Week 3: Semiotics, or the Science of Signs

 Semiotics

• Logician, mathematician, philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) began writing on semiotics, or the theory of sign relations in the 1860s. He eventually defined semiosis as an "action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretation, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs."

A tri-relative cooperation

• A sign represents, in the broadest possible sense of "represents". It is something interpretable as saying something about something. It is not necessarily symbolic, linguistic, or artificial.
• An object (or semiotic object) is a subject matter of a sign and an interpretant. It can be anything discussable or thinkable, a thing, event, relationship, quality, law argument, etc, and can even be fictional, for instance Hamlet.
• An interpretant (or interpretant sign) is the sign's more or less clarified meaning or ramification; it is an interpretation in the sense of a product of an interpretive process or a content in which an interpretive relation culminates, though this product or content may itself be an act, a state of agitation, conduct, etc

How does a sign refer to its object?

• Indexically - An index is a sign that denotes its object by virtue of an actual connection involving them, one that he also calls a real relation in virtue of its being irrespective of interpretation. It is in any case a relation which is in fact, in contrast to the icon, which has only a ground for denotation of its object, and in contrast to the symbol, which denotes bt an interpretive habit or law. Peirce also usually held that an index does not have to be an actual individual fact or thing, but can be a general one; a disease symptom is general, its occurrence singular.
• E.g wet streets are a sign that it has rained recently; smoke signifies fire
• Iconically - An icon is a sign that denotes its object by virtue of a quality which is shared by them but which the icon has irrespectively of the object. The icon (for instance, a portrait or a diagram) resembles or imitates its object. The icon has, of itselg, a certain character or aspect, one which the object also has (or is supposed to have) and which lets the icon be interpreted as a sign even if the object does not exist. The icon signifies essentially on the basis of its "ground", the pure abstractionof a quality in respect of which the sign refers to its object, whehter by resemblance or, as a sumbol, by imputing the quality to the object
• E.g the signs on toilet doors are icons
• Symbolically - A symbol is a sign that denotes its object solely by virtue of the fact that it will be interpreted to do so. The symbol consists in a natural or conventional or logical rule, norm, or habit, a habit that lacks (or has shed) dependence on the symbolic sign's having a resemblance or real connection to the denoted object. Thus, a symbol denotes by virtue of its interpretant. A word that is symbolic (rather than iconic like "whoosh!") is an example of a symbol that prescribes qualities (especially looks or sound) of its replicas. Two word-symbols with the same meaning (such as English "horse" and Spanish "caballo") are symbols which are replicas of that symbol which consists in their shared meaning.
• E.g Roadsigns

Linguistic <<signs>>

• Index (symptoms): naturally motivated/unintentional: cause - effect
• E.g sneeze = cold/allergies; cloudy sky = rain; footprints = someone's been here
• Icon (Gr. eikon = image): analogically motivated/intentional
• E.g maps, pictures, drawings, recordings, diagrams, onomatopeia etc
• Symbol: culturally motivated/intentional 
• E.g the colour black = mourning; traffic lights = stop/go; flags' standing up in from of a suporior = respect (in Europe)

Semiotics in Cinema

• Denotation and Connotation
• Film communitcates meaning denotatively and connotatively. What the audience sees and hears is denotative, it is what it is and they don't have to strive to recognise it. At the same time these sounds and images are connotatice and the way the scene is shot is mean to evoke certain feelings from the viewer. Connotation typically involves emotional overtones, objective interpretation, social values, and ideological assumptions. Within connotations, paradigmatic connotations exist, which would be a shot that is being copared with its unrealised companions in the paradigm. A low angle shot of a rose conveys a sense that the flower is somehow dominant or overpowering because we unconsciously compare it with an overhead shot of a rose which would diminish its importance.
• Narrative
• Narrative is generally known as having two components; the story presented and the process of telling it, or narration, often referred to as narrative discourse. Film narrative theory seeks to uncover the apparently "motivated" and "natural" relationship between the signifier and the story-world in order to reveal the deeper system of cultural associations and relationships that are expressed through narrative form. Films use a combination of dialogue, sounds, visual images, gestures and actions to create the narrative
• Tropes
• Metonymy refers to the ability of a sign to represent something entirely, while literally only being a part of it. An example of this is the Eiffel Tower, which is a metonym for Paris. Film uses metonyms frequently because they rely on the external to reveal the internal. Another powerful semiotic tool for filmmaking is the use of metaphors, which are defined as a comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics. In film, a pair of consecutive shots is metaphorical when there is an implied comparison of the two shots. For instance, a shot of an airplane followed by a shot of a bird flying would be metaphorical, implying that the airplane is (or is like) a bird

So what is language?

A whole of linguistic signs (e.g cat, I am hungry etc) intentionally produced for communicating, essentially arbitrary

Sender -- (linguistic) signs -- ? -- receiver

? = Code: set of conventions for converting one signalling system into another -- semiotics

Distinctive features of (human) language

1. Signifier - signified relationship
2. Arbitrariness
3. Duality
4. Structure dependence
5. Productivity
6. Linearity
7. Discreteness
8. Displacement
9. Transferability

Signifier - Signified

• Sign with 2 "faces", two "parts"

1. Signifier, or "form": physically perceivable through our senses. Ex: the sounds that produce the words cat
2. Signified, or "meaning": piece of information carried by the signifier, non perceivable through out senses; cat = "a small carnivorous mammal domesticated since early times as a catcher of rats and mice and as a pet"

Arbitrariness

• Language = sign system
• But the choice of these signs is arbitrary - No direct relationship between a particular word and its meaning. In English we use the word cat to "represent" a "small, carnivourous mammal...etc", but there is no particular reason why we should use the word-sign cat. We could just as easily choose to use the word form guy, or fluffy etc
• Words are just an arbitrary set of linguistic signs used to represent various "meanings"
• But: if we know the form of a word, it is impossible to predict the meaning; and viceversa
• Arbitrariness is a useful propriety because it increases the flexibility of language - language is not constrained by the need to match the form of a word and its meaning - it is possible to construct an almost infinite number of words from a limited set of speech sounds.
• However, here are some words that appear to be less arbitrary than others - onomatopoeia, imitatin the sound associated with an object or an action (e.g tweet);
• ideophones, envoking an idea of sound (e.g bang bang) 

Duality

• Signifiers appear to be organised at least at two levels
1. the primary level/articulation consisting of phonemes
2. the secondary level/articulation consisting of morphemes
• The elements of the primary level combine to form the units of the secondary level
• e.g the word cat is formed by the combination of 3 speech sounds: the consonant 'c', the vowel 'a' and the consonant 't'. These speech sounds at the primary level are meaningless if they are uttered in isolation. For example, if I just say the individual sounds, they have no meaning. It is only when these secondary level elements are combined in a systematic way that they have the possibility of conveying meaning
• Combinatory propriety - (cat vs act)

DEFINITIONS

• Phoneme - any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example, p.b.d and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, bat
• Morpheme - a meaningful linguistic unit (the smallest one) unit consisting of a word (such as dog) or a word element (such as the s at the end of dogs) that can't be divided into smaller meaningful parts

Structure-Dependence

• Language appears to have an underlying patterned structure and humans appear to intuitively recognise these patterns
• The very happy man from Billingham - kissed - the shy woman
• We intuitively realise that this utterance patterns into coherent segments. This is demonstrated by the fact that we are able to easily remove one segment and replace it with another e.g;
• he - kissed - the shy woman
• the very happy man from Billingham - kissed - her
• Graham - kissed - Margaret
• As well as recognising that we can substitute one segment with another, furhter evidence that we intuitively recognise patterns in language is demonstrated by our ability to readily rearrange segments e.g the first utterance can be rearranged as follows
• the shy woman - was kissed by - the very happy man from Billingham
• Of course, the patterned structure of language allows us to both rearrange and substitute segments simultaneously:
• she - was kissed by - the very happy man from Billingham
• the shy woman - was kissed by - him
• Margaret - was kissed by - Graham

Productivity

• Animals respond to stimuli in their environment in predictable ways. Ex: the stimulus of cold weather and reduced daylight hours stimulates the ground squirrel to perform a certain behaviour, i.e hibernation - "fixed reference"
• Animal behaviours = "stimulus bound": if we know what the stimulus is, then we can predict the subsequent behaviour. The behaviour is invariant, follows a specific stimulus
• If language were stimulus bound - each time we were presented with the same stimulus, we would utter the exact same words. But if 3 people were all shown a painting of Basquiat, there is no guarantee that each would utter the same words.
• Not possible to predict that a particular stimulus will cause someone to use one particular language construction. Language = stimulus free = humans are able to use language creatively = creativity, flexibility (but this creativity must follow some rules...)
• Stimulus-free + flexible -> productivity -> language can be used to construct an infinite set of new and meaningful utterances

Linearity

• Signifiers are produced in a (linear) progression, in time and space
• Production of sounds: c + a + t = cat
• We need to receive/perceive signs (their signifiers) in a linear order, in order to "understand" them (their signified) -> production of utterances
• But not all signs are linear: ex . street sign

Discreteness

• There are precise boundaries between signs: c-a-t vs c-u-t vs *atc; The/cat/it/on/the/desk
• Language = orderly method of communicating. If language were random then there would be no way of ensuring that the intended meaning was conveyed. Regularity and order are essential for language to work properly
• The combination of the secondary level elements 'c', 'a', and 't' may combine to form the primary level unit 'cat'. These three elements may also be recombined to form the word 'act', but the combination 'a' + 't' + 'c' + (atc) is meaningless in English
• Language is governed by rules that define which combination of elements are acceptable and which are not. There are also rules that govern the combination of primary level units, and of course syntax. Ex: the utterance the first snows of winter is appropriate, whereas the combination snows winter first the of is not.

Displacement

• Language also allows us to think of, and communicate about, something or someone that is not immediately present. So, for example, we can refer to our new friend/house/job even though it is not actually in front of us. Similarly, we can discuss last night's dinner even though it has passed. This property of language is known as displacement, and distinguishes human languages from animal communication
• Freedom of stimuli -> conceptual elaboration of external reality, not only of our internal mood

Transferability

• All signifiers can be transferred/communicated/realized through the air (phono-acoustic channel), as sequences of sounds produced by the phono-articulatory human apparatus, perceived by the ears; and the light, as signs written on a surface and perceived through your eyes
• Each sign can be transferred from one medium to the other

Other Features

• Cultural transmission: Language = cultural-environmental components + intuitive, inborn (biological) components
• Traducibility: It is possible to give all signified a signigier (not not viceversa) -> in all languages -> possibility of translating
• Polifunctionality (Jakobson's 6 functions of language: Referential, Emotive, Conative, Poetic, Phatic, Metalingual
• Reflexivity <- metalingual function
• Discontinuity
• Ambiguity

Roman Jakobson

• Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) was a Russian-American linguist and literary theorist
• As a pioneer of the structual analysis of language, which became the dominant trend in linguistics during the first half of the 20th century, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century. Influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Jakobson developed techniques for the analysis of sound systems in languages, inaugurating the discipline of phonology. He went on to apply the same techniques of analysis to syntax and morphology. He made numerous contributions to Slavic linguistics. Drawing on insights from Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics, as well as from communication theory and cybernetics, he proposed methods for the investigation of poetry, music, the visual arts, and cinema
• Jakobson's six language functions:
• Factor                           Function
• addresser            emotive/expressive
• addressee            conative/directive
• context                referential/informative
• contact                phatic
• code                    metalinguistic
• message              poetic/aesthetic

• Emotive function -> expressing something. Interjections and expressions of your emotional state help make language use more real and personal
• Conative function -> commanding (imperatives)
• Referential function -> describing
• Phatic funtion -> engaging for the sake of conversation (small talk). Knowing how to start and stop polite conversation is an essential skill for a language learner
• Metalingual function -> analysing language.(using language to talk about language)
• Poetic function -> choosing your words wisely. Do you attempt to be eloquent or are words just words?