The sign in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit

Sign studies are traditionally divided into two major traditions: Peircean and Saussurean. However, other thinkers theorized the sign in radically unique terms. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) is one of these parallel thinkers. Rather than considering the sign in exclusively logical or linguistic terms, Heidegger claimed that the sign grounded existence itself. The sign was at the very heart of being. Strangely, Heidegger's contribution to sign studies is, on the whole, disregarded. With this paper I will explain Heidegger's conception of the sign, in hope that this will broaden our field's theoretical encyclopaedia.