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CC1201RepresentationMythSignSemioticsDenotation/Connotation
Words or Things
…since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on. [It] hath only this this inconvenience, that if a man’s business is very great, and of various kinds, he must be obliged in proportion to carry a greater bundle of things upon his back.
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels 1735
Figurative Meaning:Pictures or Words which stand for something they are not.
*Signs*SymbolMetaphor
Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1993Stuart Hall (1997) Representation: Cultural Representation and signifying practices.Andrew Tolson (1996) Mediations. Text and Discourse in Media StudiesWe cannot articulate anything beyond signs.
Questions from Image-Music-Text
How does meaning get into the image?Where does it end? What decides on its communicative effects?
SIGNIFICATION – DENOTATION - CONNOTATION
How do we know what LOVE is?Books?Painting?Images?Sounds?Other people’s experience?Our own experience?
The image is what it is not…It represents:Conventions (of love)Myths (about love)Codes (in which love is articulated)
If the picture/gesture/sound is not what it is……..
so……..What is it?
REPRESENTATION
SemioticsSemiotics - the study of signs and how they are interpreted.
3 areas:1.the sign itself (representation).2.the codes or systems into which signs are organised (denotation).
3.the culture within which these signs operate (connotation).
SemioticsThe Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1843-1914)
the American philosopher and logician Charles Peirce (1834-1914)
the French cultural critic Roland Barthes (1915-1980)
The aim of semiotics:To recognise what governs a structure of the sign.
To establish the difference between representation and reality.
Sign
sign:what we see or hear: signifier
what it stands for (meaning): signified
The real object: referent
SIGNReferent
SignifiedSignifier
ConventionGillian Dyer: “A rose is a symbol of love or passion not because a rose looks like love or passion or even because the flower causes it. It is just that members of some cultures have over the years used the rose in certain circumstances to mean love” (Advertising as Communication)
Convention is the socio-political dimension of signs necessary for communication.
The relationship between the sign and its meaning is arbitrary.
Semiotic AnalysisThe whole communication and behaviour are assemblies of signs, governed by
codes (sets of communicative rules), which make
the meaning to be deciphered/denoted by the “reader”
in relation to other signs (context).
Binary /Polar oppositionsI-YouThin- ThickBlack-WhiteSubjective-Objective
Warm-ColdGood – BadBeautiful – UglyLove- HatredHeaven-Hell
Men are strongWomen are sensitive.
Africa is poorAmerica is rich
Signs are recognisable through their oppositions.
Signs’ articulations are abstract and they signify something real (object/referent) only through a process of using.
A sign refers to something other than itself.
A sign is determined by convention.
For now…Sign consists of a signified and a signifier.
The signifier is the sign’s image as we perceive it, the signified is the mental concept to which it refers.
This mental concept is common to all members of the same culture.
MeaningMeaning depends on the range of contextual factors.
Meaning is negotiable and does not reside in the sign.
Nationality
How is it articulated?What is the aim of a national discourse?
Where can a national discourse be observed?
What does it mean:To be English/Spanish/American/Turkish/Bangladeshi?
SignificationDenotation: is the descriptive and literal level of meaning shared by virtually all members of a culture.
Connotation: meaning is generated by connecting signifiers to wider cultural concerns: the beliefs, attitudes.
Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies: two paradigms" in Media, Culture and Society 2, 1980, 57-72.
Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, 1997.
Hall, Stuart. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse, 1973.
Hall, Stuart. "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular" in People's History and Socialist Theory, London: Routledge, 1981, 227-49.
Denote/Connote
Denote/connoteMeaning becomes a matter of the association of signs with other cultural codes of meaning.
naturalisation
Figurative languageFigurative language is connotative (language which does not mean what it says).
Literal language is purely denotative (language which means only that what it says).
How do we understand a figurative language?Through oppositionsThrough codesThrough myths
Knowing how people recognise/process signs enables senders to manipulate that recognition and realise their
own aims.
CodesCodes rules and organise our language, behaviour, artistic practices, interpretation practices.
Social codesTextual codesInterpretative codesAll codes are ideologicalThere are dominant codes, personal codes, sub-codes, and counter codes
MythsWe understand the meaning of codes through myths.
Myths are ordered by codes.Levi-Strauss: Myths help people to make sense of the world/culture in which they live.
Myths are variations on a limited number of basic themes built upon oppositions (93)
Myths makes sense only as a part of a system, they play different functions within a system.
Semiotics asks why things/words carry particular meanings and who decides on this
Roland Barthes: Myths can be seen as extended metaphors (we speak about something in a figurative way and we understand each other within one culture)
Myths serve the ideological function of naturalisation: making things seem natural and normal: women are good mothers, men are good workers.
Whose myths?Myths are the effects of discursive combinations, ideological powers, dominant cultures and politics.
Myths can change, things taken for granted yesterday can mean something opposite today: Everyone can be a good parent, everyone can be a good worker.
IdeologyA system of beliefs characteristic of a particular class or group
A system of of illusory beliefs – false ideas or false consciousness – which can be contrasted with true or scientific knowledge
The general process of the production of meanings and ideas.
John Fiske, (1982) Introduction to Communication Studies, 144.
Ideologypatriarchal code
Marlboro CigarettesDate introduced: 1955Creator: Leo BurnetThe most powerful - and in some quarters-most hated brand image of the century, the Marlboro Man stands worldwide as the ultimate American cowboy and masculine trademark.
Real man?
antiracist code
Aunt Jemima pancake mixes and syrupDate introduced: 1893Creator: Chris Rutt/David Milling Co
PC thinking code
For now…A code is a set of practices familiar to users of the medium operating within a broad cultural, social, and political framework
Codes organise signs into meaningful systems which correlate signifiers and signifieds through referents (structuralism).
Representation vs.RealityRepresentation - it stands for or in place of something else
-it is the effect of mediation between reality and language
-it is inferior to the codes and conventions which construct reality
Reality?Reality or “truth” are the products of particular systems of representation
Systems of representation are created by ideologies working for particular societies and their authorities
Recap.Semiotics revealed the abstraction of language systems in which a word refers to a concept rather than a particular object
Semiotics proposed that language did not spring naturally from a relationship between word and object but was based on conventions that users of language had to learn.
De Saussure-structuralismSign is a double (dyadic) structurecommunication is an effect of arbitrary (free) combinations
the relation between signs is learnt - not given
is the signified the same for all members of a given culture?
Ch.Peirce and R.BarthespoststructuralismSign is a triple (triadic) structurethe most important is the relation between signified and signifier i.e
a PROCESS of signification filtered through the INTERPRETANT.
How to interpret?
Iconmetaphor
Index Symbol
MetaphorSynecdocheIrony metonymy
To recognise different types of signs their roles within the message (text) and how they inform the codes, ideology, myth.
IconA signifier which looks identical (equal) as a signified. It is perceived as resembling or imitating the original e.g. portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, an onomatopoeia, realistic sounds, sound effects in radio drama, dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures.
Index
The signifier is directly connected to the signified (physically or casually) e.g. smoke, thunder, a rash, clock, pointers (“index” finger), knock on a door, recordings, road signs, fingerprint.
Symbol
The signifier does not resemble the signified but is arbitrary (free) or conventional,e.g letters, traffic lights, national flags, pictures.
Referent
Icon, index, or symbol?
TropesMetaphor
Symbol Synecdoche Metonymy Simile
Metaphor: the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.(Lakoff and Johnson, 127)Metaphor needs an imaginative leap in their initial use Metaphor is based on apparent unrelatedness Metaphor transfers certain qualities from one sign to another
The four “master tropes”Metaphor Synecdoche
Irony Metonymy
metonymyThe vocation of the whole by a connectionOne signified stands for another signified which is directly related to it or closely associated with it in some way. Indexical character of icons recognisable in reality.
Milton’s pen was very sharp.Whitehall did not say anythingI lent you my ChandlerBush is going to bomb the EastDo you take plastic?
SynecdocheThe substitution of part for whole, genus for species or vice versa (Lanham,132)
We need to hire more hands (part for whole)
I was stopped by the law (whole for part)I work hard for my bread (species for genius)
I cannot log in my machine (genus for species)
IronyA mode of language in which the implied attitudes or evaluation are opposed to those literally expressed.
The use of irony carries a demand of understanding from a reader, who is associated with the knowing minority not taken in by the literal meaning.
Facial expression, vocal intonation, word order and context
metaphor Similarity despite difference
I work at the coalface
I do the hard work there
Metonymy Relatednesss through association
I’m one of the suits
I’m one of the managers
Synecdoche Relatedness through substitution
I deal with general public
I deal with customers
Irony Inexplicit direct opposite
I love working here
I hate working here
Key termsSignifier and signified
MeaningCodeIdeologyReferentInterpretantSignification (denotation/connotation)
NaturalisationMythRepresentationIconIndexSymbolMetaphorSynecdocheIronyMetonymy
