Semiotics

Notes on Semiotics - An Introduction
by Carl Jennings

Semiotics is best understood as the science of signs or signification. By this is meant the study of how things signify meaning, be it through literature, poetry, film and art or advertisements, haircuts, cake design and handshakes. Semiotics proceeds from the assumption that we humans encode our experience in order to understand, communicate and just generally make sense of it. This code, or sign, is the focus of semiotics.
Semiotics, as it is referred to today, goes back to two turn of the century thinkers Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. Saussure, a Swiss linguist is credited with the discovery of both Linguistics and Semiotics (Course in General Linguistics 1916). For Saussure, language was the cornerstone for both and the study of how language was structured gave insights into how humans encoded meaning in their activities. For Saussure language was the pre-eminent model for all human forms of signification.
But why, one might ask, would artists concern themselves with such things as language, linguistics and semiotics? The answer lies in the fact that semiotics demonstrates that what we refer to as ‘reality’ is in fact a system of signs, that it is not something that has a purely objective existence but is, on the contrary, dependent upon human interpretation. Semiotics can assist us in realizing that meaning is not ‘contained’ in the world and then ‘transmitted’ to us via books, television, media, art etc... but rather that we actively create and confer meaning according to a complex series of codes and conventions of which we are normally unaware. By becoming aware of this function of signs we can therefore ‘de-naturalize’ their function and realize that since meaning and signification is always constructed, we can therefore ask who's meaning is being constructed and concurrently, whose meaning is being suppressed? To study semiotics is to study the construction and maintenance of ‘reality’ as performed by individuals, cultures and societies. For artists this is fertile ground for exploring the complex relationship between art and society especially in a culture that is relying more on more on visual signs. Semiotics has become central to postmodern issues in the arts. Questions such as what is art, what is an artist, what is representation and who decides these questions, are all issues that rely heavily on systems of signification. They are questions of meaning, and as somebody once said , “semiotics is too important to leave to the semioticians”

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Taking the structure of language as it’s model, most studies in semiotics refer to all modes of signification (images, gestures,musical sounds, objects etc... ) as ‘texts’. In this way a semiotic analysis seeks to ‘read’ texts in order to disclose the way in which they encode interpretation.
According to Saussure, the most basic structural property of language is between what he referred to as the difference between langue (language) and parole (speech). Langue refers to the systems of rules and conventions of a particular language. This ‘structure’ is independent of individual users. Parole on the other hand refers to the particular use of that language in specific instances. Saussure also made the distinction between the synchronic aspect of language and the diachronic aspect. The synchronic aspect refers to the structural function of language as it occurs at any one time, the diachronic refers to the changing and evolving aspect of language over time. This two fold structure accounts for the fact that a given language both structures our experience and changes as a result of use in particular contexts. Meaning therefore resides in two levels, the structural and the contextual. For Saussure and the Structuralists (Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Althusser) this first aspect (langue) mattered more than specific instances of it’s use. Post-Structuralists (Barthes, Derrida, Foucault) on the other hand place more priority on usage and context as primary determinants of meaning .

Both approaches however share basic assumptions about the structure of the sign. This can best be seen in the following diagram:

The sign is any word, image, gesture etc... which contains both a signifier (actual word, image etc...) and a signified ( particular meaning). This can also be thought of as the distinction between form and content. In any given language the relationship between the two can be said to be based on both a structural and contextual basis. Structural in that a given language system sets up various relationships (exclusion, association etc...) between signs and their meaning, and discounts various others. This structural relationship is described as ‘arbitrary’ meaning that the relationship between the sign and the signifier is largely a matter of convention not objective fact . These relationships have been categorized by Peirce as the Icon, Index, Symbol. For example there is nothing that guarantees the connection between the word “cool” and the sensation of “coolness”, other languages have different words for the same thing without any word having a privileged or more correct relation. The letters c-o-o-l refer to coolness as a convention (agreed set of rules) of the English language. The other relationship can be said to be ‘contextual’, meaning that the relationship is based on the particular circumstance of it’s usage. For example the same word could be synonymous with it’s opposite, as when somebody refers to the latest fashion as “cool” and somebody else says it’s “hot” . Here the word is not used to refer to temperature but to a certain recognition of value. At first sight they appear to be contradictory, but for the users involved they make perfect sense. The way in which they are used determines their meaning (Wittgenstein). Another example would be when somebody comes out of a hot sauna and reaches into a tub of water commenting that it is nice and cool, whereas somebody coming in from the snow and cold outside might refer to the same tub as warm. Here we have two opposite words referring to the same tub of water. To ask which one most accurately describes the ‘reality’ of the water would be senseless. In both instances the meaning is understood as being dependent on the shared context and usage of the words.
This hermeneutical (Heidegger), or interpretive aspect of the sign accounts for the idea that our representation of reality ( be it in language or images ) is essentially one of construction and conferred meaning. Signs are not neutral, they do not faithfully reflect ‘reality’ existing ‘out there’ somewhere, nor are signs fixed. The relationship between signifier and signified is fluid or constantly deferred because every signifier is itself signified from another system (Derrida). Signs construct reality on the basis of a complex relationship between convention and usage. Language seen this way is essentially a game that constructs different ways of representing reality. It’s power lies in the fact that it’s ‘interpretive’ and ‘constructive’ element is largely hidden and taken for granted. It is the unveiling of this hidden or ‘transparent’ element along with it’s concurrent assumptions, prejudices and ideologies that is the force behind postmodern thinking in the arts.