Codes

-Semiotics- Ni Wayan Swardhani W.

2015

The concept of the 'code' is fundamental in semiotics.

Saussure the overall code of language signs are not meaningful in isolation, but only when they are interpreted in relation to each other.

Roman Jakobson the production and interpretation of texts depends upon the existence of codes or conventions for communication.

Meaning of a sign depends on the code within which it is situated perception

Lee Thayer 'what we learn is not the world, but particular codes into which it has been structured so that we may "share" our experiences of it'

Codes provide a framework within which signs make sense.

The status of a sign cannot be granted if it does not function within a code.

If the relationship between a signifier and its signified is relatively arbitrary, then it is clear that interpreting the conventional meaning of signs requires familiarity with appropriate sets of conventions.

The conventions of such forms need to be learned before we can make sense of them.

Perception Figure + Ground (Gestalt psychologists )

The Gestalt principles can be seen as reinforcing the notion that the world is not simply and objectively 'out there' but is constructed in the process of perception.

Bill Nichols “a useful habit formed by our brains must not be mistaken for an essential attribute of reality”.

A code a set of practices familiar to users of the medium operating within a broad cultural framework. Society itself depends on the existence of such signifying systems.

Codes are not simply 'conventions' of communication but rather procedural systems of related conventions which operate in certain domains.

Codes organize signs into meaningful systems which correlate signifiers and signifieds.

Codes transcend single texts, linking them together in an interpretative framework.

Stephen Heath notes that 'while every code is a system, not every system is a code' (Heath 1981, 130). He adds that 'a code is distinguished by its coherence, its homogeneity, its systematicity, in the face of the heterogeneity of the message, articulated across several codes' (ibid., p.129).

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Codes are interpretive frameworks which are used by both producers and interpreters of texts.

In creating texts we select and combine signs in relation to the codes with which we are familiar 'in order to limit... the range of possible meanings they are likely to generate when read by others' (Turner 1992, 17).

Signs within texts can be seen as embodying cues to the codes which are appropriate for interpreting them. The medium employed clearly influences the choice of codes.

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Pierre Guiraud notes that 'the frame of a painting or the cover of a book highlights the nature of the code; the title of a work of art refers to the code adopted much more often than to the content of the message' (Guiraud 1975, 9).

With familiar codes we are rarely conscious of our acts of interpretation, but occasionally a text requires us to work a little harder - for instance, by pinning down the most appropriate signified for a key signifier (as in jokes based on word play) - before we can identify the relevant codes for making sense of the text as a whole.

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Typologies of Codes

Social codes all semiotic codes

• verbal language (phonological, syntactical, lexical, prosodic and paralinguistic subcodes);

• bodily codes (bodily contact, proximity, physical orientation, appearance, facial expression, gaze, head nods, gestures and posture);

• commodity codes (fashions, clothing, cars);

• behavioural codes (protocols, rituals, role-playing, games).

Example of verbal codes:

Koyukon Indians of the subarctic forest snow 16

snow; deep snow; falling snow; blowing snow; snow on the ground; granular snow beneath the surface; hard drifted snow; snow thawed previously and then frozen; earliest crusted snow in spring; thinly crusted snow; snow drifted over a steep bank, making it steeper; snow cornice on a mountain; heavy drifting snow; slushy snow on the ground; snow caught on tree branches; fluffy or powder snow

A S C Ross introduced a distinction between so-called 'U and Non-U' uses of the English language (1954). He observed that members of the British upper class ('U') could be distinguished from other social classes ('Non-U') by their use of words

U Non - U

luncheon dinner

table-napkin serviette

vegetables greens

jam preserve

pudding sweet

sick ill

lavatory-paper toilet-paper

looking-glass mirror

writing-paper note-paper

wireless radio

Textual codes Representational codes

• scientific codes, including mathematics;

• aesthetic codes within the various expressive arts (poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, music, etc.) - including classicism, romanticism, realism;

• genre, rhetorical and stylistic codes: narrative (plot, character, action, dialogue, setting, etc.), exposition, argument and so on;

• mass media codes including photographic, televisual, filmic, radio, newspaper and magazine codes, both technical and conventional (including format).

Interpretative codes There is less agreement about these as semiotic codes

• perceptual codes: e.g. of visual perception (note that this code does not assume intentional communication);

• ideological codes: More broadly, these include codes for 'encoding' and 'decoding' texts - dominant (or 'hegemonic'), negotiated or oppositional. More specifically, we may list the 'isms', such as individualism, liberalism, feminism, racism, materialism, capitalism, progressivism, conservatism, socialism, objectivism, consumerism and populism; (note, however, that all codes can be seen as ideological).

Codes important in relation to gender differentiation

Codes are variable not only between different cultures and social groups but also historically