Message and Meaning

1. Message and Meaning Semiotics and Beyond…. Maria Costantino

2. Magritte: This is not a pipe. (it’s a sign of a pipe) 1

3. Semiotics The study of signs and their meanings

4. The emphasis in semiotics is: not so much on communication as a process but on the generation of meaning

5. At the centre of semiotics is: • The sign itself • The codes or systems into which signs are organised • The culture within which these codes and signs operate

6. Texts and Readers • In addition to a range of new terms, semiotics uses the words ‘texts’ and ‘readers’ because: • A text can mean/refer to anything that can be ‘read’- photos, buildings, movies, clothes, bodies, sounds in music as well as ‘books’.

7. Texts and Readers Readers play active roles and reading is something we learn to do- it is determined by the cultural experience of the reader.

8. Readers help • Create the meanings of texts by bringing to them their own experience, attitudes and emotions.

9. Signs and meanings: basic concepts • The sign itself • That to which the sign refers • Users of the sign

10. Signs • A sign is something physical- that is it is perceivable by our senses But a sign depends on a recognition by the users that it is a sign.

11. Signs Signs: All signs- including road signs- refer to things other than themselves. Have you ever seen a road sign that said: ‘Sign’ ?

12. Signs • Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist) • was primarily interested in language but • interested in the way signs (in his case, • words) operated . • The sign was a physical object with a meaning or, to use his terms, • a sign is made up of a signifierand a • signified

13. Signifier • The signifier is the sign’s ‘image’ as we perceive it- • Marks on paper • Sounds in the air

14. Signified • The signified is the broad mental concept to which the sign refers.

15. Rabbit • The above sign could mean a few things: • It could mean rabbit- to talk a lot • Or it could mean rabbit- the animal

16. RABBIT • This sign is made up of the signifier (its appearance) • And the mental concept (rabbit-ness) • The relationship between my concept of rabbit-ness and the physical reality of a rabbit is signification.

17. A cute little bunny rabbit… bunny

18. Signification • Signification is the way in which we give meaning to the world The way we understand or make sense of the world around us. BUT….

19. Signification • My ‘mental concept’ of a rabbit (what an rabbit means to me) may be very different to yours:

20. What means to me

21. What might mean to you

22. Or even bunny club

23. The significationof a rabbit (what a rabbit means) is culturally specific: To some rabbits are pets To farmers, rabbits are pests To me, rabbits are tasty food, others don’t eat rabbits NOT because they are pets or pests, but because of their ‘culture’- vegetarians, vegans, Jews (not kosher) To some, a particular rabbit sign means attractive ladies in fake ears (Playboy bunnies)

24. Categories of signs:1ICON An icon is a sign that resembles the object/thing it is referring to in some way- it looks or sounds like it. Two iconicsigns of rabbits, but the photo is more iconic than drawing-it ‘looks’ more like the ‘real’ rabbit than the line drawing.

25. Categories of signs 2:INDEX • In an index or indexical sign there is a direct link between the sign and its object- the two are actually connected. Rabbit prints in the snow are indexical signs of a rabbit- the footprints ‘point to’ or ‘indicate’ a rabbit, they are a sign of a rabbit.

26. Categories of signs 3:SYMBOLS • In a symbol, there is NO connection between the sign and the object to which it refers. • Symbols communicate because people have agreed that a symbol means what it means. • The symbol of a rabbit is therefore:

27. RABBIT • Words are symbols: we have agreed that this combination of ‘marks’ means that particular animal that goes hippity-hop and has a twitchy nose and long ears. Or, this symbol could mean to ‘talk a lot’. The meaning of symbols is arbitrary- their meaning relies on the consensus/agreement of the users of the sign.

28. So, • Icons- are like photographs of rabbits • Indexes- are like the footprints of rabbits • Symbols- the word for rabbit.

29. Lightning- the sign of…

30. The organisation of signs • Sings on their own are pretty limited in their communicative function. • Here is a sign %

31. % It’s a symbol and it means per cent. That’s it. Per cent. For this sign to make ‘more sense’- to have more meaning or greater significance, it needs to be organised with other signs. e.g. 65% Two new symbols- in this case numbers- have been added.

32. 65% • So now this set of symbols means 65%. 65% of what? We need more signs for more meaning.

33. 65% of our survey said they have never eaten rabbit

34. in the nude. Some of the signs were missing- we presumed the message was ‘over’ because we moved to the next frame. The context of power point frames here is important- context helps to move meaning along. Punctuation ‘marks’ are also arbitrary symbols that help make meaning. The statement on the previous page omitted the arbitrarily agreed full stop. The message wasn’t completed until the final words and full stop were added. The meaning of the whole message is significantly different to what we first understood.

35. Noise • We could say the the ‘break’ between each PowerPoint frame is ‘noise’. Noise is a nuisance, it interferes with effective communication. • Noise can be audible or visual- or it can be the uncomfortable lecture room seats- anything that interferes with the message • The designer/communicators’ role is to keep noise to a minimum and to keep the possible meanings of messages to a minimum.

36. This symbol means ‘female’

37. Signs of women These signs of women, what these signs of women ‘mean’ and how the mean, are much more complex.

38. Organisations of signs De Saussure defined 2 ways in which signs are organised into codes. • Paradigms 2) Syntagms

39. Paradigms: 1 • A paradigm is a set from which a choice is made. • An example of a paradigm is the alphabet. • The alphabet forms the paradign for written language.

40. Paradigms: • There are 2 basic characteristics of a paradigm. • 1) all the units in a paradigm must have something in common- they must share characteristics that determine their membership of the paradigm. To get into the alphabet, all the units must be letters. Not saucepans.These go into other paradigms that we call cookware.

41. Paradigms • The second characteristic of paradigms is: Each unit in the paradigm must be clearly distinguishable from all the other units in the paradigm. We must be able to distinguish the difference between signs in the paradigm in terms of their signifiers and their signifieds- what they ‘look like’ perhaps and what they ‘mean’. This means each sign in a paradigm has a distinctive feature.

42. The paradigm of the alphabet • To be in the alphabet paradigm, the sign must first be a letter and secondly, • each letter in the alphabet must have a feature that distinguishes it from other letters.

43. Distinctive features Nobody move! I have a bun in my pocket and I’m not afraid to use it! Both b and g are letters, but they are very different. Bad handwriting can however blur the distinctive features of the letter, so always type your demands in a bank robbery. Likewise, if you are wearing a stocking over your head, speech might be a little difficult and your demand for money may be interpreted as a demand for honey.

44. Paradigms Each time we communicate- in words, pictures, sounds,movements and in ‘smells’- we must select from a paradigm (our set of signs). We select from a number of paradigms- letters from alphabets; words (the paradigm of English language); paradigms of nouns or verbs; paradigms of use- ‘lovers’ language, baby talk, legal-speak; paradigms of sound- words that rhyme (day, May, hay)

45. Paradigms • In film/TV paradigms are the ways of changing shot- cut, fade, dissolve, lap, wipe • We have paradigms of cars- sports, coupe, limos, SUV, estates • And even paradigms of saucepans- milk pans right up to big casseroles.

46. Paradigmatic choice and meaning • The meaning of the paradigmatic unit is determined by the meanings of the other units we didn’t choose. • The lap dissolve in film means (signifies) what it does because the other ways of making a transition from shot to shot mean other things. • What my Smart car means is determined by the fact that it is not a limousine or a people mover.

47. Syntagms • Once a unit has been selected from the paradigm, it is usually combined with other units to make a syntagm. • Words are syntagms of letters; sentences are syntagms of words. • A menu is a complete system- each course is a paradigm that is combined by the diner into a meal and the syntagm is the order given to the waiter.

48. To re-cap: • Paradigms are in effect sets of units • Syntagms are arrangements of the selected units

49. Codes • Codes are the systems into which signs are organised. • These systems are governed by rules which are consented to by all the users of that code. (Morse code, sign language, highway code…)

50. Codes • Codes are signifying systems: • They convey meaning • They depend on agreement and a shared cultural background • They perform identifiable or communicative functions • They are transmittable by their appropriate media and/or channels of communication