2.

0 Saussure’s Legacy

 Father of modern linguistics

 Provided a general view of representation

- Helped in shaping the semiotic approach to the

problem of representation

 The production of meaning depends on language

o Language is a system of signs

 Sound, images, written words, etc function as

signs within language only when they serve to

express or communicate ideas

 To communicate ideas, they must be

part of a system of conventions

o Sign

 is divided into two further elements

 Form (signifier): actual word,

image, photo

 Idea/ Concept (signified): in

your head, where the form was

associated

 Central fact of language: signifier and signified

are components of sign

 There is no natural or inevitable link

between the signifier and the

signified
  Signs are members of a system and are defined

in relation to the other members of the system

(Saussure)

 Marking the difference is

fundamental to the production of

meaning

 Can be done through binary

opposition

 A revolutionary proposition:

For it to produce meanings,

the signifiers have to be

organized into a system of

differences (differences

between signifiers which

signify)

 Relation between the signifier and the signified is not permanently fixed

o Language sets up an arbitrary relation between signifiers and

signifieds

 Each language produces a different set of

signifieds; it has a distinctive and thus arbitrary

way of organizing the world into concepts and

categories

 Sign is totally subject to history and the combination at the particular

moment of a given signifier and the signified is a contingent result of the

historical process
  Saussure's approach to language is that he unfixes meanings ----

constant production of new meanings and interpretation

 Meanings must be actively read and interpreted

o There is necessary and inevitable imprecision about

language

 e.g. the meaning we take as viewers is never

exactly the same with what is given by the

speakers

o There is a constant sliding of meaning in all interpretations

2.1 The social part of language

Language into two parts:

1. Langue

 the system of language as systems of forms

 general rules and codes of the linguistic system

o All users must share --- if used as a means of

communication

o The rules are the principles which we learn a

language and they enable us to use language to say

whatever we want

2. Parole

 actual speech, the speech acts which are made

possible by the language

 particular acts of speaking or writing or drawing which

are produced by an actual speaker/ writer

  For Saussure, the underlying structure of rules and codes (langue) was

the social part of language ----- the part which could be studied with the

law like precision of science because of its closed, limited nature

o his model of language is structuralist

 He regarded the second part of language, individual speech-act or

utterance (parole) as the surface of language

o Parole lacks structural properties forming a closed and

limited set because there were an infinite set of possible

utterances

 Language is a social phenomenon.

o We are born into a language, its codes and its meanings.

o It cannot be an individual matter because we cannot make

up the rules of language individually, for ourselves.

o Their source lies in society, in the culture, in our shared

cultural codes, in the language system --- not in nature or in

the individual subject

2.2 Critique to Saussure's model

 Saussure gave little to no attention to how the relation between

signifier/ signified could serve the purpose of reference

 i.e referring us to the world of things, people and events

outside language in the 'real' world

 Charles Sanders Pierce

  Adopts a similar approach

to Saussure as well to

what he called as referents

 He also tended to focus on the formal aspects of language --- how

language actually works

 Too exclusive

 Attention to its formal aspects did divert attention

away from the more interactive and dialogic

features of language

 Questions of power of language did not arise

 The structuralist impulse of his work proved to be illusory

 Language is not an object which can be studied

with the law-like precision of a science

 Language is not a closed system which can be

reduced to tis formal elements

 Open-ended

 SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEOS

Ferdinand de Saussure and Structural Linguistics (5 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5vhq3aRNjE

Semiotics: WTF? Introduction to Saussure, the Signifier and Signified (9 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JtJu9HdQVM

 3.0 FROM LANGUAGE TO CULTURE: LINGUISTICS TO SEMIOTICS

Semiotics
 Cultural objects/practices must make use of signs; and they must

work like language works and be amenable to an analysis (uses

Saussure's linguistic concepts)

 In this approach, not only words and images but objects themselves

can function as signifiers in the production of meaning

 EXAMPLE: Fashion

 Having recognized the material as a dress or a jeans,

and produced a sign we can progress to a second, wider

level, which links these signs to broader, cultural themes,

concepts, or meanings (e.g. An evening dress to formality

or elegance, jeans to casualness)

 Barthes called the first (descriptive level) ---

the level of denotation and the second level

the connotation

 Both require the use of codes

 Denotation

 Simple, basic,

descriptive level,

where consensus is

wide and most people

would agree on the

meaning

 Connotation

 These signifiers,

which we have been

 able to decode at a

simple level by using

our conventional

conceptual

classifications of

dress to read their

meaning, enter the

language of fashion

which then links to a

wider semantic fields

of culture

SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEOS

Semiotics analysis for beginners | How to read signs in film | Roland Barthes

Media Theory (9 mins)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlpOaY-_HMk

*analyzed a clip from a horror film (NO jump scares)

3.1 MYTH TODAY

2 LEVELS OF PROPER SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

1. Signifiers and signifieds unites to form a simple and literal meaning

 Functions as the signifier

2. The completed message is then linked to a second set of signifieds

 Functions as the representation process

 Called by Barthes as the level of myth

 
SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEO

An Introduction to Roland Barthe’s Mythologies – A Macat Literature Analysis

(4 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GCzq8we-bI