Ten pages Paper
Lisa
lecture_4_-_semiotics_and_communication.pdf
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the semiotic landscape!
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Two domains of meaning:! ! • the world itself! ! • the languages people use to
describe it (their perceptions, responses and actions)!
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We donʼt find meaning, we make it! ! polysemy (has been the undoing of structural semiotics)! ! but . . . generally, we are not entirely free to make any meaning we want! !
Why study semiotics?!
“These institutions and processes [ public communication practices] are among the most important large-scale creators and managers of what can be analysed as the semiotic facilitation or obfuscation of reality.” (Mackey 2011 p. 115)!
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“Campaign message designers are, in effect, creating structures of meanings within a message, providing an ideology within the message to shape desire for the product” (Moffitt 2011, p. 25)!
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! Semiotics/semiology! ! . . . the life of signs within society!
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“meaning is based on relationships”! ! ! ! (Berger 2000, p. 43)!
! !
signs are anything that can be made to “stand for” something else! ! Semiotic resources: “the actions and artefacts we use to communicate” !
! ! ! ! (van Leeuwen 2005, p. 3)!
“semiotics provides a set of tools for identifying the signs of! any text, or in other words, for finding the cultural meanings of one item or several words or visuals used together” (Moffitt 2011, p. 24)!
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Semiotic field:!
zoology! olfactory signs! tactile communication! paralinguistics! medicine! kinesics and proxemics! musical codes! formalised languages! written languages! natural languages!
visual communication! systems of objects! plot structures! text theory! cultural codes! aesthetic texts! mass communication! rhetoric! anthropology ! psychoanalysis ! ! ! (Eco 1972)!
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semiologists look at signs as “things in themselves” and as “signs” or indicators of other things/notions! ! however, these things or notions are subject to interpretation and debate!!
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“. . . semiological analysis presupposes a thorough knowledge of the originating culture and of the particular genre at issue” ! ! ! ! (McQuail 2005, p. 349)! !
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The social nature of meaning systems: !
• “share” common codes! !
• involve emotional and affective relations! !
!Polysemy challenges assumption of necessary correspondence!
!
!we are all readers, producers and reproducers of signs or semiotic resources!
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!Hallʼs distinct processes!
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Questions that arise:!
1. What is the text to be interpreted?!
!isolating a single text for analysis is problematic!
!
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every text is an intertext ! ! ! ! !(Kristeva 1966, 1980)!
! texts - and signs - are encountered in the context of greater signifying systems!
! ! ! ! (Long & Wall 2009)!
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2. !What kinds of things do people !expect a text to provide or do?! !Commonly: !
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• meaning! !questions about the political and !social organisation or
representation of reality! !
and ! !
• models for behaviour!
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3. !How does a text “produce” the particular meaning we assume it has?!
! !Semiotics examines the process of meaning-making!
! !Relative power!
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the “how” question . . .!
Semiotics . . . “is a way of analysing meanings by looking at the signs . . . which communicate meaning” ! ! ! (Bignell 2002, p. 1)! !
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Semiotic dimensions:! Syntactics: grammatical rules! ! Semantics: aspects of meaning
expressed in a language! ! Pragmatics: relation of signs to
interpreters!
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Cobley, P. (ed.) 1996, The communication theory reader, Routledge, London & New York!
Part I: Signification! Theories of the sign! Ferdinand de Saussure The object of linguistics! Charles Sanders Peirce A guess at the riddle! ! The sign in use! Émile Benveniste The nature of the linguistic sign! V.N. Vološinov Toward a Marxist philosophy of language! M.A.K. Halliday ʻIntroductionʼ Language as social semiotic: the social interpretation of language and meaning! ! Part II: ʻMeaning”: Linguistic and visual! Linguistic ʻmeaningʼ! Ferdinand de Saussure Linguistic value! Steven Cohan & Linda M. Shires Theorizing language! ! Visual ʻmeaningʼ! Roland Barthes Denotation and connotation! Roland Barthes The photographic message! Umberto Eco How culture conditions the colours we see! Gunther Kress & Theo van Leeuwen Reading images!
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Part III: The sign in post-structuralism! Signifiers and subjects! Jacques Lacan The agency of the letter in the unconscious! Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen Liguisteries! ! The play of différance! Jacques Derrida Semiology and grammatology: interview with Julia Kristeva! Brian Torode Textuality, sexuality, economy! ! Sign users and speech acts! Saying and doing! J.L Austin Performatives and constatives! John Searle What is a speech act?! ! Person, process and practice! Émile Benveniste The nature of pronouns! Roman Jakobson Shifters and verbal categories! Gunther Kress Social processes and linguistic change: time and history in language! !
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Part V: The inscription of the audience in the message! Cinematic inscription! Émile Benveniste Relationships of person in the verb! Nick Browne The spectator-in-the-text: the rhetoric of Stagecoach! Stephen Heath Narrative space! ! Bodies, subjects and social context! M.A.K. Halliday Language as social semiotic! Alan Luke The body literate: discourse and inscription in early literacy training! Judith Williamson . . . But I know what I like: the function of ʻartʼ in advertising! ! Part VI: Readers and reading! Interpretation, ideation and the reading process! Stanley Fish Why no oneʼs afraid of Wolfgang Iser! Wolfgang Iser Talk like whales: a reply to Stanley Fish! ! The study of readersʼ meanings! Jerry Palmer The act of reading and the reader! Janice A. Radway Reading the romance! Ien Ang Dallas between reality and fiction! ! !
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The diversity of the field!
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We could examine. . . • Theories of the sign • The sign in use • Visual and linguistic ‘meaning’ • The sign in post-structuralism • Sign users and speech acts • Readers/interpreters of signs and the
process of interpreting • The positioning or inscription of the
‘reader’ in the text
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Four important foundational approaches!
1. de Saussure!
2. Peirce!
3. Eco!
4. Barthes!
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Structuralist! Poststructuralist! Postmodernist! De Saussure! Nietzsche! Lyotard! Levi-Strauss! Derrida! Baudrillard! Peirce! Lacan! Gottdeiner!
Foucault! Barthes! Eco! Poster!
Social semiotics! Visual semiotics!
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1. de Saussure! Linguist! ! reconceived linguistics along semiotic lines! ! “Language is a system of signs that express ideas” ! ! !
! ! ! ! (Silverman 1983, p. 4)! ! !
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Saussure predicted that semiotic principles would be applied to all aspects of culture! !
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Terms! • Sign! !“anything taken by social convention to represent something else” (McQuail 1987, p. 186)!
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• Signifier! !the physical properties or aspects of a sign that lead them to be perceived in some way!
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• Signified! !the idea or mental concept conjured up by our perception of the signifier!
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• Signification! !the relationship between these three elements in the process of meaning-making!
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de Saussure claims relationship between the signifier and signified is arbitrary:! ! that is . . .! ! we have to be taught the meaning of signs (like a language)!
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Texts generate meanings in two ways:!
1. by the order in which events happen (the syntagmatic structure) !
!and !
2. by the hidden oppositions found in the text (the paradigmatic structure) !
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2. Charles Peirce! Philosopher! ! Two interlocking triads:! !
1. Sign-interpretant-object!
2. Icon-index-symbol! !
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Peirceʼs icon/index/symbol trichotomy! Sign Icon Index Symbol Signify by: !Resemblance !Causal !Convention!
! !connection! !
Examples: !Photos or images !Smoke/fire !Words! !
!Statues of !Symptom/ !Gestures! !well-known figures !disease! ! !(red spots/! ! !measles)!
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!Photo of! !Rudd!
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Process: !Can see !Can figure !Must learn!
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3. Eco! Eco developed a theory of semiotics from Peirce ! ! He investigated!
!codes or rules about signification! !how we produce and reproduce signs!
! Back and forth between stability in coding structure and variations in cultural practices!
Elements that go together to create a system of representation (signs➔codes)!
1. !conditions or objects in the world!
!
2. signs ! !
3. a repertoire of responses !
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4. a set of correspondence rules
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Different ways we use signs! 1. Thereʼs an existing code people
recognise eg. symptoms for an illness !
2. Use the object itself eg. hold up empty bottle to show someone you want another!
3. Arbitrary signs in combination eg. language!
4. New ways to put things together to create a new “code” eg. conceptual or symbolic art!
(adapted from Eco, 1972)!
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“Not only is meaning cultural, but cultures are
semiotic” ! (Littlejohn 1996, p. 55)!
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4. Roland Barthes! applied semiotics to cultural practices ! ! concerned with the ways signs worked to reinforce the dominant values of the culture ! ! ideology!
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embeddedness of signs in cultural practice! ! !
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“second-order” signifying systems !
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Denotation = !first order signification
Connotation =
!second order signification!
(adapted from Griffin 2003, p. 359)
D EN
O T
A T
IV E
SY ST
EM
C O
N N
O T
A T
IV E SY
ST EM
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“Barthesʼs notion of culture is not genuinely collective, but riven with contradictions” (Silverman 1983, p. 30)! ! myth-making! ! These contradictions are covered over and smoothed out by ideology or myth, which creates the world in the image of the dominant class!
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signs and their place in hegemonic practices!
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Further developments!
• Social semiotics ! ! !eg. Hodge & Kress!
• Postmodern semiotics ! ! !eg. Baudrillard (simulacra)!
• Visual semiotics ! ! !eg. van Leeuwen!
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Theoretical movement of the sign: !
ranging from . . .! • denotation to connotation !
• a specific signified to one that refers to beyond itself!
• references that are “indexical” or “iconic” relationships (Peirce) to “ideological” or “mythic” (Barthes)!
• structure to subjectivity! !
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Social semiotics! Perhaps the closest “fit” for us in our orientation to communication! ! Advantages:! • makes clear the importance of the reader’s meaning-making processes! ! • situates the reader and the text in their social/cultural contexts!
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When you create texts, keep in mind that . . .!
1. texts can engender multiple levels of potential meanings!
!they constitute a semiotic resource for the “reader”!
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2. texts are made meaningful through a process of audience signification!
!
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3. “meaning” of the text is an interaction of textual and extra- textual factors, including the readerʼs resources!
! !“producers of media texts aim to ensure that polysemia is kept to a minimum” (Long & Wall 2009, p. 47)!
!
