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8/17/2019 Semiotics Semana 9 DB Notes -Encoding and Decoding
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Encoding/Decoding
from Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
Saussure had referred to as 'the role of signs as part of social
life'.
Structuralist semioticians, after Saussure tend to focus on the
internal structure of the text rather than on the processes
involved in its construction or interpretation. Meaning exists
within the text. They are not interested in 'subjective'
responses of the reader, which they saw as 'a confusion
between the poem and its results (what it is and what it does'
Monolithic theories of this !ind ignore what Saussure had
referred to as 'the role of signs as part of social life'.
"ontemporary semioticians refer to the creation and interpretation of texts as 'encoding'
and 'decoding' respectively.
#or semioticians, there is no such thing as an uncoded message, so that $ for those who
argue that all experience is coded $ even 'encoding' might be more accurately described as
'recoding' (%aw!es &, &)*, &)+, &).
n the context of semiotics, 'decoding' involves not simply basic recognition and
comprehension of what a text 'says' but also the interpretation and evaluation of its
meaning with reference to relevant codes. -here a distinction is made betweencomprehension and interpretation this tends to be primarily with reference to purely verbal
text, but even in this context such a distinction is untenable what is 'meant' is invariably
more than what is 'said'
-hilst Saussure's model of oral communication is (for its time innovatingly labelled as a
'speech circuit' and includes directional arrows indicating the involvement of both
participants (thus at least implying 'feedbac!', it too was nevertheless a linear
transmission model (albeit a 'two$trac!' one. t was based on the notion that
comprehension on the part of the listener is a !ind of mirror of the spea!er's initial process
of expressing a thought. n this model there is only the briefest of allusions to the spea!er'suse of 'the code provided by the language', together with the implicit assumption that a
fixed code is shared.
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n &+) another structural linguist $ /oman 0a!obson
proposed a model of interpersonal verbal communication
which moved beyond the basic transmission model of
communication and highlighted the importance of the codes and social contexts involved.
%e noted elsewhere that 'the efficiency of a speech event demands the use of a common
code by its participants'. %e outlines what he regards as the six 'constitutive factors... in
any act of verbal communication' thus1
The addresser sends a message to the addressee. To be operative the message re2uires a
context referred to ('referent' in another, somewhat ambivalent, nomenclature, sei3able by
the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbali3ed, a code fully, or at least
partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the encoder and
decoder of the message and finally, a contact , a physical channel and psychological
connection between the addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to stay in
communication.
context
message
addresser $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ addressee
contact
code
0a!obson proposed that 'each of these six factors determines a different function oflanguage'1
Type Orientedtowards
Function Example
referential context imparting information It's raining.
expressive addresser expressing feelings or attitudesIt's bloody pissing downagain!
conative addressee influencing behaviourWait here till it stops
raining!
phatic contactestablishing or maintainingsocial relationships
Nasty weather again,isn't it?
metalingual codereferring to the nature of theinteraction e.g. genre
"his is the weatherforecast.
poetic message foregrounding textual featuresIt droppeth as the gentlerain from heaven.
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This model avoids the reduction oflanguage to 'communication'.
/eferential content is not always
foregrounded. 0a!obson argued that
in any given situation one of these
factors is 'dominant', and that this
dominant function influences the general character of the 'message'. #or
instance, the poetic function (which is intended to refer to any creative use of
language rather than simply to poetry highlights 'the palpability of signs',
undermining any sense of a 'natural' or 'transparent' connection between a
signifier and a referent. 0a!obson's model demonstrates that messages andmeanings cannot be isolated from such constitutive contextual factors. n its
ac!nowledgement of social functions this is a model which is consonant with
the structuralist theory that the subject (here in the form of the 'addresser' and
the 'addressee' is constructed through discourse.
-hilst these earlier models had been concerned with interpersonal
communication, in an essay on '4ncoding56ecoding' (%all &7), originally
published as '4ncoding and 6ecoding in Television 6iscourse' in &8, the
9ritish sociologist Stuart %all proposed a model of mass communication which
highlighted the importance of active interpretation within relevant codes. 0ustin-ren$:ewis insists that %all's model, with its emphasis on coding and
decoding as signifying practices, is 'above all, a semiological conception'
(-ren$:ewis &78, &. %all rejected textual determinism, noting that
'decodings do not follow inevitably from encodings' (%all &7), &8+. n
contrast to the earlier models, %all thus gave a significant role to the 'decoder'
as well as to the 'encoder'.
%all referred to various phases in the 4ncoding56ecoding model of
communication as moments, a term which many other commentators have
subse2uently employed (fre2uently without explanation. 0ohn "orner offers
his own definitions1
the moment of encoding 1 'the institutional practices and organi3ational
conditions and practices of production' ("orner &78, ;++
the moment of the text 1 'the... symbolic construction, arrangement and
perhaps performance... The form and content of what is published or
broadcast' (ibid. , ;+ and
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reference (radical, feminist etc. (e.g. when watching a television
broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote
against .
This framewor! is based on the assumption that the latent meaning of the text is
encoded in the dominant code. This is a stance which tends to reify the medium
and to downplay conflicting tendencies within texts. Blso, some critics haveraised the 2uestion of how a 'preferred reading' can be established. Shaun
Moores as!s '-here is it and how do we !now if we've found itC "an we be
sure we didn't put it there ourselves while we were loo!ingC Bnd can it be
found by examining any sort of textC' (Moores &8, ;7. Some theorists feel
that the concept may be applied more easily to news and current affairs than to
other mass media genres. 6avid Morley wondered whether it might be the
'reading which the analyst is predicting that most members of the audience will
produce' (Morley &7&a, +. 0ohn "orner argues that it is not easy to find actual
examples of media texts in which one reading is preferred within a plurality of
possible readings ("orner &78, ;. Bs 0ustin -ren$:ewis comments, 'the
fact that many decoders will come up with the same reading does not ma!e that
meaning an essential part of the text' (-ren$:ewis &78, &7*. Bnd Dathy
Myers notes, in the spirit of a post$structuralist social semiotics, that 'it can be
misleading to search for the determinations of a preferred reading solely within
the form and structure' of the text (Myers &78, ;&+. #urthermore, in the
context of advertising, she adds that1
There is a danger in the analysis of advertising of assuming that it is in
the interests of advertisers to create one 'preferred' reading of the
advertisement's message. ntentionality suggests conscious manipulation
and organi3ation of texts and images, and implies that the visual,
technical and linguistic strategies wor! together to secure one preferred
reading of an advertisement to the exclusion of others... The openness of
connotative codes may mean that we have to replace the notion of
'preferred reading' with another which admits a range of possible
alternatives open to the audience. (Myers &78, ;&*$&+
0ust as a reductive reading of %all's model could lead to the reification of a
medium or genre, it could also encourage the essentialising of readers (e.g. as
'the resistant reader' whereas reading positions are 'multiform, fissured,
schi3ophrenic, unevenly developed, culturally, discursively and politically
discontinuous, forming part of a shifting realm of ramifying differences and
contradictions' (Stam ;))), ;88.
6espite the various criticisms, %all's model has been very influential,
particularly amongst 9ritish theorists. 6avid Morley employed it in his studies
of how different social groups interpreted a television programme (Morley
&7). Morley insisted that he did not ta!e a social determinist position in
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which individual 'decodings' of a text are reduced to a direct conse2uence of
social class position. 't is always a 2uestion of how social position, as it is
articulated through particular discourses, produces specific !inds of readings or
decodings. These readings can then be seen to be patterned by the way in which
the structure of access to different discourses is determined by social position'
(Morley &78, &&8 cf. Morley &;, 7$). Morley's point about differential
access to discourses can be related to to the various !inds of 'capital' outlined
by Aierre 9ourdieu $ notably 'cultural capital' (to which 9ourdieu relates the
construction of 'taste' and 'symbolic capital' (communicative repertoire. Bn
'interpretative repertoire' (0onathan Aotter, cited in Erayson &7, *) is part of
the symbolic capital of members of the relevant 'interpretative community' and
constitutes the textual and interpretative codes available to them (which offer
them the potential to understand and sometimes also to produce texts which
employ them. Morley added that any individual or group might operate
different decoding strategies in relation to different topics and different
contexts. B person might ma!e 'oppositional' readings of the same material in
one context and 'dominant' readings in other contexts (Morley &7&a, Morley
&7&b, ++, + Morley &;, &8@. %e noted that in interpreting viewers'
readings of mass media texts attention should be paid not only to the issue of
agreement (acceptance5rejection but to comprehension, relevance and
enjoyment (Morley &7&a, &) Morley &;, &;+$, &8+.
The interpretation of signs by their users can be seen from a semiotic
perspective as having three levels (loosely related to " - Morris's framewor!
for branches of semiotics1
syntactic1 recognition of the sign (in relation to other signs
semantic1 comprehension of the intended meaning of the sign
pragmatic1 interpretation of the sign in terms of relevance, agreement
etc.
(See also Eoldsmith &7*, &;*, although she ma!es different
distinctions
The most basic tas! of interpretation involves the identification of what a sign
represents (denotation and may re2uire some degree of familiarity with the
medium and the representational codes involved. This is particularly obvious inthe case of language, but may also apply in the case of visual media such as
photographs and films. Some would not grant this low$level process the label
of 'interpretation' at all, limiting this term to such processes as the extraction of
a 'moral' from a narrative text. %owever, 6avid Mic! and :aura Aoliti ta!e the
stance that comprehension and interpretation are inseparable, ma!ing an
analogy with denotation and connotation (Mic! F Aoliti &7, 7@.
0ustin -ren$:ewis comments that 'given the wealth of material using
semiological tools for the analysis of film and television, it is remar!able that
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so little wor! has been done on the practice of decoding' (-ren$:ewis &78,
&@. -hilst social semiotics sta!es a claim to the study of situated semiotic
practices, research in this area is dominated by ethnographic and
phenomenological methodologies and is seldom closely allied to semiotic
perspectives (though there is no necessary incompatibility. B notable exception
is the research of 6avid Mic! in the field of advertising (Mic! F Aoliti &7,
McGuarrie F Mic! &;, Mic! F 9uhl &;.
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