CHAPTER REPORT

INTRODUCTION OF LINGUISTIC

“SEMIOTICS“

Created by:
Group 6:

Dida Jubaedah (17220444)

Restu Ganggaswati (17220036)
Rita Sumarni (17220419)

IKIP SILIWANGI
BANDUNG
2018
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

Semiotics is the study of meaning-making, the study of sign process (semiosis) and meaningful
communication. It is not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology, which is
a subset of semiotics. Semiotics includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication,
designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and
communication.
Semiotics is related to linguistics, the study of language, but it limits itself to the signs and
symbols part of communication. That’s not to say it’s all visual. Words and numbers are signs
along with photographs, icons, and road signs. Anything that’s capable of representing something
else is a sign. Anything that creates meaning is a sign.
The reason for studying semiotics is that is gives us a useful set of tools for identifying and
creating the patterns that lead to meaning in communication.
General Semiotics tends to be formalistic, abstracting signs from the contexts of use; Social
Semiotics takes the meaning-making process, “semiosis”, to be more fundamental than the system
of meaning-relations among signs, which are considered only the resources to be deployed in
making meaning.
Multimedia semiotics is based on the principle that all meaning-making, because it is a material
process as well as a semiotic practice, necessarily overflows the analytical boundaries between
distinct, idealized semiotic resource systems such as language, gesture, depiction, action, etc. every
material act and sign can be, and usually is, construed in relation to more than one system of sign
relations (e.g. a written word is both a linguistic sign and a visual orthographic one; a spoken word
is also construed in relations to its non-linguistic acoustical qualities; an image is interpreted both
visually and usually also linguistically; etc.).
 CHAPTER II
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Theories of Semiotics

Semiotics is the theory of the production and interpretation of meaning. It’s basic principle is
that meaning is made by the deployment of act and objects which function as “signs” in relation
to other signs. Systems of signs are constituted by the complex meaning-relations that can exist
between one sign and another, primarily relations of contrast and super ordination/subordination
(e.g. class/member, whole/part). Signs are deployed in space and time to produce “texts”, whose
meanings are construed by the mutually contextualizing relations among their signs.
General Semiotics tends to be formalistic, abstracting signs from the contexts of use; Social
Semiotics takes the meaning-making process, “semiosis”, to be more fundamental than the system
of meaning-relations among signs, which are considered only the resources to be deployed in
making meaning.
Multimedia semiotics is based on the principle that all meaning-making, because it is a material
process as well as a semiotic practice, necessarily overflows the analytical boundaries between
distinct, idealized semiotic resource systems such as language, gesture, depiction, action, etc. every
material act and sign can be, and usually is, construed in relation to more than one system of sign
relations (e.g. a written word is both a linguistic sign and a visual orthographic one; a spoken word
is also construed in relations to its non-linguistic acoustical qualities; an image is interpreted both
visually and usually also linguistically; etc.). Therefore it becomes important to study how
different sign-systems are physically and semiotically integrated in texts and multimedia
productions of various kinds.
Social semiotics examines semiotic practices, specific to a culture and community, for the
making of various kinds of texts and meanings in various situational contexts and contexts of
culturally meaningful activity. Social semiotics therefore makes no radical separation between
theoretical and applied semiotics and is more closely associated with discourse analysis,
multimedia analysis, educational research, cultural anthropology, political, sociology, etc.
B. Example of Semiotics

Picture 1. Don’t enter.

If we find this sign, it’s mean we are prohibited from entering the place that we go to.

Picture 2. Don’t parking.

If we find this sign, it’s mean we are prohibited from parking in that place.
 Picture 3. PMI sign.
If we find this sign, that means we are close to the PMI office. We can find the blood we need or
donate our blood.
 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
A. Conclusion

As we observed, the visual information of an iconic element and the semantics of a verbal
component in a poly code text are not merely an arithmetical sum of meanings of signs, their
meanings integrate and form a complex semantic whole. The act of double coding of information
goes on in the process of perception of a poly code text: the concept of the visual information being
perceived is added to the concept of the verbal text, the integration of meanings of both concepts
creates a united whole meaning of a creolized text. In other words, discourses of both texts blend
and the addressed immediately perceives the complex information: an overt direct meaning and a
covert discursive meaning aimed as a true illocution of the addressee. Consequently, a creolized
text operates as a complex sign which combines verbal and iconic visual elements into a structural,
meaningful and functional whole with a unique pragmatic communicative force. Evidently, the
process of conceptualization of everyday life cultural practices can be interpreted as a definite
selfregulating system of cultural structures conditioned by laws of the social symbolic
communication system in which an iconic principle of semiosis plays a significant role.