Semiotics:

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Semiotics

• The Science Cultural Interpretations of Signs

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Binary Oppositions in Structuralism

• langue, parole
• signifer signified
• Diachronic Synchronic
• Axis of combination - Axis of selection
• Metaphor - metonymy

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Language/Literature as an enclosed system with
two Axes
Paradigmatic/Selection

• Syntagmatic/Combination
• (narrative structure
• roles actions)
• metonymy

Thematic structure Motifs, mythemes, metaphors,
etc.
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Roman Jakobsons studies of poetry and aphasia

• Similarity disorder inability to deal with
  associative relationships in language.
• Contiguity disorder inability to organize words
  into higher units (e.g. sentence).

• metaphor substitution of one with something
  similar poetry Romanticism/Symbolism
• metonymy replacement of one with something
  close by
• -- novel --Realism

The poetic function projects the principle of
equivalence from the axis of selection into the
axis of combination. Jakobson
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Jakobsons six factors in speech and their
interactions

• Context/Soceity, History
• Message
• Addresser Addressee
• Author Contact
  Reader
• Code/
• Text

Usu. in one speech event, one factor will
dominate over the others. For instance, the
emotive intent of the address dominant his/her
use of code, the context as well as the contact.
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C. S. Peirce Three Kinds of SignsBased on
relations between signifier and signified

• Icon resemblance (This
  refers to ones home thru resemblance, to
  websites homepage by convention. )
• Index factual/causal connection
• Symbol -- rule of convention or habitual
  association
• love
• The connection is the most arbitrary.

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Examples Iconic functions in poetry

• The use of poetic form (iconic signs in poetry)
  to refer back to itself.
• Symbolic signs in poetry can be easily found how
  about indexical signs? Or maybe we can say that
  the indexical signssuch as the wreckage in
  Ozymandias take on symbolic meanings in the
  poem. )
• Example 1 e. e. cummings breaking the iconic
  sign of sonnet

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• "next to of course god america i
• love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth
  oh
• say can you see by the dawn's early my
• country 'tis of centuries come and go
• and are no more what of it we should worry
• in every language even deafanddumb
• thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
• by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
• why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
• iful than these heroic happy dead
• who rushed like lions to the roaring
  slaughter
• they did not stop to think they died instead
• then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

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e. e. cummings breaking the iconic sign of sonnet

• He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
• -- e. e. cummings 1926

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Example2 the forming of trivial matter In
daily life.

• This Is Just To Say
•  
• I have eaten
• the plums
• that were in
• the icebox
• and which
•  
• you were probably
• saving
• for breakfast
•  

• Forgive me
• they were delicious
• so sweet
• and so cold.
• William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

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Roland Barthes Production of Sign and Myth

• All social practices as sign-systems and thus are
  open to cultural interpretation (or
  de-mystification).
• e.g. the langue of clothes and food
• system a. blouse, shirt, T-shirt b. skirt,
  trousers
• sentence an ensemble of blouse skirt high
  heeled shoes X snickers
• blouse jeans snickers Xnot for concert
  

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Fashion and Myth

• The clothes for this summer is made
  predominantly of silk. (prescriptive rather than
  descriptive)
• Its nice to wear while walking on a dock with
  your lover.

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Different levels of signification primary
signification secondary signification
sign (full)--denotation
a signifier signified

• primary signification
• Secondary signification
  

Sign (empty)/ Form
content sign --connotation
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Different levels of signification example
sign (full)--denotation
signifier (Rose) signified (Flower)
(empty)

• primary signification
• Secondary signification
  

Form( )
content (Love) sign --connotation
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Myth Today

• a second-order semiological system
• regression from meaning to form, from the
  linguistic sign
• to the mythical signifier. ...the form does not
  suppress the meaning, it only impoverishes it, it
  puts it at a distance...

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elements of an ad.

• 1. the slogan (or copy)
• 2. the visual image--with the slogan, it implies
  a story
• 3. supplementary --color, design where the
  product, the words are placed
• colour,
• size and position,
• texture
• celebrity endorsement

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Ads Example 1

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Ads Example 2

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Ads Example 3

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Ads Example 4

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Ads languages -- from Ways of Seeing

• The romantic use of nature (leaves, trees, water)
  to create a place where innocence can be found.
• The posed taken up to denote stereotypes of
  women serene mothers (madonna), free wheeling
  secretary (actress, king's mistress), perfect
  hostess (spectator-owner's wife), sex-object
  (Venus, nymph surprised), etc.
• The special sexual emphasis given to women's
  legs.

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Ads languages -- from Ways of Seeing (2)

• The materials particularly used to indicate
  luxury engraved metal, furs, polished leather,
  etc.
• The physical stance of men conveying wealth and
  virility.
• The equation of drinking and success.
• The man as knight (horseman) become motorist.

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Key words for Structualist and Semiotic
approaches

• I. Following language as a model
• II. Disclosing the deep/basic structure of a
  text,
• which is a (combination or selection) system of
  meaning composed of basic elements such as

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Questions

• Reductive? Disregarding meaning, textual
  complexities, or the authors intention?
• De-centering, dehumanizing?
• Do we really think in terms of binaries?

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• How is our social existence modeled after
  language as a system of relations?
• From work to text (textuality)
• From identity to system of relations
• From myth to ideology
• Myth -- the complex system of images and beliefs
  which a society constructs in order to sustain
  and authenticate its sense of being.
• From structuralism/semiotics to marxism

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• -- binaries, or semiotic rectangles,
• -- roles/actant and functions, or narrateme,
• -- story and discourse,
• -- narrator- narratee,
• -- metaphor and metonymy,
• -- grammatical parts of speech, or lexemes,
• -- signs or signification on different levels
  (signifier and signified).