Semiotics

Semiotics Lecture

• aims: 
• understand the basics of semiotic theory
• have an idea how to apply the theory
• understand the importance of meaning in the study of art, design and culture
• understand: code, sign, signifier, signified, arbitrary, denotation, connotation, myth
• the investigation of signs

• semiotics: the science of studying signs
• MEANING
• Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist) trying to figure out exactly how language operates
• how things attain the meaning that they do

• STRUCTURALISM: 
• very popular in France, approach to humanities, philosophy, that thought that everything in the world had some kind of underlying logic or order, a system of rules
• modernist approach

• SIGN: individual communicative gestures, anything that conveys meaning, a colour, a technique of drawing
• all of communication works through signs working in conjunction with each other
• TWO aspects to a sign: 
• the signifier- the thing that invokes meaning
• the signified- the thing that it creates in the heads of the receiver 
• theres no inherent meaning behind things, its created by social means, the relationship between all these things is ARBITRARY
• e.g. traffic lights: red doesn't literally mean stop in any circumstance, its socially conditioned into us that in this instance it means stop
• destroys the idea that anything essentially means anything, its all arbitrary 

• CODE: the way signs interact together 
• signs act on two different levels, conscious and unconscious
• DENOTATION: literal meaning
• CONNOTATION: cultural association 
• a code is a system of symbols or signs
• we operate in terms of a code, like with our clothes we communicate something about our personality or interests
• 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 a shared knowledge 

PARADIGMS & SYNTAGMS:

• Saussure defined two ways in which signs are organised into codes
• PARADIGM: a set of signs from which one is to be chosen (choice)
• SYNTAGM: the message into which the chosen signs are the be combined (relationship)
• all messages involve selection (from a PARADIGM) and combination (into a SYNTAGM)
• all of these operate within CODES
• CODE is the overarching system

• CODES: signifying systems
• PARADIGM: the alphabet, we arrange the letters together SYTAGMATICALLY to make words
• doesn't mean the same thing in Africa, culturally specific to us, just as they way we dress means something different here to in Japan or elsewhere
• other types of PARADIGM: 
• changing shot in TV
• typefaces
• headgear: trilby, cap, beret, stetson
• types of cars we drive
• colours of front doors
• swear words
• where there is a choice there is a meaning
• these PARADIGMS are arranged SYNTAGMATICALLY to form a meaning
• once a unit has been chosen from a PARADIGM it is combined with other units. This combination is called a SYNTAGM
• our clothes are a SYNTAGM of paradigmatic choices of hats, gloves etc

SYNTAGMATIC analysis:

• synatagmatic 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:

• structural technique which seeks to identify the various paradigms which underlie the surface structure of a text
• this aspect of structural analysis involves a consideration of the positive or negative connotations of each signifier (revealed through the use of one signifier rather than another)

SYNCHRONIC VS DIACHRONIC:

• synchronic: in the moment
• diachronic: how things develop over time

- We can accept, reject or negotiate the meaning of a text. 

- Accept: no thought, meaning transferred, no argument

- Negotiate: i understand but I don't agree

- Counter-hedgememonic: oppositional