognized by the people who belong to a certain culture whereas the latter may be deciphered. Emblems as a system constitute an outer form of culture. Discourse emblems are inherent in any type of communication and may be regarded as discourse type indices. Their linguistic and cultural essence is to show communication partners as belonging to the joint community. Emblems in a personal habitual discourse demonstrate a restricted communicative distance, in an institutional discourse they indicate the group status of communicative partners, and in an artistic discourse they show a multiplex extensible variety of meanings contained in the text or any art object having an aesthetic value.