Message and Meaning

Semiotics and Beyond….

Maria Costantino

Magritte: This is not a pipe. (it’s a sign of a pipe)

1

Semiotics

The study of signs and their meanings

The emphasis in semiotics is:

not so much on communication as a process

but on the generation of meaning

At the centre of semiotics is:

• The sign itself

• The codes or systems into which signs are organised

• The culture within which these codes and signs operate

Texts and Readers

• In addition to a range of new terms, semiotics uses the words ‘texts’ and ‘readers’ because:

• A text can mean/refer to anything that can be ‘read’- photos, buildings, movies, clothes, bodies, sounds in music as well as ‘books’.

Texts and Readers

Readers play active roles and reading is something we learn to do- it is determined by the cultural experience of the reader.

Readers help

• Create the meanings of texts by bringing to them their own experience, attitudes and emotions.

Signs and meanings: basic concepts

1) The sign itself

2) That to which the sign refers

3) Users of the sign

Signs

• A sign is something physical- that is it is perceivable by our senses

But a sign depends on a recognition by the users that it is a sign.

Signs

Signs: All signs-

including road signs-

refer to things other

than themselves.

Have you ever seen

a road sign that said:

‘Sign’ ?

Signs

• Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist)» was primarily interested in language but» interested in the way signs (in his case, » words) operated . » » The sign was a physical object with a

meaning or, to use his terms,

» a sign is made up of a signifier and a » signified

Signifier

• The signifier is the sign’s ‘image’ as we perceive it-

• Marks on paper

• Sounds in the air

Signified

• The signified is the broad mental concept to which the sign refers.

Rabbit• The above sign could mean a few

things:

• It could mean rabbit- to talk a lot

• Or it could mean rabbit- the animal

RABBIT

• This sign is made up of the signifier (its appearance)

• And the mental concept (rabbit-ness)

• The relationship between my concept of rabbit-ness and the physical reality of a rabbit is signification.

A cute little bunny rabbit…

bunny

Signification

• Signification is the way in which we

give meaning to the world

The way we understand or make sense of the world around us.

BUT….

Signification

• My ‘mental concept’ of a rabbit (what an rabbit means to me) may be very different to yours:

What means to me

What might mean to you

Or even

bunny club

The signification of a rabbit (what a rabbit means) is culturally specific:

To some rabbits are petsTo farmers, rabbits are pestsTo me, rabbits are tasty food, others don’t

eat rabbits NOT because they are pets or pests, but because of their ‘culture’- vegetarians, vegans, Jews (not kosher)

To some, a particular rabbit sign means attractive ladies in fake ears (Playboy bunnies)

Categories of signs:1ICON

An icon is a sign that resembles the object/thing it is referring to in some way- it looks or sounds like it.

Two iconic signs ofrabbits, but the photo is more iconic than drawing-it ‘looks’ more likethe ‘real’ rabbit than the line drawing.

Categories of signs 2:INDEX

• In an index or indexical sign there is a direct link between the sign and its object- the two are actually connected.

Rabbit prints in thesnow are indexicalsigns of a rabbit- the footprints ‘pointto’ or ‘indicate’ arabbit, they are a sign of a rabbit.

Categories of signs 3:SYMBOLS

• In a symbol, there is NO connection between the sign and the object to which it refers.

• Symbols communicate because people have agreed that a symbol means what it means.

• The symbol of a rabbit is therefore:

RABBIT

• Words are symbols: we have agreed that this combination of ‘marks’ means

that particular animal that goes hippity-hop and has a twitchy nose and long ears.

Or, this symbol could mean to ‘talk a lot’.

The meaning of symbols is arbitrary- their meaning relies on the consensus/agreement of the users of the sign.

So,

• Icons- are like photographs of rabbits

• Indexes- are like the footprints of rabbits

• Symbols- the word for rabbit.

Lightning- the sign of…

The organisation of signs

• Sings on their own are pretty limited in their communicative function.

• Here is a sign

%

%

It’s a symbol and it means per cent.

That’s it.Per cent.

For this sign to make ‘more sense’- to have more meaning or greater significance, it needs to be organised with other signs. e.g. 65% Two new symbols- in this case numbers- have been added.

65%

• So now this set of symbols means 65%.

65% of what?

We need more signs for more meaning.

65%

of our survey said they have never eaten rabbit

in the nude.Some of the signs were missing- we presumed the messagewas ‘over’ because we moved to the next frame. The contextof power point frames here is important- context helps to movemeaning along.Punctuation ‘marks’ are also arbitrary symbols that help make meaning. The statement on the previous page omitted the arbitrarily agreed full stop. The message wasn’t completed untilthe final words and full stop were added. The meaning of thewhole message is significantly different to what we first understood.

Noise

• We could say the the ‘break’ between each PowerPoint frame is ‘noise’. Noise is a nuisance, it interferes with effective communication.

• Noise can be audible or visual- or it can be the uncomfortable lecture room seats- anything that interferes with the message

• The designer/communicators’ role is to keep noise to a minimum and to keep the possible meanings of messages to a minimum.

This symbol means

‘female’

• Signs of women

These signs of women, what these signs of women ‘mean’ and how the mean, are much more complex.

Organisations of signs

De Saussure defined 2 ways in which signs are organised into codes.

1) Paradigms

2) Syntagms

Paradigms: 1

• A paradigm is a set from which a choice is made.

• An example of a paradigm is the alphabet.

• The alphabet forms the paradign for written language.

Paradigms:

• There are 2 basic characteristics of a paradigm.

• 1) all the units in a paradigm must have something in common- they must share characteristics that determine their membership of the paradigm. To get into the alphabet, all the units must be letters. Not saucepans.These go into other paradigms that we call cookware.

Paradigms

• The second characteristic of paradigms is:

Each unit in the paradigm must be clearly distinguishable from all the other units in the paradigm. We must be able to distinguish the difference between signs in the paradigm in terms of their signifiers and their signifieds- what they ‘look like’ perhaps and what they ‘mean’. This means each sign in a paradigm has a distinctive feature.

The paradigm of the alphabet

• To be in the alphabet paradigm, the sign must first be a letter

and secondly,

• each letter in the alphabet must have a feature that distinguishes it from other letters.

Distinctive features

Nobody move! I have a bun in my pocket and I’m not afraid to use it!

Both b and g are letters, but they are very different. Bad handwriting can however blur the distinctive features of the letter, so always type your demands in a bank robbery. Likewise, if you are wearing a stocking over your head, speech might be a little difficult and your demand for money may be interpreted as a demand for honey.

Paradigms

Each time we communicate- in words, pictures, sounds,movements and in ‘smells’- we must select from a paradigm (our set of signs).

We select from a number of paradigms- letters from alphabets; words (the paradigm of English language); paradigms of nouns or verbs; paradigms of use- ‘lovers’ language, baby talk, legal-speak; paradigms of sound- words that rhyme (day, May, hay)

Paradigms

• In film/TV paradigms are the ways of changing shot- cut, fade, dissolve, lap, wipe

• We have paradigms of cars- sports, coupe, limos, SUV, estates

• And even paradigms of saucepans- milk pans right up to big casseroles.

Paradigmatic choice and meaning

• The meaning of the paradigmatic unit is determined by the meanings of the other units we didn’t choose.

• The lap dissolve in film means (signifies) what it does because the other ways of making a transition from shot to shot mean other things.

• What my Smart car means is determined by the fact that it is not a limousine or a people mover.

Syntagms

• Once a unit has been selected from the paradigm, it is usually combined with other units to make a syntagm.

• Words are syntagms of letters; sentences are syntagms of words.

• A menu is a complete system- each course is a paradigm that is combined by the diner into a meal and the syntagm is the order given to the waiter.

To re-cap:

• Paradigms are in effect sets of units

• Syntagms are arrangements of the selected units

Codes

• Codes are the systems into which signs are organised.

• These systems are governed by rules which are consented to by all the users of that code.

(Morse code, sign language, highway code…)

Codes

• Codes are signifying systems:• They convey meaning• They depend on agreement and a shared

cultural background• They perform identifiable or communicative

functions• They are transmittable by their appropriate

media and/or channels of communication

Digital and Analogue Codes

• Digital codes have units that are clearly separated- like a digital clock

Analogue codes work on continuous scales.

Digital codes

• Are easy to understand as each unit is easily distinguished

Analogue codes

• Are more difficult to understand:

• Nature is an analogue code.

• So is music.

• To make sense of music, we can digitalise it using notes, staves etc.

Analogue codes

• To make sense of ‘nature’- the passing of time for example, we digitalise it by breaking it down into ‘bits’ of understandable information.

• For this we can use words like century,decade, year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second… smaller and smaller categories each time.

Space is an analogue

• In ‘reality’, space runs into each other, but this makes things complicated so we make sense of it by digitalising it- miles, acres, feet, yards, inches, public, private, open, enclosed, outer space…

Encoding

• The perception of reality is a process of encoding

So,

our perception and understanding of reality is as specific to our culture as our language. It is in this sense that we talk of reality as a social construct.

Codes and Commonality

• All codes rely on commonality- agreement between users on what’s in the code, how it’s used, and what can be communicated with it.

• We reach agreement by convention and use.

Codes: Convention and Use

• Convention gives rise to expectations: that we will dress or behave within certain limits; that TV programmes will follow broadly familiar lines.

Redundancy

• Convention relies on redundancy-

predictability. This makes it easy to decode the message.

But convention also produces conformity, lack of originality, resistance to change.

Sometimes as designers, the requirement is for us to create messages with high levels of redundancy- so everyone gets the message.

Entropy

• Entropy is the opposite of redundancy- entropic codes are startling, new, strange, avant-garde ‘combinations’ of signs.

• Eventually, even the most entropic codes become redundant through use: the styles of Impressionism, Bauhaus design, Rap music, slasher movies

Sometimes as designers, we get the chance to develop new entropic codes that challenge conventions.

Aberrant decoding

“This is me. Take me as I am.”

“This person is resistant to conventions. They are rebels and troublesome.”

Aberrant decoding

• The ‘misunderstanding’ is due to different cultural experiences. This is what Umberto Eco calls an ‘aberrant reading’ of signs/codes.

So what?

• Saussures’ ideas about signs and codes take us only so far in understanding how signs work.

• This is because he was interested largely in linguistics and not in the idea that meaning might be a process of negotiation between writer/reader and text.

Roland Barthes

Key text: ‘The Rhetoric of the Image’ in Image-Music-Text (Fontana, 1972)

Two orders of signification:

• 1st order of signification: Denotation

The ‘common sense’, obvious meaning of a sign.

Second Order of Signification:1

• Connotation: what happens when a sign meets the ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’ of the

users and the values of their culture.

Photographs denote signs- what is in the picture- denotation is what is photographed.

Connotation is how those signs are photographed- frame, colour, focus, camera angle.

Connotation

• Denotation is what we say

• Connotation is how we say it

• Connotation works on the subjective level and so we are often not aware of it and it is easy to read connotative values as denotative facts.

Second order of Signification:2

MYTH is the second way in which signs work in the 2nd order of signification.

A myth is a story by which a culture understands/makes sense of some aspects of reality or nature.

Myth

Myth

Myths and Ideology

• Ideology- a system of beliefs and practices dominant in a society at a particular time.

• Religious ideologies, political ideologies, ideologies of the family, childhood, women/men…

Myths and Ideologies:

• Barthes contends that myths/ideologies

‘naturalise’ history- ‘that’s the way it’s always been’.

It’s natural that women are caring, sharing, nurturing. It’s natural that men are the bread winners.

Women, naturally…

Women, naturally….

Men

Men, naturally……

Metaphors

• When we transpose the qualities of one thing to another.

• The ship ploughed through the sea

• She glided through the doors

• He snaked across the city

Visual metaphors

• Wild horses for Marlboro cigarettes

• Waterfalls for menthol/minty-ness

» Purple silk is denoted. The colour purple and silk

» fabric connote…..

Metaphorical transposition

Metaphorical Transposition

Associating a star/celebrity with a product

Metaphorical transposition

Gold: indexical of

wealth; symbolic of

luxury, status, and

power.

Metonymy

• Making a ‘part’ stand for the ‘whole’.

Semiotics and Semiotic analysis: key texts• Roland Barthes ‘The Rhetoric of the Image’ in Image-Music-

Text (Fontana 1972)• Gillian Dyer ‘What Do Advertisements Mean?’ (chapter 5) in

Advertising as Communication (Methuen, 1982)• Judith Williamson ‘A Currency of Signs’ (chapter 1) in

Decoding Advertisements (1985, Marion Boyars)• Dominic Strinati ‘Structuralism and Semiology’ (pp88-128)

in Introduction to the Theories of Popular Culture (Routledge, 1995)

• John Fiske Introduction to Communication Studies (Routledge, 1982)

• Mike Bignell Media Semiotics (available as a Google book)• Dan Chandler Semiotics for Beginners

www.aber.ac.uk/semiotics/danchandler or Google Dan Chandler ‘Semiotics for Beginners’