Semiotics

Today’s lesson was about semiotics. It leads to understanding. It is the study of images, their use, interpretation and meaning. Semiotics is a study of signs and symbols.

A sign is composed of two parts:

Signifier and signified. Signifier is a sign/symbol while the signified is the actual object.

Sign= signifier + signified.

For example; The word tree is a signifier of an actual tree.  A photograph is also a signifier.

Semiotics started with two men: Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce

Ferdinand de Saussure is a linguist born in 1857 and died in 1913. He called it semiology not semiotics. He never actually did publish anything on semiotics but he only gave lectures. His own students actually made a book out of his lectures.

A sign can only be understood if we provide it with a meaning.

Sound-image. An example of a sound-image is that every time we see the word apple, we think of the actual apple and vice versa.

 

Charles Sanders Peirce is a philosopher, mathematician and scientist. He added another element called the interpretant with the signifier and signified. The interpretant is the feeling we get/ connection that we make (between signifier and signified).

Types of signs:

Icon, index and symbol.

Iconic

An icon is something that looks like what it represents (resemblance). For example a photo of a lady resembles the actual lady.

Another example is of Jesus. It is how people think he looks like, so it is a resemblance of how people are taught how he looked.

Another great example is in the picture below:

The picture says: This is not a pipe in French. It says that because it is not an actual pipe, it is a representation of a pipe.

Index

An index is an indicator of existence. An index is what caused it to happen (cause + effect). For example; if there is a wet street, it means that it rained.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?biw=1280&bih=799&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=wet+road+photography&oq=wet+road+photography&gs_l=img.3..0i30.57080.57766.0.57898.5.5.0.0.0.0.144.633.0j5.5.0….0…1c.1.64.img..1.4.513.P4IRbdfAOnY#imgrc=kLrqgwfBCAZ0_M%3A

If the actual object does not exist, the photograph cannot exist, but is does not approve that it still exists now, but it existed.

Symbol

A symbol is a relationship between signifier and signified.

For example:

The power symbol means power but it has nothing to do with power.

Another example:

It is an icon of an actual apple but also a symbol of the brand apple because it does not actually look like a phone/laptop/computer.

Communications is based through interpretation. Communication is based on semiotics.