Semiosis in Hindustani Music.

• Author: Rowell, Lewis
• Position: Review

By JOSE LUIZ MARTINEZ. Acta Semiotica Fennica, vol. 5. Imatra, Finland: INTERNATIONAL SEMIOTICS INSTITUTE, 1997. Pp. xix + 396.

In this study, which was presented in May 1997 as a doctoral dissertation in musicology at the University of Helsinki, Brazilian-born Jose Luiz Martinez applies the semiotic theories of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) to the classical tradition of music in north India and the aesthetic doctrines on which that tradition rests - especially the theory of rasa (aesthetic emotion). Many orientalists and musicians will find this an unlikely combination of disciplines, but some of the greatest advances in scholarship have arisen when an author demonstrates connections between seemingly unrelated topics. Martinez has an impressive command of these diverse fields of inquiry and makes a persuasive case for viewing and understanding the value systems of ancient and modern Indian music through the prism of Peirce's ideas.

Martinez' dissertation thus takes the Peircean theory of signs as a working hypothesis, which means a plethora of terms and specialized definitions. Readers will find numerous examples of "firstness," "secondness," and "thirdness." along with other trichotomies (e.g., qualisigns, sinsigns, and legisigns) and elaborate taxonomies such as Peirce's ten basic classes of signs (i.e., qualisigns, iconic sinsigns, rhematic indexical sinsigns, dicent sinsigns, iconic legisigns, rhematic indexical legisigns, dicent indexical legisigns, rhematic symbols, dicent symbols, and arguments). In general, firstness refers to direct, unmediated experience; secondness, to the relationship between a sign and what that sign signifies; and thirdness, to the triadic relationship between an observer, an observed, and an observation.

One of the strengths of the study is that Martinez succeeds in demonstrating a harmony between this thicket of theoretical concepts...