Class 2: Codes

Question 1

Codes

Answer 1

• the meaning of a sign depends on the code
  within which it is situated
• provide a framework within which signs make sense
• can be verbal or non-verbal

ex. language, painting, music

Question 2

Encode

Answer 2

using a code to create a sign

Question 3

Decode

Answer 3

deciphering something on the basis of the code

Question 4

Semiotics of Food

Answer 4

• for survival
• think of food on a social level because it is in this sense that food social level because it is in this sense that food transcends this function

Question 5

Denotative level of food

Answer 5

we eat to survive

Question 6

Connotative level of food

Answer 6

• food evokes cuisine
• cuisine tells us what certain people eat, how they make it, etc., but perhaps most significantly it tells us something about them

Question 7

Historic Semiotics of Food

Answer 7

• ancient humans ate what they could find for survival
• today, food and culture is so closely associated and used for evaluating other people and cultures

Question 8

Food as “codes”

Answer 8

• eating events are coded
• manners (learned from birth) are coded
• how is spaghetti eaten?
• table manners are coded
• fast food restaurants are coded

Question 9

Nonverbal communication

Answer 9

• involves signs
• eye contact, gazing, facial expressions, gestures, touch, proxemic

Question 10

Main research approaches to this study

Answer 10

• Psychological
• Structural
• Ethnographic

Question 11

Psychological

Answer 11

relation between NVC and psychological states

Question 12

Structural

Answer 12

verbal and non-verbal structures

Question 13

Ethnographic

Answer 13

living and interacting about social groups to observe and assess

Question 14

Codes = Knowledge

Answer 14

• the world (social knowledge);
• the medium and the genre (textual knowledge);
• the relationship between (1) and (2) known as modality judgment

Question 15

Modality

Answer 15

the reality status accorded to or claimed by a sign, text or genre

Question 16

Modality judgment

Answer 16

• in making sense of a text, we make “modality judgments”, based on our knowledge of the world and of the medium
• the media which are typically judged to be the most ‘realistic’ are photographic - especially film and television

Question 17

Roman Jakobson’s Basic Model of Communication

Answer 17

• the addresser
• the message
• the addressee
• the context
• the mode of contact
• the code

Question 18

The addresser

Answer 18

the creator of the text

Question 19

The message

Answer 19

the message to be conveyed in that text

Question 20

The addressee

Answer 20

the intended receiver of the text

Question 21

The addressee

Answer 21

the intended receiver of the text

Question 22

The context

Answer 22

is what allows the audience to recognize and understand the text; its authenticity

Question 23

The mode of contact

Answer 23

is the method by which the addresser and addressee are linked

Question 24

The code

Answer 24

the system of recurrent story elements that allow the audience to decipher a text

Question 25

Stuart Hall (Interpretative Codes/Social Positioning)

Answer 25

• Dominant reading
• Negotiated reading
• Oppositional reading

Question 26

Dominant reading

Answer 26

the most common and widely-accepted interpretations of a given text

Question 27

Negotiated reading

Answer 27

differs from the commonly accepted interpretation

Question 28

Oppositional reading

Answer 28

opposes the dominant reading

Question 29

Narratives

Answer 29

• texts
• made up of composite signifiers
• put together in terms of a specific code

ex. “the Superman code”