CCT210 Midterm Flashcards
Ferdinand de Saussure
uses a model
- sign is composed of signifier and signified
Signifer = the form of which the sign takes
Signified = the concept it represents
Sign = the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified
Saussure Example “open”
signifier: the word “open”
signified: the shop is “open” for business
Remember that you as the shopper/the person reading the sign have invested it with meaning
Saussure ‘Value’ of Sign
- value’ of a sign depends on its relations with other signs within the system
- a sign has no ‘absolute’ value independent of this context
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For Saussure, the arbitrariness of the sign is related to the dependence of language on cultural convention. Saussure notes that in principle, every means of expression used in society is based on collective behaviour or convention
The Saussurean model… supports the notion that rather than reflecting reality, language plays a major role
in constructing it
Charles Sanders Peirce
3 part model
- The Representamen: (also called the Sign): This is the form the sign takes, such as a word, image, sound, or symbol. It’s the physical or observable part of the sign.
- example: A red light facing traffic
- An Object: The actual thing or concept the sign refers to. It’s the reality or idea that the sign represents.
- example: the vehicles actually stopping are the “object”
- An Interpretant: The understanding or interpretation of the sign in the mind of the person perceiving it. This is how the sign is understood or the meaning it creates.
- example: When someone sees the red light, they understand that it means they should stop.
- the idea that a read light indicated that vehicles must stop
Fundamental Division of Peirces Signs
Symbol/symbolic: the signifier does not resemble the signified, the relationship must be learnt
- example: evil eye in colossus
Icon/iconic: mode where the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified - being similar in possessing some of its qualities
- example: photo of tree is an icon because it visually resembles a tree
Index/indexical: signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way to signified
- example: some is an index to fire, pain is an index to illness
Roland Barthes
- began demonstrating that using semiotics to study the mediascape could be valuable
- this field of study became known as “critical analysis, a branch of cultural studies that examines the relationship between audiences and media genres, and “functional analysis”
Who are the main theorists of semiotics?
- Saussure
- Peirce
- Barthes
What is semiotics?
The study of signs
A way of looking at the production of meaning from a particular critical perspective
- drawings, paintings, sounds, body language, smells, social media, news reports
Why study semiotics?
- less likely to take reality for granted
- It helps us become more aware of how signs shape our understanding and how we, along with others, contribute to creating social realities
- In deconstructing and contesting the realities they represent, it can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed
Representation
recording ideas, knowledge, messages in some physical way
Semiotics representation X=Y
X is the form and Y is what is called to attention by X; in other words; what idea or concept you get from X
Mediascape
images and messages constantly produced by mass media representations
MESSAGE AND MEANING ARE NOT THE SAME
What is Sign?
- something that stands for something or someone else in some capacity
- take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects
- have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning
- anything that conveys meaning
- consists of signifier and signified
Reality for Theorists
Saussure: arbitrariness of the sign is related to the dependence of language on cultural convention
- every means of expression used in society is based on collective behaviour
- rather than reflecting reality, language plays a major role in constructing it
Peirce: reality depends on the ultimate decision of the community
Codes
- The meaning of a sign depends on the system of rules or “code” it belongs to, and these codes help signs make sense within a specific context.
- codes can be verbal or non-verbal
- language, painting, music
- nonverbal communication involves signs
- eye contact, gazing, facial expressions, gestures, touch
Endcode
using a code to create a sign
Decode
deciphering something on the basis of the code
Food as a Social Code
eating events are coded
- manners (learned from birth) are coded
- how spaghetti is eaten
- table manners are coded
- fast food restaurants are coded
Codes = Knowledge
- the world (social knowledge)
- the medium and the genre (textual knowledge)
- the relationship between 1 and 2 known as modality judgment
Modality
the reality status accorded to or claimed by a sign, text, or genre
Modality Judgments
In making sense of a text, we make “modality judgments,” based on our knowledge of the world and of the medium
Roman Jakobson’s Basic Model of Communication
- The addresser (the creator of the text)
- The message (the message to be conveyed in that text)
- The addressee (the intended receiver of the text)
- The context (is what allows the audience to recognize and understand the text; its authenticity)
- The mode of contact is the method by which the addresser and addressee are linked (the method by which the addresser and addressee are linked).
- The code is the system of recurrent story elements that allow the audience to decipher a text.
Narratives
- Narratives are texts
- Made up of composite signifiers
- Repeatedly arranged in terms of a specific code
Oral Culture
- oral stories that were passed on were essentially mythological in nature
- “knowledge system”
- “archetypes” (e.g. trickster, hero)
These are used in constructing media narratives
Conceptual Metaphor
Conceptual metaphor here: people are machines.
“That guy’s built like a machine.”
“She acts like a robot.”
Conceptual metaphor here: people are animals.
“The professor is a snake.”
“My friend is a pig.”
Realism
Things don’t exist separately from the sign systems we use; the media, which seem to only represent reality, actually help create it.
Representations and Realism
- representations are never really consistent with what they profess to be
- it also asks us to reflect on the relationship
between language, the representation, and
the image.
Metaphors
Metaphor is the application of a name or descriptive term or phrase to an object or action to which it is imaginatively but not literally applicable.
- “The professor is a snake.”
1. the primary referent (professor), which is called the topic of the metaphor
2. another referent (snake) which is known as the vehicle of the metaphor
Denotation (Barthes)
‘Denotation’ tends to be described as the definitional, ‘literal’, ‘obvious’ or ‘commonsense’ meaning of a sign. It is relatively self-contained. It is known as the first order of signification
- explain exactly what you see
- no looks like, can be, means. just simply what you see at face value