Assignment 1

Imagine that you are driving in your car to hotel in Spain for vacation. You don´t speak Spanish and you have not been in Spain before: how do you know the right way to the hotel? You could ask someone and let that person explain the way to you. But remember you don´t speak Spanish and even if you did the explanation would most likely be too long and complicated to remember. In order to communicate the information you need without words, visual street signs guide you to your hotel. Visual language, such as a street sign or a traffic light, are so simple that we barely question why it is that a red light makes you stop at the crossroad. Yet visual communication can be studied similarly to linguistic communication. The study of visual communication is called semiotics: “the study of signs, or of the social production of meaning” (2003, p.12). Semiotics is a method that investigates how meaning is created and communicated. In the following I will explain some terms of the semiotic vocabulary in line with my example of a road trip to Spain.

To begin with, I will focus on the basic unit of semiotics that is the sign: “something that stands for something else” (2010, p.3). The semiotician Saussure defines two parts of a sign: first the signifier that is the form of the sign such as a red flashlight. Second the signified that is the concept that is represented in our case the command to stop at the crossroad. Besides a sign standing for something else, no sign can also be a sign. A missing signifier, for example a traffic light that shows no light at all, still signifies something to us. In this case the traffic light might be broken and we should drive more carefully. Another semiotic theorist Peirce defines three different kinds of signs, which I will discuss in the following

The sign that resembles the signified the least is the symbol. Imagine we are driving in our car and will soon cross the border to Spain. After a while we can see a large road sign: red – yellow – red. The flag tells us that we are now in Spain without any resemblance between the signifier (the colours) and the signified (Spain). The meaning of the colours must be learned, and it is certain that most people will interpret the symbol the same way. The symbolic sign is arbitrary because the Spanish flag could also consist of any other colour (2003, p.14).

The sign that resembles the signified partly or includes only some aspects of the signified is the index. The drive to Spain is long and we are getting hungry. On the highway we see a sign with a fork and knife on it, which we know indicates a restaurant. The indexical sign show´s evidence of what is signified, without resembling the (signified) restaurant 2010, p.10). The relation between the signifier (fork and knife) and the signified (restaurant) can be known initially or learned. We know that we eat with knife and fork and probably learned through experience that driving off the highway following this sign will lead us to some kind of food.

The sign that resembles the signified the most obvious or clearest is the symbol. We are leaving the highway behind us and are now in the village where our hotel must be located. We see a billboard at the end of the street and recognise that it shows a painting of the hotel we are staying in. The iconic sign physically resembles the signified. The icon signifies by resembles in comparison to “indexes, which signify by causal connections, and symbols which signify by convention and have to be learned” (2010, p. 10).

Semiotics as a research method is used in various disciplines, such as anthropology or in the field of consumer culture. As the main purpose of semiotics is “to identify the hidden codes that shape our belief and the way we find meaning in the world” (2010, p.25), semiotics as a research method can identify the cultural codes and therefore allow a deeper understanding of the culture that is examined. Semiotic analyses are often combined with Marxist theory and psychoanalytic theory (2010, p.11). Branston and Stafford point out the use of semiotics in the field of media to show how signs shape our behaviour. They point out that media is not a neutral “window to the world” but instead structures our daily life (2003, p.11).

References

Berger, A. A. (2010). The objects of affection: semiotics and consumer culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Branston, G., & Stafford, R. (2003). The media student’s book. London/New York: Psychology Press.