Legal Semiotics

Truth & Words:

Aristotle submitted, and then Semiotics proved that there is no natural or direct connection between words and the user's intended meanings. As such, there is no direct connection between the intended meaning of a party's verbal pleading or oral evidence at an Examination for Discovery or the experts' or counsel's interpretation of same. The entire litigious semantic network describing critical facts or points in a case rests on words which rests on other words and the meanings of all those words arises from the subjective meanings given by users or listeners during interpretation. In such circumstances, how can a Court or Jury or Counsel know the truth, in contrast to a party's subjective case? A part of the answer lies in correctly integrating Indexical, or Iconic signs with the relevant evidence. Truth is visually designed!

Case Law : The Supreme Court of California held that:

"Words, however, do not have absolute and constant referents. "A word is a symbol of thought but has no arbitrary and fixed meaning like a symbol of algebra or chemistry..." The meaning of particular words or groups of words varies with the verbal context and surrounding circumstances and purposes in view of the linguistic education and experience of their users and their hearers or readers (not excluding judges)... A word has no meaning apart from these factors; much less does it have an objective meaning, one true meaning."

Pacific Gas v. Thomas Drayage 69 Cal. 2d 33 (S.C.C.):

Visual evidence without text evidence is devoid of context. Textual evidence without visual evidence is devoid of definition. Integration of the two in the context of the legal theories and themes is the key to "show and tell" the truth.