Lecture 3: Semiotics

Key Concepts in Media Studies

BA Hons Media Studies - University of Winchester

Dr Marcus Leaning

Introduce the concept of semiotics;

Differentiate semiotics from alternative ways of understanding meaning;

Explore key ideas in semiotics including:

• Sign: Signifier;

Signified;

Referent;

• Denotation;

• Connotation

• Syntagmatic meaning;

• Paradigmatic meaning;

• Symbolic signs;

• Iconic signs;

• Indexical signs.

Key question arising from last week‟s lecture was:“OK, mass society is a bad starting point, so how should we study the media?”

One major technique used by many is Semiotics.

Comes out of linguistics and a field of social theory called Structuralism.

A very cursory introduction to semiotics, real semiotics is a very deep field; in many countries you can take whole degrees in semiotics.

It is usually done by Italian men with glasses and beards who smoke.

Umberto Eco – described as the

thinking person‟s Dan Brown.

Dan Brown –

described as

the un-

thinking

person‟s

Umberto Eco.

Made use of systems and techniques from literary and art criticism.

These approaches sought to identify aesthetic qualities, ways in which media could be evaluated.

Lots of value judgments about what was „good‟ and „bad‟. Drew strongly upon classical education. This comparative approach is still common, especially

amongst conservative critiques. See Roger Scruton‟s “An intelligent person‟s guide to

modern culture”.

Previously language understood to operate in a number of ways:• Language is a reflection of reality, the real world is „out there‟ and

language puts names to it.

• Language gives voice to deep personal intentions, we have ideas and concepts and language allows them to be articulated.

I am feeling sad and language gives me a word to describe that feeling.

This conception of language is very common and has a long history and is also known as the „externalist‟ theory of language.

Challenges to this theory:

A Swiss linguist who gave a course in general linguistics.

His students and other members of staff published his ideas after his death.

Ideas seminal (although similar ideas occurring to others at the same time -see below)

Language is constructed.

• Very few words actually onomatopoetic, (they sound like the concept they represent, woof etc).

Instead language is an agreed set of meanings.

In our society we agree to call a dog a “dog”,

• in Serbo-Croat it is “pas”,

• In French it is is “chien”,

• in Urdu it is “kuta”.

Other languages have yet many more names for it.

Meaning only exists because it is shared and negotiated.

We have entered into an unacknowledged agreement to make certain sounds mean certain things.

Ferdinand de Saussure asked the question “why does a word mean what it means?”

He developed a system that could be applied to all “signs” not just words.

He claimed that a sign is composed of three elements

Signified(The concept)

Referent (Real item)

Signifier (sound, image or

marks on paper)

Romantic

Love

Human

Heart

Our perception of reality is structured and shaped by the words and signs we use.

We don‟t simply label the world.

We give it meaning through our words and therefore „construct‟ it.

We give things their meaning, they do not have it implicitly.

A flag means things to people but only because they agree that, it has no implicit meaning.

If you found a carburetor from a

car how could you work out

what it did?

You could examine it in great

detail.

But you could not understand

its‟ function unless you knew

about the other parts of an

engine and a car and what an

engine was intended for.

A number of key thinkers use similar ideas in relation to

the understanding of human societies.

These theories are known as „Structuralist‟.

You can‟t understand part of society without looking at

the bigger picture.

(Indeed there are hidden laws or structures to society

that determine how it works, these structures facilitate

the giving of meaning. Like the laws of nature we cannot

see these structures, only their effects).

It is like-wise with signs.

A sign makes sense only when it is in a

system of other signs.

It achieves meaning in relation to other

signs.

How do signs make meaning though?

‘Denotation’ is about making meaning by

association.

Comes from the Latin „to make a mark‟.

We have agreed to link certain signifiers

with signified meanings.

Those signifiers borrow meaning.

Signifieds or concepts are „denotated or

linked to various signifiers.

Thus:

Human

Heart=

The image, its shape and colour denote the human

organ the heart.

While denotation allows us to make a direct link between a signifier and its referent we often have other influences that modify the meaning of a sign.

For example while the image of a heart may indicate the organ, through association (not to mention the greeting card industry‟s pursuit of profit using a minor saint‟s festival) it has become associated with the idea of love.

This development of a second level of meaning is known

as connotation.

Romantic

Love

Human

Heart

The, signifier - image of the heart - no longer refers only to the organ but to the concept - the signified - of romantic

love.

We need to make two key additional points in these ideas:1. Connotational codes and cultural

difference – where it appears is important.

2. Forms of analysis 1.Syntagmatic analysis 2.Paradigmatic analysis

Developments

Not only must we examine the sign itself, but we must look at where it is placed.

Meanings are determined by the place, time and purpose of their position.

Indeed a sign in one place can mean something completely different for one placed in another.

For an example if I saw the word „Kaos‟ in an essay I would point out the spelling mistake.

If the word is used in another context, a promotional poster for a club night for example, the misspelling takes on a different meaning, one of non-conformity and youthful rebellion.

Context is thus highly significant in determining the

meaning of a sign.

Signs must be understood in their context, to remove

them and analyse them in the abstract will rob them of

their meaning.

What means something in one place may mean

something completely different in another.

Electrolux used the strap line “Nothing sucks like an

Electrolux“ this worked well in Scandinavia but not so

well in the US.

These refer to how signs make meaning through

difference.

The meaning of a sign does not emerge from the thing

itself, dog does not mean dog because there is a link

between the idea of dog and the writing or the sound of

the word dog.

Rather signs mean what they do because they exist in a

system of meanings and often because they do not mean

anything else.

Dog means dog because we have other words for things

that are like dogs but not dogs.

A thing with four legs.

Fool! it‟s alive, an animal!!

No it‟s a canine.

Etc. Etc.

Dog means dog because it does not mean other things.

Signs achieve meaning through difference.

Although difference is often expressed through binary positions, it does not have to be.

There are two other „dimensions‟. Languages have rules about how we structure a sentence. EG

We can, logically and only to a degree, substitute other verbs or nouns.

Article

ArticleNounNoun

VerbPreposition

The cat sat on the mat.

The sentence is composed of types of

word in a particular order:

The cat sat on the mat.

We could substitute other verbs in the

place of sat.

The cat on the matsat

ate

died

There is an order, the syntagm, of the various categories, the paradigms.

Lots of signification can be understood as forms of organisation in syntagms where the bits or components are organised in paradigms.

Think of hero figures in films, they serve the same function in the narrative.

We have a paradigm of a hero figure, does not make much difference which hero fills the role as long as there is one.

Think of a meal, the syntagmatic aspect of difference would be that we must have a starter, a main course and a pudding.

We can substitute different starters, the various constituents of the starter paradigm, and we can swap various mains and desserts but we can‟t really serve a dessert as a starter or a strter as a dessert (unless you eat in the University canteen where it all tastes the same).

A starter is „different‟ from a dessert.

Starter

Main course

Dessert

Similarly if we think back to the club poster we can swap certain signs within the paradigm of club night names (usually an incorrectly spelt word or use of numbers for letters) but not other descriptions of the night.

Various theoretical developments from

these basic ideas of semiotics.

In addition to de Saussure an America

academic had similar ideas around the

same time.

Pierce had different ideas to de Saussure.

He did not start off with verbal language as his basis but regarded allforms of communications as signs.

His theories are therefore not so much theories of language but also theories of perception.

Pierce was a „radical contextualist‟ – he argued that context was everything and determined what signs meant.

What a sign means for one person in one situation may mean something very different for another.

In this way the distinction between denotation and connotation disappears.

There is no point in determining primary and secondary meanings, one is not more authentic than another, all meaning is deeply seated in a culture.

The process of signification, Pierce called it semiosis, is

dependent upon who sees the sign and in what

circumstance.

What is more a sign can never be „fixed‟ they are

constantly fluid.

Signs should be regarded as polysemic or having

multiple meanings and we may decode them in different

ways.

Pierce argues that there are three types of

sign:• Symbolic

• Iconic

• Indexical

Signs in which the relationship

between the sign and its meaning

are totally arbitary, such as the word

dog that has no link to the idea dog

beyond our agreement that it means

the animal, are called symbolic

signs.

Most language belongs to this

group, as do agree signs like

colours:

red = danger or stop.

Signs that resemble their meaning in some way, such as

the picture of the queen on a coin, are called iconic

signs.

They attempt to look like an intended concept – more or

less.

Signs that indicate what they

stand for by some kind of causal

link are known as indexical signs.

The term comes from the index

finger pointing at something.

An example of an indexical sign

would be smoke, indicating fire,

fire causes smoke so to show

smoke indicates fire.

Semiotics not about good or bad or even the „real meaning‟ but about how meaning is made.

Signs are composed of differing elements and strategies are deployed to establish, maintain or change meaning.

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic forms of analysis. Pierce – context is all important, it even destroys the

difference between denotation and connotation. Three types of sign, symbolic, iconic and indexical. Next week - using semiotics to examine representation

and ideology.