The Semiotics of Markedness



In linguistics class.
I learned this some years ago.
Thing called “Markedness.”

Sign of Signified.
Coined by Roman Jakobson.
Semiotician.

The Signifier.
Highlighting the Signified.
Subject to Object.

Man as the Subject.
A woman objectified.
Eternally marked.

He as masculine.
With differences noted.
She as feminine.

He unmarked as male.
No need for him to be marked.
She marked as fe-male.

While he is hero.
That makes her a hero-ine.
She is the marked one.

While he is a man.
As signified, she is marked.
Again as wo-man.

Rarely is man marked.
When he is a widow-er.
He finds himself marked.

What’s considered strange:
“Markedness is Difference.”
What’s considered rare.

Languages as signs.
Signifiers, Signified.
Markedness structured.


About this poem

Roman Osipovich Jakobson (1896-1982) was a Russian-American linguist, literary theorist, poet, and a pioneer of structural linguistics. As a student of Chomsky’s psycholinguistics in the 1970’s, and later as a teacher of that subject, I became familiar with Jakobson’s pioneering contributions to the Prague Linguistic Circle, and discovered the wider world of structural linguistics. This poem, written in extended haiku format, reveals as a gem, a small particle of Jakobson’s linguistic observations and insight that has bearing on the marketing dynamics of human relationship, particularly between and among women and men.  

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Written on January 28, 2022

Submitted by karlcfolkes on January 28, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
440

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABA CDD ECF FCG DXD HGH BDD DGD GEG XXE XCX
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 763
Words 162
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s “Dear Mili” Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

All Karl Constantine FOLKES poems | Karl Constantine FOLKES Books

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2 Comments
  • Soulwriter
    Marked indeed, by HIStory ;)
    LikeReply2 years ago
  • Dougla$Irishman
    This poem is a very thought out about the sexes !
    Us guys, Masculine, handsome, debonair
    The gals, feminine, pretty, curves
    LikeReply2 years ago

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"The Semiotics of Markedness" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/118740/the-semiotics-of-markedness>.

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