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The mediality of linguistic signs is crucial to the understanding and analysis of language usage and the construction of meaning since language in use is always materially mediated. By raising the following fundamental questions from a semiopraxeological perspective, this paper seeks to make a theoretical and methodological, yet empirically grounded, contribution to media linguistics. How do semiotic, medial, and social aspects of practices relate to each other? How are materialised linguistic signs involved in the practical mediation of sociality and, thus, culture? How can historical data be used to trace and analyse semiotic media practices? I argue that, in addition to mediality, indexicality plays an essential role in answering these questions, and propose a triadic model of semiotic media practices. This argument is illustrated using prisoner files from the U.S. interrogation camp Fort Hunt during WWII.
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