Semiotics

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Semiotics

• The study of code and system.
• An Introduction to Semiotics

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Lecture has 3 main aims

• To introduce semiotics (the study of signs- the
  study of meaning making)
• To look at the operations of meaning and how it
  is produced. (system- code- difference)
• To show how processes of meaning making are
  intrinsically involved in social and cultural
  structures and processes. (connotation,
  denotation and the production of social myths)

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Saussure and the semiotic turn

• For Saussure, language is not a nomenclature,
  that is, a way of naming things that already
  exist, rather it is a system of differences
  without any positive terms.

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What is a sign?

• A sign is anything that produces meaning.
• A word
• A gesture, an image, a touch..
• A code is a system of signs that has been
  conventionalised.
• Semiotics is codebreaking text, Ethnography is
  codebreaking behaviour.
• What does it mean? How does it mean?

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What is a sign?
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The sign is arbitrary
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Exceptions that prove the rule

• Meow onomatopoeia
• Slimy, slither, sleazy, slipperyphonaesthesia
• But even these least arbitrary signs become
  incorporated into the phonemic and semantic rules
  of the system.

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Arbitrariness- the grammar of my language is my
theory of reality.

• French has a single term mouton,
• English has two terms mutton (which we eat) and
  sheep (which graze before we eat them).
• English creates a semantic division between live
  and dead animals for eating, whereas in the case
  of sheep French does not.
• Inuit have multiple words for snow, linguists
  have multiple words for words and so on.

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Language is a code. A system of signification
that operates through difference.

• Any aspect of our life that is governed by rules
  is in some way coded.
• Man/woman
• Man/boy
• Man/god
• Maen man

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A case study man

• Man
• XY

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relational meaning

• Signs make their meanings relationally.
• (man/woman) (australian/foreigner)
• Signs differentiate from other signs.
• Signs work through difference.
• This operates on a micro level and a macro level.

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Go to OHS

• Men in suits

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Signs operate denotatively and connotatively

• Denotation- the most stable understanding of
  signifier.
• Man - biological male
• Connotation - the social codes (other signified)
  attached to the signifier
• Man- heroic, strong, rational

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Barthes on signs and myth

• Barthes notes that socially dominant connotations
  end up becoming denotations

Sr
Sed
Sfier
Sfied
signifier
signified
sign
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.

• Signifying chains
• Polysemy (many meanings)
• Intertextuality (how texts dialogue with
  eachother)
• Signs refers to other signs ( that is how they
  make their meaning)
• Texts refer to other texts.
• The history we have with certain meanings
  influences how we understand them.

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Italianicity
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Asianicity?
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Australianicity?
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Some things to think aboutthe semiotic method

• Why one sign and not another? (substitution)
• What signs are given prominence? (arrangement,
  anchorage)
• How do the signs in this text support, reinforce,
  invoke other signs?
• When doing analysis. Start small, analyse in
  detail and move outward - get big.
• Form a hypothesis and test it. If it works it
  becomes your thesis that you will prove through
  providing evidence based on your analysis ( ie
  hypothesis Women are represented as passive.