Semiotics

 Semiotics

Semiotics theory

Terms: codes, sign, signifier, signified, arbitrary, detonation, connotation, myth.

Understand the importance of meaning in art, design, and culture.

Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss Linguist) invented semiotics. How things entail the meaning they do.

What is Semiotics?

The science of studying signs.

Structuralism

A system of rules understands the rules of language. Finding the core structure beneath. The idea of finding a system.

First element is a sign. Semiotics is the study of signs. Communistically acts and gesture of signs. How signs work together to create a structure.

A sign has 2 aspects: signified and signifier.

Signifier is the thing that evokes meaning, gesture, the sound itself.

Signified is what is perceived, how we interpret it.

There is no inhering meaning. There is no innate meaning to anything.

The literal meaning is denotation, according to Barthes (1957) signs signify on two different levels. And the connotation is the cultural associations.

Unravel meaning in language by understanding the written and spoken material. We can also unravel meaning in cultural practises.

Barthes (1957) argues signs operate on two levels: conscious and the unconscious. Layers of meaning you forget about. Clarity impreciseness of meaning.

A code is a system of symbols or signs. Attempting to get a response from.

Codes are found in all forms of cultural practise. In order to make sense of cultural artefacts we need to learn and understand their codes. We need to acknowledge that codes rely on shared knowledge.

Paradigms and Syntagms

Saussure defined two ways in which signs are organised into codes. Paradigm is a set of signs from which one is to be chose. Syntagm is the message into which the chose signs are to be combined.

All messages involve selection (from a paradigm) and combination (into a syntagm)

Codes

Codes are signifying systems. They have a number of units to choose from (paradigmatic dimension) which are combined by rules or conventions (syntagmatic dimension). All codes convey meaning. They also deepen upon agreement and a shared cultural background. Codes perform an identifiable social or communicative function.

Visual Language

Paradigm- represents a set of signs and choices to create a communication.

Every time we communicate we select from a paradigm. All the units in a paradigm must have something in common. Each of the units in a paradigm must be clearly distinguished from the others.

Syntagm

Once a unit has been chosen from a paradigm its combinded with ther units. This combination is called syntagm.

The key to understanding signs is to understand their structural relationship. The coice is the paradigm and the relationship is the syntagm.

Syntagmatic analysis

Syntagmatic analysis seeks to establish the surface structure of a text and the relationships between its parts. The study of syntagmatic relations reveals the rules underlying the production and interpretation of texts.

Paradigmatic analysis

Paradigmatic analysis is a structural technique which seeks to identify the various paradigms which underline the ‘surface structure’ of a text.

Paradigmatic analysis involves comparing and contrasting each of the signifiers present in the text with absent signifiers which in similar circumstances might have been chosen, and considering the significance of the choice made.

Bibliography:

Barthes, R (1957) Myths Today

Crow, D (2003) Visible Signs, Switzerland: AVA

Friske, J (1982) Introduction to Communication Studies, Oxon: Routledge.

Saussure, F (1917) Course in General Linguistics.