From Sign to Utterance: Why Peirce Needs Bakhtin

From Sign to Utterance: Why Peirce Needs Bakhtin

Charles Sanders Peirce’s model of the sign is one of the most influential contributions to semiotic theory. Its triadic structure—sign, object, interpretant—sought to correct the perceived oversimplification of Ferdinand de Saussure’s dyadic model of signifier and signified. Where Saussure focused on the internal structure of language, Peirce aimed to generalise semiosis as a process of meaning-making that could apply to thought, perception, language, and logic alike.

But Peirce’s ambition to create a universal semiotic model comes with costs. His theory is centred on the interpreting mind. The process of semiosis begins with an object (which may be concrete or abstract), is mediated by a sign (something that stands for the object), and culminates in the interpretant—the mental effect produced in a receiver. Meaning, for Peirce, is the cognitive outcome of a relation between a sign and its object. Though he stresses the open-endedness of interpretation and the potential for infinite semiosis, the structure of this process remains fundamentally mental, individual, and decontextualised from the social scene of meaning-making.

This is where Mikhail Bakhtin’s work provides a vital counterbalance. While Peirce looks inward, Bakhtin looks outward. His emphasis is not on the sign in abstract, but on the utterance in use. Bakhtin's theory is inherently dialogic: meaning emerges not from a mental process, but from a responsive engagement between speakers within specific historical, cultural, and interpersonal contexts. For Bakhtin, every utterance is shaped by prior utterances and anticipates future responses; it is both an answer and a provocation.

Peirce’s model implicitly assumes that meaning resides in the interpretant—a mental response produced by a sign. Bakhtin, by contrast, insists that meaning is always shaped in and through social interaction. An utterance is addressed to someone, situated in a context, and aimed at eliciting a response. Its meaning is inseparable from its positioning in a chain of communicative acts.

This contrast reveals important limitations in Peirce’s semiotics:

1. Individualism vs. Sociality: Peirce treats interpretation as a mental function of the individual. Bakhtin treats meaning as a co-constructed process embedded in dialogue.

2. Generality vs. Specificity: Peirce seeks a general theory of signs. Bakhtin insists on the concrete specificity of utterances. Meaning is not generalisable across all contexts but is shaped by the social and historical conditions of its production and reception.

3. Sign vs. Utterance: For Peirce, a sign is a relational structure linking an object to a mind. For Bakhtin, an utterance is a speech act addressed to others, shaped by genre, voice, and intention. It is realised through language and always bears traces of ideological positioning.

4. Cognition vs. Dialogue: Peirce places semiosis in the head. Bakhtin places it in interaction. Peirce’s interpretant is private; Bakhtin’s utterance is public.

5. Temporal Structure: Peirce’s interpretant is a mental outcome at the end of a process. Bakhtin’s utterance lives in time—always in the middle of a dialogue, always responding, always addressed.

In moving from Peirce to Bakhtin, we move from a theory of signs as mental representations to a theory of meaning as social action. Bakhtin reminds us that meaning does not float freely between minds. It is not a disembodied effect. It is made, contested, affirmed, resisted, and reworked in dialogue.

This shift is not just theoretical. It matters for how we think about language, culture, identity, and meaning itself. Peirce gives us a model of how signs work in the abstract; Bakhtin shows us how meaning unfolds in life.

So why does Peirce need Bakhtin? Because meaning is not merely interpreted. It is uttered. It is addressed. It is always already in relation.