Key language:

• Sign what is a sign?
• Code – signs are codes that communicate information or ideas
• Convention (signs can be organised to follow a convention or to go against a convention – can you think of any examples?)

THE ORGANISATION OF SIGNS

• Paradigm (recognisable groups of signs)
• Syntagm (the order or sequence of signs, so how they are organised)

• Polysemic – signs can have many meanings
• Dominant Signifier – the most important sign in a group (paradigm) is the dominant signifier
• Anchorage – the dominant signifier or the paradigm of signs, or the organisation / sequence of signs (syntagm) usually help to provide a clear sense of meaning in terms of what is being communicated

THEORISTS

1. Roland Barthes
2. Ferdinand de Saussure
3. C S Pierce

Roland Barthes:

1. Denotation,
2. Connotation
3. Ideology,
4. Myth
5. radical
6. reactionary

Ferdinand de Saussure:

• Signifier,
• Signified,

C S Pierce:

1. Icon,
2. Index,
3. Symbol