Reading the Signs - Semiotics

The key points of this essay were:

• signs and signification: signifier and signified

• iconic and arbitrary (or symbolic)

• denotation, connotation, myth

• paradigm and syntagm

Definitions

Signification - the process of signs being noticed and understood

Sign - combines both the signifier (the object) and the signified (the meaning)

Iconic - how close a sign is to the real thing, how restricted it is by the thing it represents. For example a portrait.

Arbitrary (symbolic) - how far away a sign is to the real thing, how unrestricted it is by the thing it represents. For example a person's name.

Iconic is one extreme, arbitrary is another extreme.

Denotation - what the sign is

Connotation - what the sign suggests

Myth - the ideological or political meaning of the thing

Paradigm - a set of signs available to be used in a context. For example, a paradigm of landscape.

Syntagm - the particular selection of signs (from the paradigms) which are available. For example a coastal landscape in the afternoon.

My Response to the Lecture

I wanted to find out more about these terms, so I read Daniel Chandler's Semiotics for beginners website: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

Distinctively we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of 'signs'. According to Peirce 'nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign'. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as 'signifying' something - referring to or standing for something other than itself.

 The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier and the signified. The relationship between them is called signification, which is shown in Saussure's diagram opposite.




A paradigm is a set of associated signifiers or signifieds which are all members of some defining category, but in which each is significantly different.The use of one signifier (e.g. a particular word or a garment) rather than another from the same paradigm set (e.g. respectively, adjectives or hats) shapes the preferred meaning of a text.

A syntagm is an orderly combination of interacting signifiers which forms a meaningful whole within a text - sometimes, following Saussure, called a 'chain'. Such combinations are made within a framework of conventions. Syntagms are created by the linking of signifiers from paradigm sets which are chosen on the basis of whether they are conventionally regarded as appropriate.

Barthes gave a good example of explaining paradigm and syntagm. He said that paradigmatic elements are the items which cannot be worn at the same time on the same part of the body (such as hats, trousers, shoes). The syntagm is the combination of different items worn.