Semiotics
Here is the definition and key notes about Semiotics from various sites I checked :
1.http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Theory/semiotics.htm
2. http://www.arthist.lu.se/kultsem/encyclo/intro.html
3.http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SEMIOTER.html —Semiotic Terms
Sign :
A deterministic, functional regularity or stability in a system, also sometimes called a sign-function. Something, the signifier, stands for something else, the signified, in virtue of the sign-function. May be either lawful, proper, or symbolic depending on the presence or absence of motivation. This is, of course, a very general definition, but it is in the tradition of both semiotics and general systems theory to think very generally.
Contains: signifier, signified.
Cases: lawful, proper, symbolic.
Synonym: sign function.
Sign Function :
Synonym: sign.
Signifier :
That part of a sign which stands for the signified, for example a word or a DNA codon.
Synonym: token, sign vehicle.
Part-of: sign.
Token :
The physical entity or marker which manifests the signifer by standing for the signified.
Synonym: signifier, sign vehicle.
Sign Vehicle :
Synonym: token, signifier.
Signified :
That part of a sign which is stood for by the signifier. Sometimes thought of as the meaning of the signifier.
Synonym: object, referent, interpretant.
Part-of: sign.
Object :
Synonym: signified, referent, interpretant.
Referent :
Synonym: signified, object, interpretant.
Motivation :
The presence of some degree of necessity between the signified and siginifier of a sign. Makes the sign proper, and complete motivation makes the sign lawful. For example, a painting may resemble its subject, making it a proper sign.
Antonym: arbitrariness.
Arbitrariness :
The absence of any degree of necessity between the signified and siginifier of a sign. Makes the sign symbolic. For example, in English we say "bachelor" to refer to an unmarried man, but since we might just as well say "foobar", therefore "bachelor" is a symbol.
Antonym: motivation.
Proper Sign :
A sign which has an intermediate degree of motivation. For example, a photograph is a proper sign.
isa: sign.
Cases: icon, index.
Icon :
A proper sign where the motivation is due to some kind of physical resemblance or similarity between the signified and siginifier. For example, a map is an icon of its territory.
isa: proper sign.
Index :
A proper sign where the motivation is due to some kind of physical connection or causal relation between the signified and siginifier. For example, smoke is an index of fire.
isa: proper sign.
Symbol :
For CS Peirce, a sign where the sign function is a conventional rule or coding. The operation of a symbol is dependent on a process of interpretation.
isa: sign.
Rule :
A functional regularity or stability which is conventional, and thus necessary within the system which manifests it, but within a wider universe it is contingent, or arbitrary. For example, if we wish to refer to an unmarried man in English, then we must say "bachelor", even though "bachelor" is a symbol.
Synonym: code, semantic relation.
Antonym: law.
Semantic Relation :
Synonym: code, rule.
Code :
The establishment of a conventional rule-following relation in a symbol, represented as a deterministic, functional relation between two sets of entities.
Synonym: semantic relation, rule.
Interpret :
To take something for something else in virtue of a coding.
Interpreter :
That entity, typically a human subject, which interprets the sign vehicle of a symbol.
Interpretant :
For Peirce, that which followed semantically from the process of interpretation.
Synonym: signified, object, referent.
Law :
A regularity or stability which is necessary for all systems, and thus immutable as a fact of nature. The necessity of the relation is called the sign's motivation.
Antonym: rule.
Semantic Closure :
Propounded by Pattee [ PaH82], the property of real semiotic systems like organisms, wherein the interpreter is itself a referent of the semantic relation.
4. http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/semiotics.html
5. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/discipline/fine-art/theory/analysis/semiotic.htm
SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF IMAGES—There is a huge amount of material related to semiotics on the Web. However, very little of this is focused on semiotic analysis of visual images. Because many semiotic sites originate in Media Studies departments, visual analysis is often directed to written texts, film and advertising images. Also, the quality of the material varies greatly. Therefore, in the early stages of your research stay with the links listed below.
6. http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/semiotics.html#resources
Useful resources page
7. http://www.nerdshit.com/archive/2004/06/02/semiotics_for_b/
We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meanings: above all, we are surely Homo significans - meaning-makers. Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of 'signs'. Indeed, according to Peirce, 'we think only in signs' (Peirce 1931-58, 2.302). Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.
8. http://coolblue.typepad.com/the_cool_blue_blog/2004/06/semiotics_for_b.html
• Semiotics: the shortest definition is that it is the study of signs
• The kinds of signs that are likely to spring immediately to mind are those which we routinely refer to as 'signs' in everyday life, such as road signs, pub signs and star signs. If you were to agree with them that semiotics can include the study of all these and more, people will probably assume that semiotics is about 'visual signs'. You would confirm their hunch if you said that signs can also be drawings, paintings and photographs
• It also includes words, sounds and 'body language' they may reasonably wonder what all these things have in common and how anyone could possibly study such disparate phenomena
• Semiology (from the Greek semeîon, 'sign'). It would investigate the nature of signs and the laws governing them. Since it does not yet exist, one cannot say for certain that it will exist. But it has a right to exist, a place ready for it in advance. Linguistics is only one branch of this general science. The laws which semiology will discover will be laws applicable in linguistics, and linguistics will thus be assigned to a clearly defined place in the field of human knowledge. (Saussure 1983, 15-16; Saussure 1974, 16)
• 1. the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), a founder not only of linguistics but also of what is now more usually referred to as semiotics
• 2. Other than Saussure (the usual abbreviation), key figures in the early development of semiotics were the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (sic, pronounced 'purse') (1839-1914) and later Charles William Morris (1901-1979), who developed a behaviourist semiotics
• 3. It is difficult to disentangle European semiotics from structuralism in its origins; major structuralists include not only Saussure but also Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-1990) in anthropology (who saw his subject as a branch of semiotics) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) in psychoanalysis. Structuralism is an analytical method which has been employed by many semioticians and which is based on Saussure's linguistic model. Structuralists seek to describe the overall organization of sign systems as 'languages' - as with Lévi-Strauss and myth, kinship rules and totemism, Lacan and the unconscious and Barthes and Greimas and the 'grammar' of narrative. They engage in a search for 'deep structures' underlying the 'surface features' of phenomena. However, contemporary social semiotics has moved beyond the structuralist concern with the internal relations of parts within a self-contained system, seeking to explore the use of signs in specific social situations. Modern semiotic theory is also sometimes allied with a Marxist approach which stresses the role of ideology.
• Semiotics began to become a major approach to cultural studies in the late 1960s partly as a result of the work of Roland Barthes.
• Writing in 1964, Barthes declared that '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 these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification' (Barthes 1967, 9).
• Semiotics is not widely institutionalized as an academic discipline. It is a field of study involving many different theoretical stances and methodological tools. One of the broadest definitions is that of Umberto Eco, who states that 'semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign' (Eco 1976, 7). Semiotics involves the study not only of what we refer to as 'signs' in everyday speech, but of anything which 'stands for' something else. In a semiotic sense, signs take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects. Whilst for the linguist Saussure, 'semiology' was 'a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life', for the philosopher Charles Peirce 'semiotic' was the 'formal doctrine of signs' which was closely related to Logic (Peirce 1931-58, 2.227). For him, 'a sign... is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity' (Peirce 1931-58, 2.228). He declared that 'every thought is a sign' (Peirce 1931-58, 1.538; cf. 5.250ff, 5.283ff). Contemporary semioticians study signs not in isolation but as part of semiotic 'sign systems' (such as a medium or genre). They study how meanings are made: as such, being concerned not only with communication but also with the construction and maintenance of reality.
• Semiotics and that branch of linguistics known as semantics have a common concern with the meaning of signs, but John Sturrock argues that whereas semantics focuses on what words mean, semiotics is concerned with how signs mean (Sturrock 1986, 22). For C W Morris (deriving this threefold classification from Peirce), semiotics embraced semantics, along with the other traditional branches of linguistics:
* semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for;
* syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs;
* pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters (Morris 1938, 6-7).
• Semiotics is often employed in the analysis of texts.
• A 'text' can exist in any medium and may be verbal, non-verbal, or both, despite the logocentric bias of this distinction. The term text usually refers to a message which has been recorded in some way (e.g. writing, audio- and video-recording) so that it is physically independent of its sender or receiver. A text is an assemblage of signs (such as words, images, sounds and/or gestures) constructed (and interpreted) with reference to the conventions associated with a genre and in a particular medium of communication.
• Semiotic studies focus on the system of rules governing the 'discourse' involved in media texts, stressing the role of semiotic context in shaping meaning.
• C W Morris's definition of semiotics (in the spirit of Saussure) as 'the science of signs' (Morris 1938, 1-2).
Commtent by CoolBlue:
Semiotics is important because it can help us not to take 'reality' for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs and codes are normally transparent and disguise our task in 'reading' them. Living in a world of increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most 'realistic' signs are not what they appear to be. By making more explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted we may perform the valuable semiotic function of 'denaturalizing' signs. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed. The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit.
Commtent by simon:
'semiotics' refers to the study of signs in all forms. it is the term used by c s peirce --- saussure called it 'semiology'. however 'semiotics' is widely used to refer to both. 'structuralism' is linguistic perspectives ('codes', 'signs', 'grammar', 'text', 'language') used within a wider cultural context. the structuralist would say that not only words on a paper can be read in terms of rules for a language -- a photograph, an item of clothing or any artifact could be 'read' or 'decoded' in the same way--- hope that clarifies at least something
9. http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/full2.php?id=12614
Catalogued By Dr James Wilson
10. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/
Description : "Semiotics for Beginners"
It is an online book by Daniel Chandler, a lecturer in media and communication studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. It was originally written to assist his undergraduate students and to address the need for a clear, understandable introduction to the subject. The book largely succeeds in this respect, offering a readable and accessible guide to semiotic theory and its application to various fields. The online text is conventionally divided into chapters, with some light hypertextual features such as links between chapters and to external sites. Chapters cover issues such as: the nature of signs; paradigms and syntagms; denotation, connotation and myth; rhetorical tropes; encoding and decoding; and intertextuality. There is also a section covering the strengths and frequent criticisms of semiotic approaches. The book concludes with some advice to students regarding the interrogation of texts via semiotic analysis. This should act as a useful introduction for undergraduates studying critical theory, media studies, literature, or linguistics.
Semiotics has tended to be largely theoretical, many of its theorists seeking to establish its scope and general principles. Peirce and Saussure, for instance, were both concerned with the fundamental definition of the sign. Peirce developed elaborate logical taxonomies of types of signs. Subsequent semioticians have sought to identify and categorize the codes or conventions according to which signs are organized.
Semiotics represents a range of studies in art, literature, anthropology and the mass media rather than an independent academic discipline.
Beyond the most basic definition, there is considerable variation amongst leading semioticians as to what semiotics involves. It is not only concerned with (intentional) communication but also with our ascription of significance to anything in the world.
Saussure argued that 'nothing is more appropriate than the study of languages to bring out the nature of the semiological problem' (Saussure 1983, 16; Saussure 1974, 16).
Saussure referred to language (his model being speech) as 'the most important' of all of the systems of signs (Saussure 1983, 15; Saussure 1974, 16). Language is almost unvariably regarded as the most powerful communication system by far.
Claude Lévi-Strauss noted that 'language is the semiotic system par excellence; it cannot but signify, and exists only through signification' (Lévi-Strauss 1972, 48).
In the last decade or so, semiotics has undergone a shift of its theoretical gears: a shift away from the classification of sign systems - their basic units, their levels of structural organization - and towards the exploration of the modes of production of signs and meanings, the ways in which systems and codes are used, transformed or transgressed in social practice. While formerly the emphasis was on studying sign systems (language, literature, cinema, architecture, music, etc.), conceived of as mechanisms that generate messages, what is now being examined is the work performed through them. It is this work or activity which constitutes and/or transforms the codes, at the same time as it constitutes and transforms the individuals using the codes, performing the work; the individuals who are, therefore, the subjects of semiosis.
11. http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~sullivan/MMC2000/documents/SemioticsforBeginners.htm
…Contemporary semioticians study signs not in isolation but as part of semiotic 'sign systems' (such as a medium or genre). They study how meanings are made: as such, being concerned not only with communication but also with the construction and maintenance of reality. Semiotics and that branch of linguistics known as semantics have a common concern with the meaning of signs, but John Sturrock argues that whereas semantics focuses on what words mean, semiotics is concerned with how signs mean (Sturrock 1986, 22). For C W Morris (deriving this threefold classification from Peirce), semiotics embraced semantics, along with the other traditional branches of linguistics:
o semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for;
o syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs;
o pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters (Morris 1938, 6-7).
Semiotics is often employed in the analysis of texts (although it is far more than just a mode of textual analysis). Here it should perhaps be noted that a 'text' can exist in any medium and may be verbal, non-verbal, or both, despite the logocentric bias of this distinction. The term text usually refers to a message which has been recorded in some way (e.g. writing, audio- and video-recording) so that it is physically independent of its sender or receiver. A text is an assemblage of signs (such as words, images, sounds and/or gestures) constructed (and interpreted) with reference to the conventions associated with a genre and in a particular medium of communication.
1.http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Theory/semiotics.htm
2. http://www.arthist.lu.se/kultsem/encyclo/intro.html
3.http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SEMIOTER.html —Semiotic Terms
Sign :
A deterministic, functional regularity or stability in a system, also sometimes called a sign-function. Something, the signifier, stands for something else, the signified, in virtue of the sign-function. May be either lawful, proper, or symbolic depending on the presence or absence of motivation. This is, of course, a very general definition, but it is in the tradition of both semiotics and general systems theory to think very generally.
Contains: signifier, signified.
Cases: lawful, proper, symbolic.
Synonym: sign function.
Sign Function :
Synonym: sign.
Signifier :
That part of a sign which stands for the signified, for example a word or a DNA codon.
Synonym: token, sign vehicle.
Part-of: sign.
Token :
The physical entity or marker which manifests the signifer by standing for the signified.
Synonym: signifier, sign vehicle.
Sign Vehicle :
Synonym: token, signifier.
Signified :
That part of a sign which is stood for by the signifier. Sometimes thought of as the meaning of the signifier.
Synonym: object, referent, interpretant.
Part-of: sign.
Object :
Synonym: signified, referent, interpretant.
Referent :
Synonym: signified, object, interpretant.
Motivation :
The presence of some degree of necessity between the signified and siginifier of a sign. Makes the sign proper, and complete motivation makes the sign lawful. For example, a painting may resemble its subject, making it a proper sign.
Antonym: arbitrariness.
Arbitrariness :
The absence of any degree of necessity between the signified and siginifier of a sign. Makes the sign symbolic. For example, in English we say "bachelor" to refer to an unmarried man, but since we might just as well say "foobar", therefore "bachelor" is a symbol.
Antonym: motivation.
Proper Sign :
A sign which has an intermediate degree of motivation. For example, a photograph is a proper sign.
isa: sign.
Cases: icon, index.
Icon :
A proper sign where the motivation is due to some kind of physical resemblance or similarity between the signified and siginifier. For example, a map is an icon of its territory.
isa: proper sign.
Index :
A proper sign where the motivation is due to some kind of physical connection or causal relation between the signified and siginifier. For example, smoke is an index of fire.
isa: proper sign.
Symbol :
For CS Peirce, a sign where the sign function is a conventional rule or coding. The operation of a symbol is dependent on a process of interpretation.
isa: sign.
Rule :
A functional regularity or stability which is conventional, and thus necessary within the system which manifests it, but within a wider universe it is contingent, or arbitrary. For example, if we wish to refer to an unmarried man in English, then we must say "bachelor", even though "bachelor" is a symbol.
Synonym: code, semantic relation.
Antonym: law.
Semantic Relation :
Synonym: code, rule.
Code :
The establishment of a conventional rule-following relation in a symbol, represented as a deterministic, functional relation between two sets of entities.
Synonym: semantic relation, rule.
Interpret :
To take something for something else in virtue of a coding.
Interpreter :
That entity, typically a human subject, which interprets the sign vehicle of a symbol.
Interpretant :
For Peirce, that which followed semantically from the process of interpretation.
Synonym: signified, object, referent.
Law :
A regularity or stability which is necessary for all systems, and thus immutable as a fact of nature. The necessity of the relation is called the sign's motivation.
Antonym: rule.
Semantic Closure :
Propounded by Pattee [ PaH82], the property of real semiotic systems like organisms, wherein the interpreter is itself a referent of the semantic relation.
4. http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/semiotics.html
5. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/discipline/fine-art/theory/analysis/semiotic.htm
SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF IMAGES—There is a huge amount of material related to semiotics on the Web. However, very little of this is focused on semiotic analysis of visual images. Because many semiotic sites originate in Media Studies departments, visual analysis is often directed to written texts, film and advertising images. Also, the quality of the material varies greatly. Therefore, in the early stages of your research stay with the links listed below.
6. http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/semiotics.html#resources
Useful resources page
7. http://www.nerdshit.com/archive/2004/06/02/semiotics_for_b/
We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meanings: above all, we are surely Homo significans - meaning-makers. Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of 'signs'. Indeed, according to Peirce, 'we think only in signs' (Peirce 1931-58, 2.302). Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.
8. http://coolblue.typepad.com/the_cool_blue_blog/2004/06/semiotics_for_b.html
• Semiotics: the shortest definition is that it is the study of signs
• The kinds of signs that are likely to spring immediately to mind are those which we routinely refer to as 'signs' in everyday life, such as road signs, pub signs and star signs. If you were to agree with them that semiotics can include the study of all these and more, people will probably assume that semiotics is about 'visual signs'. You would confirm their hunch if you said that signs can also be drawings, paintings and photographs
• It also includes words, sounds and 'body language' they may reasonably wonder what all these things have in common and how anyone could possibly study such disparate phenomena
• Semiology (from the Greek semeîon, 'sign'). It would investigate the nature of signs and the laws governing them. Since it does not yet exist, one cannot say for certain that it will exist. But it has a right to exist, a place ready for it in advance. Linguistics is only one branch of this general science. The laws which semiology will discover will be laws applicable in linguistics, and linguistics will thus be assigned to a clearly defined place in the field of human knowledge. (Saussure 1983, 15-16; Saussure 1974, 16)
• 1. the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), a founder not only of linguistics but also of what is now more usually referred to as semiotics
• 2. Other than Saussure (the usual abbreviation), key figures in the early development of semiotics were the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (sic, pronounced 'purse') (1839-1914) and later Charles William Morris (1901-1979), who developed a behaviourist semiotics
• 3. It is difficult to disentangle European semiotics from structuralism in its origins; major structuralists include not only Saussure but also Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-1990) in anthropology (who saw his subject as a branch of semiotics) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) in psychoanalysis. Structuralism is an analytical method which has been employed by many semioticians and which is based on Saussure's linguistic model. Structuralists seek to describe the overall organization of sign systems as 'languages' - as with Lévi-Strauss and myth, kinship rules and totemism, Lacan and the unconscious and Barthes and Greimas and the 'grammar' of narrative. They engage in a search for 'deep structures' underlying the 'surface features' of phenomena. However, contemporary social semiotics has moved beyond the structuralist concern with the internal relations of parts within a self-contained system, seeking to explore the use of signs in specific social situations. Modern semiotic theory is also sometimes allied with a Marxist approach which stresses the role of ideology.
• Semiotics began to become a major approach to cultural studies in the late 1960s partly as a result of the work of Roland Barthes.
• Writing in 1964, Barthes declared that '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 these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification' (Barthes 1967, 9).
• Semiotics is not widely institutionalized as an academic discipline. It is a field of study involving many different theoretical stances and methodological tools. One of the broadest definitions is that of Umberto Eco, who states that 'semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign' (Eco 1976, 7). Semiotics involves the study not only of what we refer to as 'signs' in everyday speech, but of anything which 'stands for' something else. In a semiotic sense, signs take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects. Whilst for the linguist Saussure, 'semiology' was 'a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life', for the philosopher Charles Peirce 'semiotic' was the 'formal doctrine of signs' which was closely related to Logic (Peirce 1931-58, 2.227). For him, 'a sign... is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity' (Peirce 1931-58, 2.228). He declared that 'every thought is a sign' (Peirce 1931-58, 1.538; cf. 5.250ff, 5.283ff). Contemporary semioticians study signs not in isolation but as part of semiotic 'sign systems' (such as a medium or genre). They study how meanings are made: as such, being concerned not only with communication but also with the construction and maintenance of reality.
• Semiotics and that branch of linguistics known as semantics have a common concern with the meaning of signs, but John Sturrock argues that whereas semantics focuses on what words mean, semiotics is concerned with how signs mean (Sturrock 1986, 22). For C W Morris (deriving this threefold classification from Peirce), semiotics embraced semantics, along with the other traditional branches of linguistics:
* semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for;
* syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs;
* pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters (Morris 1938, 6-7).
• Semiotics is often employed in the analysis of texts.
• A 'text' can exist in any medium and may be verbal, non-verbal, or both, despite the logocentric bias of this distinction. The term text usually refers to a message which has been recorded in some way (e.g. writing, audio- and video-recording) so that it is physically independent of its sender or receiver. A text is an assemblage of signs (such as words, images, sounds and/or gestures) constructed (and interpreted) with reference to the conventions associated with a genre and in a particular medium of communication.
• Semiotic studies focus on the system of rules governing the 'discourse' involved in media texts, stressing the role of semiotic context in shaping meaning.
• C W Morris's definition of semiotics (in the spirit of Saussure) as 'the science of signs' (Morris 1938, 1-2).
Commtent by CoolBlue:
Semiotics is important because it can help us not to take 'reality' for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs and codes are normally transparent and disguise our task in 'reading' them. Living in a world of increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most 'realistic' signs are not what they appear to be. By making more explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted we may perform the valuable semiotic function of 'denaturalizing' signs. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed. The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit.
Commtent by simon:
'semiotics' refers to the study of signs in all forms. it is the term used by c s peirce --- saussure called it 'semiology'. however 'semiotics' is widely used to refer to both. 'structuralism' is linguistic perspectives ('codes', 'signs', 'grammar', 'text', 'language') used within a wider cultural context. the structuralist would say that not only words on a paper can be read in terms of rules for a language -- a photograph, an item of clothing or any artifact could be 'read' or 'decoded' in the same way--- hope that clarifies at least something
9. http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/full2.php?id=12614
Catalogued By Dr James Wilson
10. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/
Description : "Semiotics for Beginners"
It is an online book by Daniel Chandler, a lecturer in media and communication studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. It was originally written to assist his undergraduate students and to address the need for a clear, understandable introduction to the subject. The book largely succeeds in this respect, offering a readable and accessible guide to semiotic theory and its application to various fields. The online text is conventionally divided into chapters, with some light hypertextual features such as links between chapters and to external sites. Chapters cover issues such as: the nature of signs; paradigms and syntagms; denotation, connotation and myth; rhetorical tropes; encoding and decoding; and intertextuality. There is also a section covering the strengths and frequent criticisms of semiotic approaches. The book concludes with some advice to students regarding the interrogation of texts via semiotic analysis. This should act as a useful introduction for undergraduates studying critical theory, media studies, literature, or linguistics.
Semiotics has tended to be largely theoretical, many of its theorists seeking to establish its scope and general principles. Peirce and Saussure, for instance, were both concerned with the fundamental definition of the sign. Peirce developed elaborate logical taxonomies of types of signs. Subsequent semioticians have sought to identify and categorize the codes or conventions according to which signs are organized.
Semiotics represents a range of studies in art, literature, anthropology and the mass media rather than an independent academic discipline.
Beyond the most basic definition, there is considerable variation amongst leading semioticians as to what semiotics involves. It is not only concerned with (intentional) communication but also with our ascription of significance to anything in the world.
Saussure argued that 'nothing is more appropriate than the study of languages to bring out the nature of the semiological problem' (Saussure 1983, 16; Saussure 1974, 16).
Saussure referred to language (his model being speech) as 'the most important' of all of the systems of signs (Saussure 1983, 15; Saussure 1974, 16). Language is almost unvariably regarded as the most powerful communication system by far.
Claude Lévi-Strauss noted that 'language is the semiotic system par excellence; it cannot but signify, and exists only through signification' (Lévi-Strauss 1972, 48).
In the last decade or so, semiotics has undergone a shift of its theoretical gears: a shift away from the classification of sign systems - their basic units, their levels of structural organization - and towards the exploration of the modes of production of signs and meanings, the ways in which systems and codes are used, transformed or transgressed in social practice. While formerly the emphasis was on studying sign systems (language, literature, cinema, architecture, music, etc.), conceived of as mechanisms that generate messages, what is now being examined is the work performed through them. It is this work or activity which constitutes and/or transforms the codes, at the same time as it constitutes and transforms the individuals using the codes, performing the work; the individuals who are, therefore, the subjects of semiosis.
11. http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~sullivan/MMC2000/documents/SemioticsforBeginners.htm
…Contemporary semioticians study signs not in isolation but as part of semiotic 'sign systems' (such as a medium or genre). They study how meanings are made: as such, being concerned not only with communication but also with the construction and maintenance of reality. Semiotics and that branch of linguistics known as semantics have a common concern with the meaning of signs, but John Sturrock argues that whereas semantics focuses on what words mean, semiotics is concerned with how signs mean (Sturrock 1986, 22). For C W Morris (deriving this threefold classification from Peirce), semiotics embraced semantics, along with the other traditional branches of linguistics:
o semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for;
o syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs;
o pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters (Morris 1938, 6-7).
Semiotics is often employed in the analysis of texts (although it is far more than just a mode of textual analysis). Here it should perhaps be noted that a 'text' can exist in any medium and may be verbal, non-verbal, or both, despite the logocentric bias of this distinction. The term text usually refers to a message which has been recorded in some way (e.g. writing, audio- and video-recording) so that it is physically independent of its sender or receiver. A text is an assemblage of signs (such as words, images, sounds and/or gestures) constructed (and interpreted) with reference to the conventions associated with a genre and in a particular medium of communication.
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