The subject of today's lecture was Semiotics, the study of meaning.
We spoke about signs and how we recognise them, and contextualised it through cats, which was definitely my favourite. I love cats.
For the purpose of showing my understanding, I'm going to use a door as my context.
The word door does not resemble a door in any way. The word door is a signifier, but is arbitrary. The mental process that then occurs is called the signified. When I see the word door I think of a vertically upright rectangle, usually made of wood but can come in many different materials, and is typically used to allow or deny entry to a place.
Figure 2.1 shows a door created by me in Adobe Photoshop. It resembles the shape, and in some cases colour, of a door. It has a doorknob. For all intents and purposes, Figure 2.1 is a door.
This makes Figure 2.1 iconic. However, it's not as simple as iconic or arbitrary, some pictures can be more iconic than others. For example:
Figure 2.2 shows a photograph of a (rather posh looking) door. This is iconic, just like my doodle of a door. However, Figure 2.2 is more iconic than Figure 2.1.
Here's a door in a nebula (quite a fetching nebula, is it not?). This photograph is still iconic, however, you could argue that it is less iconic than the previous picture because, generally, doors don't manage to plummet into outer space and sit in the middle of a nebula.
We then discussed some more terms which can be found on the Dictionary page in this blog. We discussed Denotation, Connotation and Myth which I had already done a little of back at school. I think in future posts I will find adverts, film posters, etc, that interest me and analyse them. I'm confident using denotation and connotation, however, I'm still a bit confused about the myth at this stage.
Finally we discussed Paradigms (a set of signs available for use in a context) and Syntagm (actual entities within paradigms). We analysed a rather amusing advert for Amnesty International.
Another enjoyable lecture for me, and I look forward to next week!
We spoke about signs and how we recognise them, and contextualised it through cats, which was definitely my favourite. I love cats.
For the purpose of showing my understanding, I'm going to use a door as my context.
The word door does not resemble a door in any way. The word door is a signifier, but is arbitrary. The mental process that then occurs is called the signified. When I see the word door I think of a vertically upright rectangle, usually made of wood but can come in many different materials, and is typically used to allow or deny entry to a place.
Fig 2.1: A door: Seb Emin: (Source: Adobe Photoshop CS5.1)
Figure 2.1 shows a door created by me in Adobe Photoshop. It resembles the shape, and in some cases colour, of a door. It has a doorknob. For all intents and purposes, Figure 2.1 is a door.
This makes Figure 2.1 iconic. However, it's not as simple as iconic or arbitrary, some pictures can be more iconic than others. For example:
Fig 2.2: A photograph of a door: (Source: simplyshutters.co.uk, 2011)
Figure 2.2 shows a photograph of a (rather posh looking) door. This is iconic, just like my doodle of a door. However, Figure 2.2 is more iconic than Figure 2.1.
Fig 2.3 A door in a nebula: (Source: Door: Simply Shutters 2011, Nebula: news.wisc.edu 2011, Adobe Photoshop)
Here's a door in a nebula (quite a fetching nebula, is it not?). This photograph is still iconic, however, you could argue that it is less iconic than the previous picture because, generally, doors don't manage to plummet into outer space and sit in the middle of a nebula.
We then discussed some more terms which can be found on the Dictionary page in this blog. We discussed Denotation, Connotation and Myth which I had already done a little of back at school. I think in future posts I will find adverts, film posters, etc, that interest me and analyse them. I'm confident using denotation and connotation, however, I'm still a bit confused about the myth at this stage.
Finally we discussed Paradigms (a set of signs available for use in a context) and Syntagm (actual entities within paradigms). We analysed a rather amusing advert for Amnesty International.
Another enjoyable lecture for me, and I look forward to next week!
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