Semiotics

1. Sign – Stands in for something else
2. Code – Symbolic tools used to create meaning
3. Convention – Accepted ways of using media code
4. Dominant Signifier – The main representative
5. Anchorage – Words with an image to provide context

Ferdinand de Saussure:

1. Signifier – Stands in for something else
2. Signified – Idea being evoked by signifier

C S Pierce:

1. Icon – A sign that looks like its object
2. Index – A sign that has a link to its object
3. Symbol – A sign that has a more random link to its object

Roland Barthes:

1. Signification – Structural levels of signification, meaning or representation.
2. Denotation –  The most basic or literal meaning of a sign.
3. Connotation – The secondary, cultural meanings of signs; or “signifying signs,” signs that are used as signifiers for a secondary meaning.
4. Myth – The most obvious level of signification, but distorts meaning by validating arbitrary cultural assumptions in a way similar to the denotative sign.
5. Ideology – codes that reinforce or are congruent with structures of power.
6. Radical – Something that challenges dominant ideas.
7. Reactionary – Something that confirms dominant ideas.

1. Paradigm – A collection of signs that all have some sort of connection.
2. Syntagm –  How signs and things are put together and fitted together.