What is semeiotics?

In this first post we will discuss a type of ethnographic research called Semeiotics. Therefore we will define its main concepts, meaning symbols, icons and index.

“Semeiotics is the study of the signs, or of social productions of meanings and pleasures by sign system, or the study of how things come to have significance” (G. Branston). Three man are crucial to define semeiotics because they created its main theories. They are Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce and Rolland Barthes. A sign is a physical signifier and an immaterial signified. To explain his theory, Saussure take the example of a rose. It can be a word on a paper or a spoken word (the signifier) and it vehicle the image of a rose (the signified). However, nothing in a rose determine that the word rose or its sound should be use to name it. It is peoples who gathered and agreed to attribute this signs to a rose. It is therefore very important to understand that a sign refer to something else than itself (which explain the famous sentence : “this is not a pipe”) and make the difference between the concept being carry and a real thing in the world. This lead us to reconsider our perception of the world : reality is shaped by words and signs we use in different social context. For Peirce, there is three different signs: symbols, icon and index that are used depending on their relation with what they stand for. This different kind of signs are all related and oft combined as Roland Barthes shows it in his book Mythologies where he tried to relate visual codes to ideological connection of texts. Semiotics is considered as a major research method notably as a qualitative approach in relating texts to their surrounding social context. By seeing the world through symbol, semeiotics ask the question of how meanings are formed.

“Anything can be a singn as long as someone interpret it as a ‘signifying’ something”. Two theory of semiotics define what a sign is. The first is from Ferdinand de Saussure and analyse the relation of signs as signifier with its meaning, the signified. This relation is arbitrary and motivated by social conventions. The other theory is from C. S Peirce and analyse three aspect of the sign, its physical form which vehicle the sign, its object, meaning what it contains and its interpretant, the meaning of the sign understand by the interpreter.

Iconic signs are directly showing what they stand for and are therefore the most directs signs. For example a picture of a rose is an iconic sign of a rose, it does not go through any interpretation, it only show the object directly. This is also why it is crucial that iconic signifier do really stand for their signified and not another, meaning a picture of a rose stand for a rose and not a dog. Iconic signs are used in the concern of being easily understand like signboards in airports.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "icons semiotics"
Example of an Icon

 

Symbols are signs for which the relation is arbitrary (such as language). More over a symbol should not have any physical connection with its referent. For example there are lots of words that, when they are used trigger others words like sun and holidays. This relation words-words show that the meaning of a word is not correlating with the location in space and time of this word and its sound. Symbols are easily removable from their context and are closely associated with a large set of other words.

 

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "symbol semiotics"
Example of a symbol

 

The indexical signs are defined by their causal link between the sign itself and its meaning. Their difference with iconic symbols are that they do not directly represent what they stand for but that there must be an interpretation through a causal link. For example smoke usually stand for fire because even if smoke is not fire, they are related in the way that fire cause smoke. Another example is the one of the detective that look for indexical signs of a murder in their explorations.

 

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "indexical signs"
Example of an index

Bibliography :

– Berger, A. A. (2010).

The objects of affection: semiotics and consumer culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

(chapter 1: “The Science of Signs, pp. 3-31)

-Branston, G., & Stafford, R. (2003).

The media student’s book. London/New York: Psychology Press.

(chapter: “Semiotic Approaches”, pp. 11-17)

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