The Two Ronnies - four candles
- how precarious communication is
- meaning isn't guaranteed in whatever you say
- being secure in what you're saying believing it won't be misinterpreted
Aims:
- to introduce key themes and concepts in semiotics
- to explore key theories and theorists in the field of structural linguistics
- to explore uses of semiotics in the analysis of art and design
Defining semiotics
- Ferdinand De Saussure defined semiology - study of sign systems
- signifier (word, image, colour, what you conjure up in your head)/signified (mental image/concept of thing itself)/referent (the actual thing itself)
- separated word sign from meaning - that meaning is not inherent within the sign/image/word, there is a involvement of communication, interpretation and translation
- also separated the act of speech from system of language - the process of speaking is a wilful thing, we decide what we want to say however language itself does not belong to us, it proceeds us, belongs to entire society
- semiotics is form of meta-language - a language about language
- systems and structures (the context of the sign) dictate somewhat the reading, what tells us what to think when we're faced with image or word e.g. English language is a system, advertising is a system, photography, fashion etc systems of communication, different elements within these systems mean what they do because there is an agreement about this
What do these colours signify?
- green = grass, go
- blue = water, cold
- these colours + image of crisps = cheese and onion, salt and vinegar
- the brand Walkers completely changed system, make people in agreement that salt and vinegar is now green
- agreement within a system of communication
Difference
- Saussure tells us that meaning is est. in differentiation
- rather than est. what it is we est. what it is not
- 'concepts...are defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What characterises each most exactly is being whatever the others are not'
Connotation and denotation
- provides us with levels or orders of signification
- Roland Barthes warns that denotation is NOT literal meaning but is naturalised through language
- most evident where signifiers merely refer to other signifiers
Myth
- myths are signs that are culturally informed
- Barthes linked myths to ideology - 'Bourgeois ideology...turns culture into nature' 1974
- myths often appear to go without saying yet function to hide dominant cultural values or beliefs
- myths become a third order of signification after denotation (first) and connotation (second)
- bare no logical connection
- e.g. wine = red wine in France is associated with class, intelligence, intellectuals however there is no logical or realistic connection between the two
- e.g. milk = in US, wholesome, natural strength, freedom and liberty however there is no realistic relation between the two, it has merely been suggested over time
- through associations there becomes an agreed solution
Syntagm and paradigm
- syntagm - a series or collection fo signifiers within a text e.g. a sentence
- syntagmatic relations - how signifiers within a syntagm relate to each other
- paradigm - signifiers that relate through function or relative meaning e.g. boy/man, male/female
- paradigmatic relation - how paradigmatic signifiers contrast and construct meaning
Images
- Matthew McConaughey advert - syntagmatic relations - formal qualities, composition, he is in first third of image, ruled thirds, information and product is in bottom right corner
- paradigmatic relations - consider taking one of signifiers and replace with something in same collection or category, if we were to replace him with a cowboy, the meaning changes immediately, it is D&G aftershave for rugged men
- tells us what it communicates and how it communicates
Metaphor and metonym
- ...are both non-literal forms of signification, as such require a level of interpretation
- metaphor is where one signifier is replaced with another of similar concept or character
- metonymy is where a signifier stands in for another to which it is conceptually or physically a part of (displacement)
- a part to represent the whole or the whole to represent the part...association along a change of signification
- e.g. the White House, Ai Weiwei - study in perspective series - could come to represent American politics, the part which represents the whole
Rhetoric
- the act of effective persuasion using language
- important it is persuasion not just a message, trying to persuade you of something
- so subtle you're not even aware that it's working at all
- politicians
- journalists
- advertisers
- PR
Photographers, photo journalists
- use rhetoric quite often
- very careful about what they photograph and how they photograph is
'Meta...'
- meta is a prefix used to alter purpose of a practice or system inwards
- meta-language - language about language
- meta-narrative - an overreaching narrative of other smaller narratives
- e.g. the greatest move ever sold - documentary, movie is about his task of making a movie, movie about making a movie, a meta-movie
- 'The Fountain' isn't just an artwork, first example of the ready made, but the ready made in itself is an artwork about art, comments on art itself inwardly
Structuralism
- is the term used for the broad application of semiotics/semiology to a range of sign systems
- further than the application solely to linguistics
- structuralism emphasises structures or systems of signification
- NOT what it means but HOW it comes to mean
- semiotic linguistic terms.structures act as analogies for other systems
Roland Barthes - image, music, text 1977
- Barthes analyses a range of visual media in terms of their signifying structure:
1. The Photographic Message
2. The Rhetoric of the Image
3. The Third Meaning
Post-structuralism
- vimeo.com/17431354
- whilst structuralism focuses of the structures of meaning in any signifying system...
- post structuralism focuses on the interpreter/reader
- structuralism reduces everything to related elements within a signifying system...
- this is authoritarian in nature
- it assumes the presence of meaning, logocentrism
- anything that does not fit is discarded or ignored
- post-structuralisms aim to deconstruct assumptions and emphasise the plurality of interpretation
Differance
- Jacques Derrida est. this term both in development of Saussure and disagreement
- differer - to differ and to defer
- differance is both differing and deferring simultaneously
- Derrida states that meaning is not only est. in difference/opposition but is also being deffered
Deconstruction
- where structuralism identified/created structures of signification
- deconstruction aims to dismantle the structures - identifying gapes and instabilities
- through deconstruction Jacques Derrida challenged 'binary oppositions' which are deeply rooted in our culture and language
- emphasising what is lost or cast aside
Intertextuality
- 'every text is from the outset under the jurisdiction of other discourses which impose a universe on it' Julia Kristeva
- intertextuality describes how texts are constructs/collages of previous texts
- when writers write they are also written
Consideration for art and design
- considerations in analysing art and design
- considerations in creating art and design
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