The Basics Flashcards
Arbitrariness/Motivation
Relationship between signifier and signified is not necessary, intrinsic or natural.
Binary Opposition
Pairs of mutually exclusive signifiers in a paradigm set representing categories which are logically opposed ex. alive/ not alive
Channel
A sensory mode utilized by a medium. Available channels are dictated by the technical features of the medium in which text appears.
Codes
Semiotic codes are procedural systems of related conventions for correlating signifiers and signifies in certain domains. They provide framework within which signs make sense.
Deconstruction
A poststructuralist strategy for textual analysis, which was developed by Jacques Derrida. Practitioners seek to dismantle the rhetorical structures within a text to demonstrate how key concepts within it depeond on their unstated oppositional relation to absent signifiers.
Diachronic/Synchronic
Analysis of codes over time. Analysis of codes as if frozen in time.
Discourse
A system of representation consisting of a set of representational codes for constructing and maintaining particular forms of reality within the ontological domain defined as relevant to its concerns
Double Articulation
A semiotic code which has two abstract structural levels. 1st containing small meaning full units such as words. 2nd containing minimal units that lack meaning in themselves such as speech
Indexical
A mode in which the signifier is not purely arbitrary but is directly connected in some way to the signified,
Iconic
A mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified. Being similar in possessing some of its qualities.
Langue/Parole
Langue being the system and language. Parole being a particular item of the whole.
Markedness
Paired signifiers consist of an unmarked form and a marked form distinguished by some special semiotic feature. Applies to both signfiers and their signifieds
Metaphor
involves one signified acting as a signifier referring to a rather different signified. Symbolic and Iconic
Metonymy
Figure of speech that invovles using one signified to stand for another signified which is directly related to it or closely associated.
Modality
Reality status accorded to or claimed by a sign, text or genre.
Myth
Strauss- Systems of binary alignments mediating between nature and culture. Barthes- dominant discourses of contemporary culture. metalanguage operating through codes and serving the ideological function of naturalization.
Dominant Code and Reading
Ideological code in which the decoder fully shares the text’s codes and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading.
Negotiated Code and Reading
Idelogical code in which the reader partly shares the text;s code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own social position, experiences and interests.
Oppositional Code and Reading
Ideological code in which the the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the texts code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative ideological code.
Paradigmatic
Structuralist technique which seeks to identify the various paradigms which underlie the surface structure of a text.
Paradigm
Set of associated signifiers which are all members of some defining category, but in which each signifier is significantly different. For instance, Verbs and Nouns as a part of natural language.
Syntagmatic
Structuralist technique which seeks to establish the surface structure of a text and the relationship between its parts
Syntagm
Orderly combination of interacting signifiers which forms a meaningful whole. Sequential or Spatial.
Shifter
Term for indexical symbols in language-grammatical units with an indexical characer- such as personal pronouns.
