Introduction to Semiotics

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Introduction to Semiotics

• MD1H05C

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GENERAL OVERVIEW
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What is semiotics?

• Semiotics (from the Greek semeion) is the study
  of signs and texts, which is to say that it is
  the study of meanings, communication,
  interpretation and significance.
• Semiotics is less interested in what something
  means than in how it means anything at all to
  anybody.

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What is a Sign?

• The basic unit of semiotics is the sign. A sign
  is a unit of meaning.
• Aliquid pro aliquo a sign is something that
  stands for something else.
• A sign is something that tells.
• It is for this reason that Umberto Eco (The Name
  of the Rose) defines semiotics as the discipline
  that studies lying. Signs are always pretending
  they are something else.

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Semiosis

• Semiosis means sign-activity. It is what
  signs do.
• Semiosis is not always communication.

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Signs Texts

• Signs combine to form Texts. A text can be
  thought of as a message recorded in some medium
  so that it is independent of a sender or a
  receiver.
• Semioticians analyse texts to reveal their hidden
  meanings - whats really going on.

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Codes

• Signs and Texts are governed by codes.
• Codes are the rules and conventions for making a
  text in a given genre or medium. They are also
  the environment/context in which signs exist.
• Codes are what help us understand and interpret
  signs. They are the rules of the game.
• These rules change over time. (eg lava lamps)

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STRUCTURALISM
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Saussure - Background

• Ferdinand De Saussure
• Born 1857 in Switzerland
• 1856 at Leipzig University published a paper.
  (On Vowels in Indo-European Languages)
• 1906 - Whilst the Professor of Sanskrit at Geneva
  he was asked to teach a course in general
  linguistics to some undergraduates.
• After his death in 1913, his former students
  published his lecture notes. Structural
  Linguistics was born.

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Saussure - Introduction

• Traditionally language thought to be a system of
  naming. This is fine for specific things, but
  what about Man or Happiness or Nation?
• For Saussure, language has nothing to do with
  names and is independent of the real world.

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Semiology

• Semiology - a science which studies the role of
  signs as part of social life.
• Saussure believed that his linguistic theories
  could be applied to all communication events.
  Semiology assumes that all culture on some level
  is like a language.

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Barthes Definition

• Semiology aims to take in any system of signs
  whatever their substance and limits images,
  gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the
  complex associations of all of those which form
  the content of ritual, convention or public
  entertainments. These constitute, if not
  languages, at least systems of significations.
  (Roland Barthes (1964))

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Saussure - The Sign

• Saussures sign has 2 parts a sound-image
  (signifier/Sr) and a concept (signified/Sd). The
  formal association of these two parts makes a
  sign. (eg /tree/ - concept of a tree)
• The relationship between the two is formal and
  psychological. Signifcation is something that
  goes on in our heads.

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The Arbitrary Sign

• The relation between signifier and signified is
  arbitrary.
• Lots of languages have different signifiers for
  the same concepts. As long as everyone agrees
  what the signifier is then we can understand each
  other.

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A System of Differences

• As a sign is made up of this arbitrary
  relationship, it can only have a meaning to the
  extent that it is different from other signs.
  Language is a system of differences. What
  something means is dependent on how much it
  differs from other signifiers and
  signifieds.Language is a system of formal
  relationships.

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Examples

• Example (I) Explaining brown to someone by
  just pointing to brown things wouldnt work.
• Example (II) We can pronounce words in all sorts
  of different ways, and as long as one word cant
  be confused for another then we can be
  understood. (eg /bed/ vs /bead/ or /beard/)

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A System of Differences

• Concepts are purely differential and defined not
  by their positive content but negatively by their
  relations with other terms in the system.
  Ferdinand de Saussure

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Language Expression

• One consequence of this for semiology is that
  language is not just a vehicle for meaning and
  thought, but IS meaning and thought. Different
  languages different thoughts.
• E.M. Forster How can I tell what I think until
  I see what I say?

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Criticisms - Volosinov

• Volosinov/Bakhtin (1895-1936)
• A word is a bridge thrown between myself and
  another.
• Saussures system is too abstract.
• Language must be understood diachronically. Each
  sign has a history of use that must be taken into
  account. (eg Volkswagons and Swastikas.) Is this
  a fair criticism?
• Meaning is dialogical and situated. (THEME)

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Criticisms - Social Semiotics

• Speech is solidarity (Gunther Kress)
• In social semiotics, all speech has a social
  meaning, which is motivated. (connected to
  action by individuals in society).
• People talk to each other, they get people to do
  things and meanings are exchanged. In other
  words, language is performative.

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Criticisms - Social Semiotics ii

• In social semiotics, language is not a closed
  system. It is open and fragmented and changing
  all of the time.
• Saussure is too
• individualistic
• systematic
• Saussure forgets that sign-systems are
• Open and ongoing
• Heavily contextual

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PEIRCEAN SEMIOTICS
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Charles S. Peirce

• C.S. Peirce (pronounced Purse)
• An American philosopher and logician writing at
  about the same time as Saussure was teaching his
  course.
• Was fired from a University job early in his
  career, and eked out a living writing articles
  for newspapers

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Peircean Semiotics

• Unlike Saussure, Peirce didnt focus on language.
  He was interested in all kinds of signs, and his
  system applies equally to bacteria as to humans.
• Peirce believed that all thinking and
  interpretation was the work of signs. (eg I is
  the sign through which people represent
  themselves to the world.)
• As a logician he wanted to find out not only how
  signs happen to behave, but the rules to govern
  how they must behave.

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Peircean Semiotics ii

• For Peirce logic and semiotics are exactly the
  same thing.
• Like Saussure, Peirce believed that signs allow
  coded access to an object, but in Peircean
  semiotics signs can be material as well as well
  as mental/psychological.

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Peirces Sign

• Peirce defined the sign as something which
  stands to somebody for something in some respect
  or capacity.
• The Peircean sign has 3 parts
• Sign/Representamen(S/R)
• Object (O)
• Interpretant (I)

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Peirces Sign ii

• The Sign/Representamen is very much like
  Saussures signifier. It stands for something and
  is interpreted.
• This produces the Interpretant, which is close to
  Saussures signified. It is what is represented
  or meant by a sign.
• Both the Sign/Representamen and the interpretant
  together stand for something else the Object.

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Icon, Index, Symbol

• ICON relation of reason
• An iconic sign resembles its object (eg a
  photograph)
• INDEX relation of fact
• An indexical sign has some natural/causal
  connection with its object. (eg smoke fire)
• SYMBOL relation of cognition
• A symbolic sign relates to its object in a
  conventional and arbitrary manner only (eg
  language)

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Unlimited Semiosis

• The meaning of a sign is always another sign.
• The Interpretant of any Sign can become the Sign
  for another Interpretant and so on and so on.
  (eg 2 people and another comes along to witness
  the fight.)
• This is Unlimited Semiosis.
• The Peircean sign is open, dynamic, and no
  meaning is ever final.

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Whats the point of semiotics?

• Allows us to see what is hidden in texts.
• Gives us an understanding of the polysemy of
  communication.
• Reveals just how much of culture we take for
  granted as natural and necessary.
• Unifies the study of communication, and makes
  legitimate the study of things like pop-culture

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Some Criticisms of Semiotics

• Semiotics tells us things we already know in a
  language well never understand.
• Does semiotics really tell us anything useful
  about communication? It is very good at analysing
  what is happening, but can it help us with the
  why?
• Semiotics can appear imperialistic to other
  disciplines.
• Semiotic analyses often pretend to be
  authoritative, objective truths, but are often
  simply subjective interpretations of texts.

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Summary

• Semiotics is the study of signs and sign-systems.
• Signs are combined into texts. This process is
  governed by codes.
• A sign is something that stands for something
  else to someone else.

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