Toolkits: Useful

Question 1

Aberrant Decoding

Answer 1

‘Reading’ a text in any way other than as it is intended, usually because the receiver does not share a knowledge and understanding of the code or codes used by the sender.

Question 2

Discourse

Answer 2

A system of representation based on the reality of communication in specific contexts (practice rather than theory).

Question 3

Entropy

Answer 3

A communication that is high on new information and that is highly unpredictable is said to be entropic.

Question 4

Hegemony

Answer 4

Italian writer Antonio Gramsci explained why the majority of people
in a culture do not adopt the values and beliefs of their own class. He argued that the
dominant minority within cultures present the values and beliefs of their own class as
somehow ‘natural’ and thus universal. In this way people end up promoting the
values and beliefs of the dominant or ruling class rather than of their own class.

Question 5

Ideology

Answer 5

A system of representation which reveals (and conceals) social values and the values of those who have most influence in society.

Question 6

Intention (purpose)

Answer 6

What the sender wants an act of communication to ‘do’.

Question 7

Mode of Address

Answer 7

Describes the way in which a text ‘speaks’ to its
audience. The text incorporates assumptions about its audience. If you can answer
the question ‘Who does this text think I am?’ you are on the way to identifying its
mode of address.

Question 8

Motivation

Answer 8

In addition to the everyday meaning of ‘a force that drives us’, motivation
is a term used in semiotics to refer to the relationship between the physical form of a
sign and the thing or idea it represents. A photograph of a cat is a highly motivated
(or iconic sign) whilst the word ‘cat’ has low motivation (it is an arbitrary sign).

Question 9

Myth

Answer 9

‘A culture’s way of conceptualising an abstract topic’: a collection of concepts
bound together by general acceptance and significant in our understanding of
particular kinds of experience: a collective connotation.

Question 10

Narrative

Answer 10

The way in which a text reveals information to the audience in order to create a ‘story’.

Question 11

Paradigm

Answer 11

A set of signs from which one might be chosen to contribute to a syntagm.
Paradigms define their individual members with reference to all others in the set. To
select from a paradigm is at that moment to reject all other signs in that set, just as
by selecting something (or nothing) to cover your feet today, you have rejected all
other possibilities; this choice from a paradigm of ‘foot coverings’ has contributed to
the syntagms which constitute the things you are wearing today. When Peugeot’s
‘lion’ went ‘from strength to strength’, it got its strength partly from the paradigm of
‘elite animals’ from which it was chosen and partly because that paradigm does not
include ‘weasel’, ‘frog’ and ‘sloth’.

Question 12

Polysemy/Polysemic

Answer 12

Refers to the capacity of a text or part of a text to be read in several different ways. For example, a red rose might communicate love, a fondness for horticulture, a political allegiance or Lancashire.

Question 13

Redundancy

Answer 13

A communication that is low on new information and which is highly predictable is said to be redundant.

Question 14

Relay

Answer 14

Barthes used the term ‘relay’ to describe text/image relationships which were complementary.

Question 15

Signifier/Signified

Answer 15

According to Saussure, the basic unit of communication is the
sign. The sign is composed of two elements – the signifier and the signified. The
signifier is the physical form of the sign; for example, a written or spoken word or a
photograph. The signified is the mental concept triggered by the signifier. When you
see the signifier HORSE you think of a horse (the signified). Of course, neither one of
these is a real horse. The first is a carefully designed but miniscule quantity of ink on
the page; the second is an abstract idea. The signifier and the signified unite to form
the sign, but the relationship between the two elements is an arbitrary one, that is,
there is no logical or necessary relationship between them. That’s why it’s possible to
change which signifier relates to which signified; there are no absolute rules
connecting the signifier and the signified. If you had no knowledge of English or you
could not read, then the signifier HORSE would not attach itself to a signified in your
mind. If you speak French, you will recognise the signifier CHEVAL.

Question 16

Signification

Answer 16

What signs do, the process of signifying.

Question 17

Syntagm

Answer 17

A chain of signs, a unique combination of sign choices. Units may be
visual, verbal or musical. The scale of the units and syntagms may range from the
very large (the nine planned episodes of the Star Wars triple trilogy might constitute a
syntagm) to the very small (as in the syntagm ‘I like noodles’ which consists of the
signs ‘I’, ‘like’ and ‘noodles’). The important point is that syntagms invite negotiation
as a whole; they are bigger units of potential meaning. The signs which comprise a
syntagm are organised in accordance with the ‘rules’ or conventions of the relevant
code.