“It is…possible to conceive of a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life…We shall call it semiology (from the Greek sèmeîon, ‘sign’). It would investigate the nature of signs and the laws governing them…Linguistics is only one branch of this general science. …”
Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 1916
Semiotics wasn't something that I had come across before, or so I thought when heading into the lecture. But it turned out that without knowing it I was fully aware of the basic ideas that surrounded semiotics. Because of this newly found understanding I was interesting in uncovering in more depth the ideas behind semiotics. the introduction of new and unfamiliar words to use in the understanding of the concept threw me at first as they were hard to get to grips with. Putting the definitions along side an image as an example however seemed to help the concepts sink in. These also help you realise how life itself is constructed around the idea of semiotics, even if we're not always aware of it things are indirectly suggested to us. An example of this is knowing when to cross the road, we are aware from a young age not to walk out infront of moving vehicles and to wait until there is nothing on the roads to cross. I feel that the following quote suggests this idea very well, in that we grow up watching what others do and so we pick up the way in which we are supposed to do things:
“Logic, in its general sense, is…only another name for semiotic…we observe the characters of such signs as we know, and...by a process which I will not object to naming abstraction, we are led to statements, eminently fallible, and therefore in one sense by no means necessary, as to what must be the characters of all signs used by scientific intelligence, that is to say, by an intelligence capable of learning by experience.”
Peirce, Collected Papers:Principles of Philosophy, 1931
Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 1916
Semiotics is made up of the signifier and the signified;
- the signifier is the material aspest. E.g. any material thing that signifies such as a facial expression or an image.
- the signified is the mental aspect. The concept that the signifier refers to.
These 2 things make up what we see within an image.
We were shown this Johnny Cash video as a way to try and make us understand the complex ideas behind semiotics. I think for me, this visual aspect helped make me remember the ideas around the concept. We were made to watch the video twice, once without the sound and then again with the sound accompanying the video. At first I was slightly sceptical about going about it this way as I didn't think that there would be any difference in the two viewings but after carrying out the exercise I was surprised to see the difference it actually made. Watching the video by itself allows you to look around and pick up every small aspect displayed within the video and build your own conclusion on why it is there however, once the lyrics are added they become very suggestive and you see everything you saw originally in a whole new perspective. The lyrics add the relevance and meaning behind some objects and allow you to notice new things that I bypassed in the first viewing.
Definitions: http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/semiotics_and_ads/terminology.html
Quotes: MyCourse Semiotics Powerpoint
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