Semiotics

Question 1

What is an Icon?

Answer 1

A sign that resembles the thing or idea being represented/signified

Question 2

What is a Symbol?

Answer 2

A sign that has no obvious connection with the signified

(e.g language, traffic lights - we’ve decided as a society over time to make the red light mean STOP and the green light mean GO).

Question 3

What is an Index?

Answer 3

A sign that has a link with the thing being represented or signified.

(e.g a clock cannot exist without time, weighing scales cannot exist without metric units of weight [kg, g …])

Question 4

Define Sign

Answer 4

Anything that expresses meaning.

(e.g words, gestures etc.)

[Combines the signifier and signified into a meaningful unit
(the relantionship between the concept and the representation of that concept)].

Question 5

Define Signifier

Answer 5

A representation of an idea or thing

Question 6

Define Signified

Answer 6

The thing or idea being represented

Question 7

Define Syntagm

Answer 7

Changing the position of words to change the meaning

A single word or element of design that, when altered, can change the overall meaning

Question 8

Define Paradigm

Answer 8

A specific set of ideas (signifiers) that the media producer is able to make choices from in order to construct a specific meaning.

eg
(In a front cover of a magazine what could you subsitute to change the meaning;
for example if you changed the colour palette the front cover may have a completely different representation)

Question 9

Indexical representation

Answer 9

The image suggests the presence of something

For example, tyre tracks suggests the presence of a car