The reference triangle is a model for explaining how words convey meaning, proposed by Ogden and Richards in their book The Meaning of Meaning. It consists of three parts: symbol, thought or reference, and referent. However, it has limitations and does not account for variations in people’s ideas about a word. Later work in semiotics, such as that done by Jacques Derrida, proposed a post-structuralist semiotic theory.
In linguistics, the reference triangle is a model for explaining how words convey meaning. It is also sometimes called the Ogden-Richards triangle for meaning or the semiotic triangle. Simply put, the reference triangle says that a word suggests an idea in the listener’s mind. The idea connects to a real-world object.
The reference triangle was first proposed by CK Ogden and IA Richards in their 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning. This book was pioneering work in the field of semiotics, which is the study of signs, including words, and the relationship between signs and their meanings. It is related to pragmatics, which deals with the relationship between sentences and their real-world meanings.
According to Ogden and Richards, there are three parts to the meaning-making process: the symbol, the thought or reference, and the referent. The symbol is the word itself, like the letters “chair”. When a person sees or hears the “chair” symbol, he or she has a mental image or collection of logical ideas related to the idea of a chair: a piece of furniture usually with four legs designed for sitting. This is the thought or reference. If the reference is adequate, the listener is able to connect it to the referent, a chair that exists in the real world.
The reference triangle, while continuing to be used as a model for semiotic relationships in the 21st century, has some potential flaws that limit its applicability. In particular, the triangle deals only with the relationship between word and meaning in the mind of a single person. It does not take into account any variations in, for example, two different people’s ideas about the word “chair”.
Ogden and Richards, along with other theorists known as structuralists, have often posited a one-to-one relationship between symbols and referents that, in reality, may not exist. These difficulties, among others, formed the basis for later work in semiotics, such as that done by Jacques Derrida in the mid to late 1900s. Derrida proposed a “post-structuralist” semiotic theory, which denies simple relationships of previous semiotic theories.
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