Culture and Semiotics

8/3/2019 Culture and Semiotics

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10/03/2007 Cultural Semiotics 3 1

Culture as signifying system:Spheres of culture


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From sign to system

Reconsidering Peirce and Saussure Peirce: broader concept of the sign as expression of a

communicative relationship meaning as a property of the sign: response

elicited by apprehension of object mediated by thesign as representamen

Saussure: narrower (word/writing-based) concept ofthe sign as arbitrary articulation of sensory impressionand concept meaning as effect of relationship between signs:orientation toward sign system

Contrast or compatibility?


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The constitution of codes

An attempt to connect Peirce and Saussure

Encoding: 2 operations of articulation

1. Articulating signs with reality: focusingattention

(iconic, indexical, symbolic representation)2. Articulating signs with signs: guidingattention

(paradigmatic and syntagmatic organization)

Enacting: dramatic (gestural, mimetic) origins

of codes (e.g. dance)

Development of forms by repetition anddisplacement: codification and application


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Iconic encoding

Foregrounding andschematization

Dramatic (scenic)organization

Possibility of furtherabstraction (conceptualabbreviation)

Aboriginal rock painting (Australia),

more than 8,000 years old

(Chaloupka 136)


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From icon to script

Repetition anddisplacementyielding abstractionand codification(lexicon & grammar)

Enablingarticulation of morecomplex symbolicrepresentations

Chinese writing fromc.3,500 years ago topresent

Image source: http://ancientscripts.com/chinese.html


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Signifying systems

Sets of articulating practices and techniques thatoperate on encoding units based on conventionsestablished through repetition

Make the world knowable (mentally portable)and susceptible to organized action

Create situations of decoding and positions of

responding (renewed encoding), wherebypeople assume certain attitudes toward theworld as it is mediated through signs(semiotic gap, desire, pursuit of authenticity)


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Discourses

Signifying systems are codified in discourses:institutionalized system[s] for the production ofknowledge [or meaning] in regulated language(Bov 53) example: OED

Discourses frame situations of attention in whichpeople take responsive attitudes that orient theiractions in the world (Foucault: subject positions)

Discourses organize power (the ability to act onpeoples ability to act) by stimulating andregulating signifying practices


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The dominance of discourse

Discourses are the product of evolving histories ofsignifying practices and techniques; they are sustainedby the practices they elicit

How is discourse institutionalized?

From sacred (ritual) to secular (bureaucratic) authority

Codification: regulation of proper use of signs, definition anddifferentiation of subject positions

Material structures that serve as scenes (settings) for the

enactment of signifying practices Institutionalized discourse expresses shared attitudes

and values to which people respond in their everydaypractices


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Cultural semiotics and discourse

Focusing on everyday practices in theirinstitutional settings and discursive contexts

Analyzing institutionalized meanings: publicly

encoded values (built environment, displays andbroadcasts, organized activities)

Analyzing individual or collective practices assituated acts encoding specific meanings

Identifying encoding operations Distinguishing dominant (determined) meanings

and creative meanings (displacement)


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Examples of institutionalized meanings


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Examples of institutionalized meanings


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Examples of signifying practices


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Examples of signifying practices


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Systems and practices:Thoughts for further consideration

Signifying practices both participate incollectively shared processes and aim toarticulate individually authentic meanings(remember Tylor and Arnold)

Signifying practices and processes can beanalyzed in two encoding operations, articulatingsigns with reality & articulating signs with signs

Signifying systems develop by expansion ratherthan progress: ancient impulses and techniquesof encoding persist today; signifying practicesdraw on body, mind, and culture


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Systems and practices:Thoughts for further consideration

Cultural meanings are inseparable from theinstitutional contexts and the signifying practicesthat articulate them (see Geertz)

Cultural objects and practices have a certainmobility: they may be moved from one signifyingsystem to another and their meanings changeaccordingly (see Clifford)

Signifying systems overlap and intersect: peoplenavigate several spheres simultaneously,articulating disjunct meanings (see Appadurai)


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Sources

Appadurai, Arjun. "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global CulturalEconomy." Public Culture2.2 (Spring 1990): 1-24.

Bov, Paul. Discourse. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Ed. FrankLentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1990. 50-65.

Chaloupka, George. Journey in Time: The Worlds Longest Continuing Art

Tradition. Kew: Reed, 1993. Clifford, James. "On Collecting Art and Culture." The Predicament ofCulture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. 215-51.

Foucault, Michel. The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry8 Summer 1982):777-95.

Geertz, Clifford. "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of

Culture." The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. 3-30.

The picture on the first slide shows an English naval officer bartering with aMaori, from drawings illustrative of Captain Cooks first voyage, 1768-1771(http://www.captcook-ne.co.uk/ccne/exhibits/C2055-03/index.htm)

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Culture and Semiotics