SEMIOTICS

What is Semiotics?

Semiotics is the study of signs and their interpretations.

A sign is something that stands for something other than itself.

For example:An open sign hanging in the window of a business.

The sound of a fire engine.

The smell of smoke.

A word such as, tree or a picture of a drawing.

What about some random scratches? Is that a sign?

Describe what you are seeing here.Is that a sign?

What if the scratches look like so:

What does this represent?

Records of death inside the gas chambers of Auschwitz

Panorama, painting by Cy Twombly, 1955

What if the scratches look like this?

Maybe this

OX

Two main approaches

Ferdinand de Saussure 1857-1913

Charles Sanders Pierce 1839-1914

SaussureSignifierThe signifier is a word, a sound, an image, or object. Signifiers can include any system(s) of representation including, drawings, photographs, sculptures, traffic lights, body language.

SignifiedThe signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a 'real object' but is some referent to which the signifier refers.

Saussure

–Signs are purely psychological.

–Signs only make sense in a formal abstract system. A one word language is an impossibility.

–A sign refers to what it is not.

Saussure

Saussure

SaussureSaussure believed that signs do not represent reality but construct it.

–We come to know the world through language.

–Signs reflect the system they are found in.

–The relationship between the sign/signifier is not a matter of personal choice.

It is because the sign is arbitrary that it knows no law other than tradition.

Pierce had many different types of sign but the three most important are:

indexesiconssymbols

Charles Sanders Pierce

IndexThe signifier is not arbitrary but is connected to the signified in some way either physically or causally.

IndexI smell smoke! The smell of smoke could be said to signify fire. It is not arbitrary but directly connected to the thing it signifies.

IndexA photograph. Photographs are produced though the reflection of light off the subject.

IconThe signifier is not totally arbitrary but resembles the signified in some way.

Icon

A cartoon.

Icon

A portrait.

IconSounds that mimic such as Onomatopoeia.

SymbolThe signifier is totally arbitrary and conventional.

SymbolWords and numbers in general fit into this category.

There is no reason why #2 should represent what it does. The same is true for the word tree. Both come to mean what they do through cultural convention.

What about the roman numeral II ? Is it a symbol?

Context

Evolution