Report SOS - Summary Semiotics: The Basics PDF

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This file contains excerpts of different books I've used to complete my report in media semiotics and discourse analysis. The most important theory is outlined and there is a reference list at the end....

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https://books.google.co.uk/books? hl=bg&lr=&id=gnCEgt0VopkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA227&dq=semiotic+analysis+adverti sement&ots=rFm3HyDXyg&sig=gBwV2qomrUM3SB4leHtxhxjxzVg#v=onepage&q &f=false

Qualitative researching with text, image and sound : a practical handbook, Bauer, Martin W.

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Theory of semiotics – definitions by different people; Saussur’s model; Pierce’s model????

SEMIOTICS THE BASICS: (Chandler, 2007)

Beyond the most basic definition as ‘the study of signs’, there is considerable variation among leading semioticians as to what semiotics involves. Theories of signs (or ‘symbols’) appear throughout the history of philosophy from ancient times onwards (see Todorov 1982), One of the broadest definitions is that of Umberto Eco, who states that ‘semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign’ (Eco 1976, 7). Semiotics involves the study not only of what we refer to as ‘signs’ in everyday speech, but of anything which ‘stands for’ something else. In a semiotic sense, signs take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects. Peirce and Saussure are widely regarded as the co-founders of what is now more generally known as semiotics. They established two major theoretical traditions. Saussure’s term ‘semiology’ is sometimes used to refer to the Saussurean tradition while the term ‘semiotics’ sometimes refers to the Peircean tradition Some commentators adopt Charles W. Morris’s definition of semiotics (a reductive variant of Saussure’s definition) as ‘the science of signs’ (Morris 1938, 1–2). For Roman Jakobson, semiotics ‘deals with those general principles which underlie the structure of all signs whatever and with the character of their utilization within messages, as well as with the specifics of the various sign systems and of the diverse messages using those different kinds of signs’ (Jakobson 1968, 698). - The linguist and semiotician Roman Jakobson was in no doubt that ‘language is a system of signs, and linguistics is part and parcel of the science of signs or semiotics’ (Jakobson 1949a, 50; cf. 1970, 454) While Roland Barthes (1967b, xi) declared that ‘perhaps we must invert Saussure’s formulation and assert that semiology is a branch of linguistics’, MODELS OF THE SIGN

Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of ‘signs’. Indeed, according to Peirce, ‘we think only in signs’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.302). Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. ‘Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign’, declares Peirce (ibid., 2.172). Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as ‘signifying’ something – referring to or standing for something other than itself.

SAUSSURE’S MODEL While Saussure may be hailed as a founder of semiotics The two dominant contemporary models of what constitutes a sign are those of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Saussure made what is now a famous distinction between langue (language) and parole (speech). Langue refers to the system of rules and conventions which is independent of, and pre-exists, individual users; parole refers to its use in particular instances. Ex. According to the Saussurean distinction, in a semiotic system such as cinema, for instance, individual films can be seen as the parole of an underlying system of cinema ‘language’. Saussure focused on langue rather than parole. To the Saussurean semiotician, what matters most are the underlying structures and rules of a semiotic system as a whole rather than specific performances or practices which are merely instances of its use. Saussure defined a sign as being composed of a ‘signifier’ (signifiant) and a ‘signified’ (signifié) (see Figure 1.1). Contemporary commentators tend to describe the signifier as the form that the sign takes and the signified as the concept to which it refers. Saussure makes the distinction in these terms: A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept [signified] and a sound pattern [signifier]. The sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses. This sound pattern may be called a ‘material’ element only in that it is the representation of our sensory impressions. The sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept. (Saussure 1983, 66)

Within the Saussurean model, the sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (ibid., 67). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as ‘signification’ - If we take a linguistic example, the word ‘open’ (when it is invested with meaning by someone who encounters it on a shop doorway) is a sign consisting of: • a signifier: the word ‘open’; • a signified concept: that the shop is open for business. Saussure stressed that sound and thought (or the signifier and the signified) were as inseparable as the two sides of a piece of paper (Saussure 1983, 111). They were ‘intimately linked’ in the mind ‘by an associative link’ – ‘each triggers the other’ (ibid., 66). Saussure presented these elements as wholly interdependent, neither pre-existing the other. Within the context of spoken language, a sign could not consist of sound without sense or of sense without sound. He used the two arrows in the diagram to suggest their interaction. The bar and the opposition nevertheless suggest that the signifier and the signified can be distinguished for analytical purposes. The sign is more than the sum of its parts. While signification– what is signified – clearly depends on the relationship between the two parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign and other signs within the system as a whole (ibid., 112–13). The notion of value . . . shows us that it is a great mistake to consider a sign as nothing more than the combination of a certain sound and a certain concept. To think of a sign as nothing more would be to isolate it from the system to which it belongs. It would be to suppose that a start could be made with individual signs, and a system constructed by putting them together. On the contrary, the system as a united whole is the starting point, from which it becomes possible, by a process of analysis, to identify its constituent elements. (Saussure 1983, 112)

SIGNS – symbolic, iconic, indexical ??? What in popular usage are called ‘symbols’ would be regarded by semioticians as ‘signs’ For Peirce, a symbol is ‘a sign which refers to the object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the symbol to be interpreted as referring to that object’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.249). PARADIGM, SYNTAGM??? - RELATIONS BETWEEN SIGNIFIERS Saussure emphasized that meaning arises from the differences between signifiers; these differences are of two kinds: syntagmatic (concerning positioning) and paradigmatic (concerning substitution). Saussure called the latter associative relations (Saussure 1916/1983) DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION We all know that beyond its ‘literal’ meaning (its denotation), a particular word may have connotations: for instance, sexual connotations. In semiotics, denotation and connotation are terms describing the relationship between the signifier and its signified, and an analytic distinction is made between two types of signifieds: a denotative signified and a connotative signified. ‘Denotation’ tends to be described as the definitional, literal, obvious or commonsense meaning of a sign. For the art historian Erwin Panofsky, the denotation of a representational visual image is what all viewers from any culture and at any time would recognize the image as depicting (Panofsky 1970, 51–3). The term ‘connotation’ is used to refer to the socio-cultural and ‘personal’ associations (ideological, emotional, etc.) of the sign. These are typically related to the interpreter’s class, age, gender, ethnicity and so on. Connotation is thus contextdependent. Signs are more ‘polysemic’ – more open to interpretation – in their connotations than their denotations. John Fiske puts it ‘denotation is what is photographed, connotation is how it is photographed’ (Fiske 1982, 91). However, in photography, denotation is foregrounded at the expense of connotation. MYTH and popular usage of the term ‘myth’ suggests that it refers to beliefs which are demonstrably false, but the semiotic use of the term does not necessarily suggest this. Like metaphors, cultural myths help us to make sense of our experiences within a culture: they express and serve to organize shared ways of conceptualizing something within a culture (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 185–6). CODES – there’s more The concept of the ‘code’ is central in structuralist semiotics.

Roman Jakobson, who emphasized that the production and interpretation of texts depends upon the existence of codes or conventions for communication (Jakobson 1960 and 1971c) 15). Since the meaning of a sign depends on the code within which it is situated, codes provide a framework within which signs make sense. Indeed, we cannot grant something the status of a sign if it does not function within a code. Codes organize signs into meaningful systems which correlate signifiers and signifieds through the structural forms of syntagms and paradigms. When studying cultural practices, semioticians treat as signs any objects or actions which have meaning to members of the cultural group, seeking to identify the rules or conventions of the codes which underlie the production of meanings within that culture.

INTERTEXUALITY - shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text Although Saussure stressed the importance of the relationship of signs to each other, one of the weaknesses of structuralist textual analysis is the tendency to treat individual texts as discrete, closed-off entities and to focus exclusively on internal structures. The semiotic notion of ‘intertextuality’ introduced by the literary theorist Julia Kristeva is associated primarily with poststructuralist theorists. Kristeva referred to texts in terms of two axes: a horizontal axis connecting the author and reader of a text, and a vertical axis, which connects the text to other texts (Kristeva 1980, 69). Uniting these two axes are shared codes: every text and every reading depends on prior codes POSTER ANALYSIS – (Sifaki and Papadopoulou, 2015) JOURNAL – look at journal while writing analysis Advertising as a medium of communication is one of the major tools that museums and other cultural organizations use for effectively communicating with their public, building Advertising posters, in particular – one of the most common means of advertising – play a special role promoting a specific collection Given their strategic positioning, often in the heart of urban centres, posters are a valuable promotional tool Nevertheless, in the case of advertising, the role of the sign’s creator certainly matters. Our interpretation is guided by the cultural, psychological and social history of the producer and the criteria that led to the choice of this particular sign; in other words, what signifies the interpretation of a sign is what was intended to be ‘said’ at the time of its production, not the sign itself (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 7).

The visual image attempts to create associations within the reader regarding certain thoughts and feelings concerning the product’s identity (Kroeber-Riel, 1998: 204–205)

COLOUR (Sandage, Fryburger and Rotzoll, 2000) Color is also widely used in advertising to influence emotional behavior. Sandage, Fryburger, and RotzoU (1979) suggest that color may serve such functions as attracting attention, assisting in the interpretation of product attributes, giving life to an otherwise bleak-looking advertisement, and emphasizing or highlighting a distinctive trademark or symbol. Pictures painted in shades of green tend to be passive and wearisome ... In the hierarchy of colours green is the ‘bourgeoisie’ – self-satisfied, immovable, narrow ... It is like a fat, extremely healthy cow, lying motionless, fit only for chewing the cud, regarding the world with stupid, lacklustre eyes ... (Kandinsky, 1966) Green has been seen as an ‘irritant’, and as ‘sulphurous’ (Goethe, 1970: 308) Goethe, J.W. von (1970[1810]) Theory of Colours. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. VISUAL METAPHORS (Zantides, 2017) Metaphor, as a concept in which a signified is applied to a signifier that is not literally applicable, does not only refer to speech or verbal language, but also to a wide use of practical applications in visual communication, particularly in advertising design and communication. The metaphorical rhetoric in advertisements is a common practice often used to attract the viewers’ attention, as well as enhance the persuasiveness of messages Intertextuality, as another form of metaphoric communication that depends on pre-existing texts (verbal or non-verbal), produces meanings that often deal with parody, sarcasm or irony. Metaphor is conversation. Its meaning comes from an interaction between the target (an abstract or unfamiliar concept), the source (something concrete and already known) and between the qualities and properties that each of these entails. Advertisers’ primary task is to make positive claims for brands, products, and services, in order to induce prospective consumers to buy them. These claims must always be pitched in a limited space or time slot. Moreover, the message should attract attention, and ideally stick in people’s memories, for instance by being humorous, or beautiful, or intriguing. Adequate uptake of a metaphor occurring in advertising requires first of all that the product or brand is recognized. Typically, the identification of the product is ensured by simply depicting it. If the product has an immediately recognizable unique design or logo

Intertextuality as a notion introduced by Julia Kristeva in 1966 describes that meaning in a text can be understood in relation to other pre-existing texts that are culturally profound.

References Candlin, C., Crichton, J. & Moore, S. (2017). Exploring discourse in context and in action. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Chandler, D. (2007). Semiotics The Basics. 2nd ed. Routledge. Eco, Umberto (1976) A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press/London: Macmillan. Fiske, John (1982) Introduction to Communication Studies. London: Routledge. Gee, J. P., Hull, G., & Lankshear, C. (1996). The new work order: Behind the language of the new capitalism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Jakobson, Roman (1968) ‘Language in Relation to Other Communication Systems’ Keith, W. M., & Lundberg, C. O. (2008) The Essential Guide to Rhetoric, Bedford St Martins, Boston, [online]. Available at: https://slideblast.com/theessential-guide-to-rhetoric-pdf_594147e81723dd03a2bb0bdc.html [Accessed 03 Dec. 2017]. Kristeva, Julia (1980) Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia University Press. Leech, G., Deuchar, M. & Hoogenraad, R. (1982). English Grammar for Today. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lilleker, D. (2005) Key Concepts in Political Communication, Sage, London, [online]. Available at: http://people.unica.it/fulvioventurino/files/2015/10/LILLEKER_Key-conceptsin-political-communication.pdf [Accessed 30 Nov. 2017]. Peirce, Charles Sanders (1931–58) Collected Papers, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press Sandage, C., Fryburger, V. & Rotzoll, K. (2000). Advertising theory and practice. New Delhi: AITBS Publishers. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1983). Course in General Linguistics (trans. Roy Harris). London: Duckworth. Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (2001). Intercultural communication (2nd ed.) Malden, MA: Blackwell

DISCOURSE Definitions We should begin by working out how the term discourse might be defined. Linguists Ron and Suzanne Scollon offer some helpful clarification. They suggest that the term can be used in three different ways. 1. In the most technically narrow definition of the word, the study of discourse has been the study of grammatical and other relationships between sentences. These relationships are often discussed as a problem of cohesion [Note: that is the way sentences are connected together in larger units, like paragraphs etc.] …. The purpose of such Exploring Discourse in Context and in Action studies of discourse is to come to understand the inferential processes by which people communicate their meanings and by which hearers interpret what is said. (Scollon and Scollon 2001: 107) 2. A more general use of the word ‘discourse’ has been made to study the broader functional uses of language in social contexts…. In such studies, the purpose is to come to understand how the language we use is based on the social environments in which we use that language. (Scollon and Scollon 2001: 107) 3. …the broadest concept of discourse… is the study of whole systems of communication. For example we might study the language of dealers in foreign exchange, of public school teachers,… [or of lawyers, of healthcare workers, or business managers]. Such broad systems of discourse form a kind of selfcontained system of communication with a shared language or jargon, with particular ways in which people learn what they need to know to become members, with a particular ideological position, and with quite specific forms of interpersonal relationships among members of the groups. (Scollon and Scollon 2001: 107) Alternative of the third concept is the definition suggested by Gee, Hull and Lankshear (1996: 10): A Discourse is composed of ways of talking, listening, reading, writing, acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and using tools and objects, in particular settings and at specific times, so as to display and recognize a particular social identity. What stands out from those definitions is that discourse is not just a matter of language (or text) but rather what it is that makes the connection between text and what they go on to call ‘larger realms of experience’. Pursuing these associations, it becomes apparent that, above all, discourse (as Discourse(s)) is identified with particular social practices that these persons engage in, not only on their own account, but as a realisation of the identification with, and membership of, particular institutional, organisational or professional groups. (Candlin, Crichton and Moore, 2017)

An introduction to discourse analysis theory and method – BOOK Part of discourse - “Rhetoric is the use of symbolism and language to ensure that a message is encoded in the way desired by the communicator. Rhetorical communication is intentionally persuasive, is central to propaganda, and is used to encourage a change in an audience member’s behaviour.” P. 182 Rhetorical speech is used in all our daily lives, as a means of persuading others, as much as it is a tool common in political communication. It is concerned with ensuring that the interpretation of our message is uniform, at least among a majority. Rhetorical conversation has a key role in a democratic society, it builds consensus by binding the people around ideas and issues. (Lilleker, 2005) Key features:     

Legitimacy – justifies the distribution of power within a society Orientates society behind common goals sometimes using narrative; orients society behind common goals through a narrative of community Resolves conflicts through identifying common goals Mobilises through activation and organisation

(Lilleker, 2005) Proofs: Ways of being persuasive (Keith and Lundberg, 2008) When speakers attempt to persuade an audience, they take into consideration the reasonable, the personal and the emotional factors. In ...