1. Semiotics 101

2. When the media were first seriously studied, in the late 1950s, existing methods of literary, social science and art criticism were applied to them. Value was set on ‘good dialogue’ or ‘convincing characters’ – essentially what film critics give us in our daily newspapers. It soon became clear that this was not enough for proper media analysis. This is where some ideas from linguistics, a discipline concerned with the study of how languages originate and develop, came into play, allowing media texts and the processes by which they create meaning, to be examined.

3. Semiotics 101 Ferdinand de Saussure In the 19 th Century, Swiss Professor of Linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure began to develop a new approach to language – analysing its structure, understanding the parts that make up all languages and how they function to enable humans to communicate. This later became known as structural linguistics. Saussure tried to define what a language is – he discovered that languages were, fundamentally, sets of conventions (rules and agreements) shared by a particular society or group.

4. Semiotics 101 Ferdinand de Saussure Saussure concluded that languages were not natural phenomena but social phenomena. He demonstrated that this was the case for both of the key elements of any language: vocabulary (the set of words and their meanings which make up a language) and grammar (the set of rules that exist in every language concerning how words can be put together and used). He argued that these were always arbitrary – in other words, there was no natural necessity to them. In the case of vocabulary, he demonstrated that language was purely a matter of convention.

5. Semiotics 101 Ferdinand de Saussure The language convention we normally use to describe this creature is the word ‘dog’ but that association is arbitrary, there’s no absolute, natural reason why that word means what it does. English could just as easily have evolved language conventions that attached the word ‘cat’ or ‘rabbit’ to the creature depicted here. In terms of vocabulary, language is purely a matter of convention. Saussure demonstrated that grammar is equally arbitrary, i.e. the rules of words differ between languages – we say “black dog” whereas the Spanish say “perro negro” (“dog black”).

6. Semiotics 101 Ferdinand de Saussure Saussure further concluded that what he had ‘discovered’ about language must be equally true of other ways humans communicate. If one person can communicate something (an idea, an emotion, a fact) to another person, it can only be because they must share the same set of conventions – an arbitrary vocabulary and grammar. This is true not only of languages but also any of the other ways we use symbolic communication – such as music, dance, etc. Saussure proposed the study of semiology (later called semiotics) as a way of examining “languages” – all forms of communication. He preferred to call these languages sign systems. He said that all sign-systems had their own “vocabulary” of signs – the things that a system used to symbolise different meanings.

7. Semiotics 101 Semiotics uses the term signs to describe the ways that meanings are socially produced. Signs have several characteristics: First, a sign has physical form, called the signifier. This might be a traffic light or a finger print. It might be a word – though as signifiers words offer meaning in two main ways; the signifiers are sometimes marks on paper, sometimes sounds in the air. Secondly, a sign refers to something other than itself. This is called the signified. It’s important to understand that this is a concept, not a real, tangible thing in the world. Third, semiotics emphasises that our perception of reality is itself constructed and shaped by the words and signs we use, in various social contexts.

8. The referent is that which both the signifier and the signified refer to and inevitably differs from the image we conjure up when we see or hear the signifier. Signifier + Signified = Sign The signifier is a physical object. E.g. a sound, printed word or advertisement. The signified is a mental concept or meaning conveyed by the signifier. E.g.love,

9. Semiotics 101 Signs, then, signify or denote different aspects of our experience. The word ‘red’ denotes a certain part of the colour spectrum, differentiated by language from other parts (such as ‘blue’ or ‘pink’) in what is a continuous spectrum.

10. Semiotics 101 ‘Red’ can be used to describe blood, fire, sunsets, blushing etc. Perhaps this explains why ‘red’ has gathered connotations of fierceness, passion and danger. In Schindler’s List the one aspect of colour visible in the film is in the girl’s red coat. While the choice of colour may have obvious reasons, i.e. allowing the girl to stand out in a black & white film, the connotations we associate with that colour allow us the audience to draw meaningful conclusions about the girl’s fate.

11. Semiotics 101 Sign = signifier + signified Signifier = object (denotation) Signified = meaning (connotation) Denotation = what’s actually there Connotation = possible meanings All meanings are arbitrary – they are shared through social and cultural convention. The word ‘cat’ is a signifier made up of three letter shapes. The signified (the real-life feline animal) is arbitrary but agreed culturally Ferdinand de Saussure

12. Use these terms, analyse how meaning is constructed in the following images: Sign = signifier + signified Signifier = object (denotation) Signified = meaning (connotation) Denotation = what’s actually there Connotation = possible meanings

16. Semiotics 101 Verbal language, spoken and written, is mostly composed of arbitrary signifiers in the sense that there is no necessary resemblance between the black marks on the page: ‘daffodil’ and those plants in the world that share the name ‘daffodil’. Visual language is different and, in order to understand how, it’s worth considering the key distinction, made initially by the American Charles Sanders Pierce (1893-1914), between iconic, indexical and symbolic signs

17. Semiotics 101 Charles Sanders Peirce

18. Semiotics 101 Charles Sanders Peirce Symbolic is used of visual signs (as opposed to words, which are usually ‘arbitrary’) that are arbitrarily linked to referents. The diamond hats often worn by monarchs, for example, are called crowns, and symbolise monarchy. Iconic signifiers always resemble what they signify. For example there is a similarity between a photo, or a good drawing, of a daffodil and most people’s experience of those flowers so the photo is called an iconic signifier. Indexical signifiers act as a kind of evidence: smoke of a fire, sweat of effort, spots of measles etc A sundial is an indexical sign of time passing whereas digital technologies act like arbitrary signs. Most visual signs are one of the three types outlined above but they can sometimes fall into more than one category. Examine the following images; can you explain how they may be viewed as iconic, indexical and symbolic?

23. For meaning to be produced, cultural/social agreement is needed. We learn to read arbitrary signs according to shared conventions or codes. Inevitably, however, the meanings of signs are neither fixed nor single, but polysemic, or capable of having several meanings. One way in which control over this potentially disruptive polysemy or ambiguity is through the use of captions. This is called anchoring, a process which tries to select and therefore control the meanings which could be made by a reader. Captions for adverts or newspaper photos will often act like this.

24. A West End shopper argues with a protestor This picture was published in the Daily Mail after the Poll Tax riots. How does the caption anchor the meaning of the photograph? Are there other meanings/connotations that can be read into the photo if we ignore the caption? Can you write your own caption, anchoring the meaning in a different way?

25. A powerful news image can change people’s perceptions and attitudes. How did the newspapers anchor the meaning of this image? In semiotic terms, what makes the photograph so effective? Think about how meaning is created in the following press photographs. What makes them so powerful? How could you use a caption to anchor the meaning?

34. There’s always an element of chance in press photography – you need to be in the right place at the right time. Photographers edit, select and crop their photographs. This all contributes to the ways we can read the image However, the photographer makes editing decisions that affect the meaning of the pictures they take. In camera, the choice of lens, focus, framing etc are all decisions that influence the meaning and connotations of the image.

35. Using semiotics, consider the way the following images have been edited to create new meanings Why did the first photographer choose that particular image? How does the editing of the second image affect its meaning?

41. Semiotics 101 sign = signifier + signified denotation/connotation indexical, iconic, symbolic anchoring polysemic Include semiotics concepts and terminology in all pre- production research and analyses Use it to develop your analysis of still images (digipak, posters, magazine features etc) relating to your artist/genre but also apply it to moving image