MEDIA LANGUAGE

SEMIOTICS: key terms.

[media studies handbooks, oxford dictionary can offer alternative definitions of these terms, feel free to make a research and collect multiple versions of them. Practice in discussing these terms in multiple ways and choose a definition that sounds clearer]

Semiotics

Sign: Any pattern/form/clue (word, sound, image, motion etc) that conveys meaning

words we speak are verbal signs, photographs are visual signs etc

Signifier the external/physical shape of a sign that we apprehend through the senses (the distinct sound or image or word).

Signified: the internal content of a sign, the meaning or meanings attached to it.

[signifier is something we see or hear whereas signified is something we picture/understand/imagine in our mind. One signifier can have multiple ‘signifieds’ depending on who is reading, where, when and how]

Dominant signifier: On a page or a poster or in a photo containing a number of signifiers grouped together, the dominant signifier is simply the most important (usually the largest) of these signifiers.

for example in the cover of a magazine — the ‘cover model’

Icon: (iconic signs) signs where the signifiers resembles the signified (a photograph)

Index: (indexical signs) signs where the signifier is caused by the signified (smoke signifying fire, footprints signifying a passenger, shadows signifying a figure)

Code: a conventional grouping of signs, a common pattern in combining signs together to create meaning.

a visual code in advertisements of detergents is clean clothes drying in the sun

a visual code in music advertisement is a picture of all the band members posing together for a poster.

Symbol is a type of sign where there is no resemblance between the signifier and the signified. The connection between them must be culturally learned. Numbers and alphabets are good examples. There’s nothing inherent in the number 9 to indicate what it represents. It must be culturally learned.

Anchorage the text that grounds an image into a meaning/or a direction of a meaning.

for example cover lines, advertising slogans.

Ideology: a particular way of understanding, interpreting and evaluating social, political and cultural realities. Ideology informs how we create signs and how we read them.

Paradigm . A distinct set/collection/type/category of signifiers [animals, letters, heroes, plants, gods, cities etc] . Paradigmatic analysis: is the reflection on how the choice of specific signifiers change the meaning of a sign.

a cowboy belongs to a ‘paradigm’ (examples/list/types) of ‘hero’ A cowboy is a actually a group of signs combined together (a man, boots, hat, leather trousers etc). This combination (connection/collaboration between signs) is called syntagm

we can replace this style of hero for another:

for example ‘astronaut’ or ‘indian’ or a ‘detectiv’ or ‘a super hero’ — each of them are options available for the creation of a action-hero. This list of signs of the same type (hero) is called paradigm. So when reading a picture you can note that it uses the paradigm of a ‘cowboy hero’. Paradigmatic analysis is the effort to understand what effect have particular choice — the choice of a ‘cowboy’ — instead of another one.

You know computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones are different, but they can all be used to access your social media account and post an update about the food you are eating. Of course, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram form their own paradigm because you can easily substitute one platform for another. Sausage rolls and fresh salad have very different calorie counts, but they are part of the food paradigm.

Syntagm. is a way of combining sings/ or paradigms of signs

a cowboy in the saloon, a cowboy in the dessert, a cowboy on the beach, a cowboy in hyperspace

the combination between signs (here cowboy and space) is called ‘syntagmatic’

the cowboy in himself is a syntagm of signs — if we change the ‘man’ from the paradigm of gender and turn him ‘black’ from the paradigm of race what effect does this have on the meaning (signified) of this sign?

Barthes’ ideas and theories on semiotics:

Signification: refers to the ways that signs convey meaning — or the ways that the ‘signifiers’ are linked to ‘signifieds’

there different orders of signification

Denotation: first level of signification, the literal, direct connection between an image and what it represents: the portrait of man= a man

Connotation: second level of signification, the portrait of man in a police uniform running after a criminal = an violent, authoritarian figure or an action hero in a film.

Myth: multiple signs join together to express meaning that is associated with specific ideologies, particular ways of interpreting and evaluating the word:

policemen are national heroes — or policemen are corrupted — or policemen are useless