This page contains course-specific words I have learned since being on the course.
A
Anomalous Zone - The 'middle territory' in between two extremes (i.e. Life/Death, Light/Dark, etc)
Aporia - A pause, for dramatic effect, thinking, etc. (i.e. a speaker addressing an audience pauses for dramatic effect).
Arbitrary - (in a symbolic context) How far away a sign is from the real thing (i.e. the word 'cat' is arbitrary as it does not really represent an actual cat in any way.)
B
C
Cognition - Thought processes.
Cool Media - A medium that requires high user input or interaction. Information is entropic. (e.g. Telephone)
Connotation - What the denotation suggests, a more subtle culturally determined reading, what it connotes. (i.e. denotation: red background, connotation: red is associated with lust, danger (due to the colour of blood), etc.)
Cybernetics - Science of communication between organisms/animals and machines.
D
Denotation - What the sign is, at the most basic level of understanding, what it literally denotes. The surface meaning. (i.e. red background)
E
Entropy - Unpredictable, opposite of redundancy.
Epiphany - An insight, usually sudden.
F
G
H
Hot Media - A medium that requires low user input or interaction. Information is full and clear. (e.g. Film)
I
Iconic - How close a sign is to the 'real thing'. i.e. how constrained it is by the thing it represents, e.g. a photographic portrait is typically iconic, a doodle isn't.
Intertextuality - Transposition of one or several sign systems into another.
J
K
L
M
Myth - The world view the denotation/connotation contains or implies - the ideological or political meaning of it.
N
O
P
Paradigm - A set of signs available to be used in a context. (i.e. the paradigm of landscape/clothing/food)
Q
R
Redundancy - 'Not necessary' (i.e. when playing a game, redundancy phase kicks in when you know what to do and how to do it. An action has a high likelihood of happening again, requiring low engagement.)
Rhetoric - Persuasive.
S
Semiotics - Study/Science of meaning. (How we make it i.e. how we read it)
Sign - Signifier + Signified
Signification - The process of signs being made, noticed and understood.
Signified - Mental concept. (i.e. when you see a picture of a cat, you think 'furry, mouse killing animal'.
Signifier - Physical form. (i.e. picture of a cat).
Structuralism - A 'concept' that argues there is no single true way of seeing or understanding the world.
Syntagm - The particular selection of signs within a paradigm which are available. (i.e. in the paradigm of weather: sunny, windy, snowy, rainy, etc).
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
