Semiotics, narrative and genre

A course about media texts, how they signify, and the implications this

has for society

Why semiotics?

• 'semiotics tells us things we already know in a language we will never understand' (Paddy Whannel, in Seiter 1992:1)

Why semiotics?

• “makes the world strange”: we no longer take reality for granted

• What we experience as “reality” does not have an objective existence outside of human understanding or interpretation

• Understanding how signs works is an act of intellectual and political emancipation

Semiotics helps us to

• see that we collectively construct reality • understand that an event’s meaning (eg. an

accident, or Nkandla, or a sports event) is not something that the media simply collects and distributes to an audience

• see that we create meaning within sets of codes and conventions (unconsciously)

• become aware of these codes and conventions

Denaturalising the sign

• Signs are the means through which we organise and understand our world(s): signs “define” reality

• Be becoming aware of the codes through which we “make sense” of the world, we become aware of how signs privilege certain world views

• Awareness of codes assists in challenging power

Semiotics

• The study of signs• How is meaning created within a language?• How do things in the world come to have

social significance (meaning)• Verbal language one of many systems of signs

– can you give examples of others?

Different approaches to language

• Reflective: Language reflects the world its meaning

• Intentional: Language reflects the intentions of the speaker

• Social constructivist: Language is socially constructed to produce shared meanings

Exercise 1

– Look at something in this room–Do you “recognise” it? What is the basis of

this recognition – what does “recognise” mean?–Close your eyes. Can you still “see” the

object? What does this have to do with “recognising” it?– Look at me and tell me what the object is –

say it aloud “It’s a lamp”.

Exercise 2• What does each colour

“mean”• What else could they

mean?• Does it matter what colours

we use?• Construct a set of traffic

light rules using yellow, blue and pink

What can we learn from this exercise?

• Signs are arbitrary: any colour will do if we agree to obey the rules

• Meanings are fixed by codes (rules)• Anything can function as a sign if assigned a

concept and a meaning within our cultural and linguistic codes

• Signs create real effects (material and social consequences) in the world

de Saussure

• Language is a system of signs• Sounds, images written words, paintings,

natural objects function as signs “only when they serve to express or communicate ideas… [To] communicate ideas, they must be part of a system of conventions” (Culler 1976:19)

The sign

• divided analytically into two parts:– Signifier (spoken word, image etc)– Signified (the mental concept)

SIGN SIGNIFIERSIGNIFIED

Try this…

• Write down a few words• Try to separate the word from its meaning – it can help by

saying it over and over• How difficult is it to separate the word (signifier) from its

signified (concept)• Look at the list again and contemplate the words as signs

(combined signifier and signified)• Then put the list away and conjure up the concept or

mental image• Try to explain to someone what you have done, using the

terms “sign”, “signifier” and “signified”

The sign

is the union of a form which signifies (signifier) and an idea signified (signified). Though we may speak... as if they are separate entities, they exist only as components of the sign [which is] the central fact of language” (Culler 1976:19)

The meaning is in the difference

• There is no natural or inevitable link between the signifier and the signified

• Signs do not possess a fixed or essential meaning

• In the traffic light example, what signifies (means)is not red or green, but the difference between red and green

“Members of systems”

• Signs are members of systems and are defined in relation to each other

• Organised within “systems of differences”: it is the differences between signifiers that signify!– eg, father because not mother, not child etc

• Binary opposites a simple way of marking difference– black/white– man/woman