SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

Roland Barthes:

deconstructing an image-

Sign: it addresses someone/ message. what makes the meaning through interpretation. the result of looking at an advert or photo.

Signifier: What gives it that message in the image?, the person, their age, sex, looks, cultural representation, 

signifies: what concept in the mind, the notion of what the image gives the viewer

connotation: what are the personal, emotional and ideological associations  and interpretations.

denotation: What is the literal definition of the obvious, a description of what you are seeing.

SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS a methodological tool or mode of analysis. To Decode art work through: Signs, Signifiers, Signified.Symbols, Icons, Indexical,  Modes, Denotation, Connotation.

In the context of semiotics, 'decoding' involves not simply basic recognition and comprehension of what an image or a text 'says' but also the interpretation and evaluation of its meaning with reference to relevant codes.

By David Chandler.  His free online book: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html

semiology (from the Greek semeîon, 'sign')

Umberto Eco, who states that 'semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign' (Eco 1976, 7).  Semiotics involves the study not only of what we refer to as 'signs' in everyday speech, but of anything which 'stands for' something else. In a semiotic sense, signs take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects.

We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meanings: above all, we are surely Homo significans - meaning-makers.  Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of 'signs'.

Semiotics began to become a major approach to cultural studies in the late 1960s, partly as a result of the work of Roland Barthes. The translation into English of his popular essays in a collection entitled Mythologies (Barthes 1957), followed in the 1970s and 1980s by many of his other writings, greatly increased scholarly awareness of this approach. Writing in 1964, Barthes declared that 'semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification' (Barthes 1967, 9). The adoption of semiotics in Britain was influenced by its prominence in the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham whilst the centre was under the direction of the neo-Marxist sociologist Stuart Hall (director 1969-79). Although semiotics may be less central now within cultural and media studies (at least in its earlier, more structuralist form), it remains essential for anyone in the field to understand it. What individual scholars have to assess, of course, is whether and how semiotics may be useful in shedding light on any aspect of their concerns. Note that Saussure's term, 'semiology' is sometimes used to refer to the Saussurean tradition, whilst 'semiotics' sometimes refers to the Peircean tradition, but that nowadays the term 'semiotics' is more likely to be used as an umbrella term to embrace the whole field (Nöth 1990, 14).

SIGNS:

Ferdinand de Saussure defined a sign as being composed of:

• a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and
• the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents.
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The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (Saussure 1983, 67; Saussure 1974, 67). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as 'signification', and this is represented in the Saussurean diagram by the arrows. The horizontal line marking the two elements of the sign is referred to as 'the bar'.

A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified (Saussure 1983, 101; Saussure 1974, 102-103). A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified. The same signifier (the word 'open') could stand for a different signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button inside a lift ('push to open door'). Similarly, many signifiers could stand for the concept 'open' (for instance, on top of a packing carton, a small outline of a box with an open flap for 'open this end') - again, with each unique pairing constituting a different sign.

THE SIGNIFIED:

Most commentators who adopt Saussure's model still treat this as a mental construct.

Louis Hjelmslev used the terms 'expression' and 'content' to refer to the signifier and signified respectively (Hjelmslev 1961, 47ff). The distinction between signifier and signified has sometimes been equated to the familiar dualism of 'form and content'. Within such a framework the signifier is seen as the form of the sign and the signified as the content. However, the metaphor of form as a 'container' is problematic, tending to support the equation of content with meaning, implying that meaning can be 'extracted' without an active process of interpretation and that form is not in itself meaningful (Chandler 1995 104-6).

Charles Sanders Peirce formulated his own model of the sign, of 'semiotic' and of the taxonomies of signs. In contrast to Saussure's model of the sign in the form of a 'self-contained dyad', Peirce offered a triadic model:

• The Representamen: the form which the sign takes (not necessarily material);
• An Interpretant: not an interpreter but rather the sense made of the sign;

• An Object: to which the sign refers.
• Sign vehicle: the form of the sign;
• Sense: the sense made of the sign;
• Referent: what the sign 'stands for'.

Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags.

Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures.

In dex/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary (random choice, unrestrained and autocratic, unspecified, dependent on ones own will or pleasure) but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level), 'signals' (a knock on a door, a phone ringing), pointers (a pointing 'index' finger, a directional signpost), recordings (a photograph, a film, video or television shot, an audio-recorded voice), personal 'trademarks' (handwriting, catchphrase) and indexical words ('that', 'this', 'here', 'there').

iconic signs always involve some degree of conventionality; indexical signs 'direct the attention to their objects by blind compulsion' (Peirce 1931-58, 2.306). Indexical and iconic signifiers can be seen as more constrained by referential signifieds whereas in the more conventional symbolic signs the signified can be seen as being defined to a greater extent by the signifier. Within each form signs also vary in their degree of conventionality. Other criteria might be applied to rank the three forms differently. For instance, Hodge and Kress suggest that indexicality is based on an act of judgement or inference whereas iconicity is closer to 'direct perception' making the highest 'modality' that of iconic signs. Note that the terms 'motivation' (from Saussure) and 'constraint' are sometimes used to describe the extent to which the signified determines the signifier. The more a signifier is constrained by the signified, the more 'motivated' the sign is: iconic signs are highly motivated; symbolic signs are unmotivated. The less motivated the sign, the more learning of an agreed convention is required. Nevertheless, most semioticians emphasize the role of convention in relation to signs. As we shall see, even photographs and films are built on conventions which we must learn to 'read'. Such conventions are an important social dimension of semiotics….. For a sign to be truly iconic, it would have to be transparent to someone who had never seen it before…… We see the resemblance when we already know the meaning' (Cook 1992, 70). Thus, even a 'realistic' picture is symbolic as well as iconic….. Indexicality is perhaps the most unfamiliar concept. Peirce offers various criteria for what constitutes an index. An index 'indicates' something: for example, 'a sundial or clock indicates the time of day'

MODES:

·      close-ups signifying intimate or personal modes.

·      medium shots a social mode and long shots an impersonal mode.

·      High angles (looking down on a depicted person from above) are widely interpreted as making that person look small and insignificant.

·      Low angles (looking up at them from below) are said to make them look powerful and superior.

·      close-up from below seems to me to emphasize the power of the figure.

·      Power is signified most strongly by a low angle which is also a close-up - as if, as we get closer, we become more vulnerable.

In visual media, the represented physical distance between the observed and the observer often reflects attempts to encourage feelings of emotional involvement or critical detachment in the viewer.

Denotation:  'literal' meaning or a 'natural' meaning.

'Denotation' tends to be described as the definitional, 'literal', 'obvious' or 'commonsense' meaning of a sign. In the case of linguistic signs, the denotative meaning is what the dictionary attempts to provide.  What we recognize the image as depicting from any culture or history.  An important dimension of meaning.

Connotations are not purely 'personal' meanings - they are determined by the codes to which the interpreter has access. Cultural codes provide a connotational framework since they are 'organized around key oppositions and equations', each term being 'aligned with a cluster of symbolic attributes' (Silverman 1983, 36). Certain connotations would be widely recognized within a culture. Most adults in Western cultures would know that a car can connote virility or freedom.