According to Branston and Stafford (2003), semiotics means “the study of signs, or of the social production of meanings and pleasures by sign systems, or the study of how things come to have significance” (p. 12). Historically, this qualitative approach was derived from scholars scrutinizing how meaning is constructed by different languages and cultures. As opposed to the quantitative method of content analysis aiming to detect patterns across various materials, semiotics has been applied in order to “relate texts to their surrounding social orders” (p. 12) ever since. In the process, it was especially influenced by the linguist Saussure (1857-1913), who argued that a sign consists of a physical signifier (gestures etc.) and an immaterial signified (e.g. associations with this gesture), stressing that “words are signs and the meaning of a word depends upon the context in which it is found” (Berger, 2012, p. 6). Language thus determines our social reality instead of the other way around. Correspondingly, Saussure introduced the signified as a sign that refers to something other than itself and must be understood as a concept rather than a real object in the world. As Berger (2012) cites, Saussure further concentrated on our practice of thinking in terms of oppositions in order to make sense of such concepts – for example, tying rich to poor and gay to straight (p. 8) and using metaphors as a visual, clear type of explanation (p. 18).
His stance of language being culturally constructed on the basis of distinct cultural codes (Berger, 2010, p. 24) was then taken one step further by Peirce (1839-1914), who added the term ‘referent’ to Saussure’s notions of sign and signified – ultimately giving a name to the object both the signifier and signified refer to (p. 13). It is intertextuality that Pierce was particularly interested in, meaning the link between the connotations of different signs. He pursued to state that there are three kinds of signs: symbol, icon and index. In the following, I will provide numerous examples in order to illustrate the differences between these significant terms.
In coherence to Peirce (as cited in Berger, 2010, p. 10), photographs or
bathroom signs at e.g. airports are iconic because they resemble what they stand for. Also, for instance, the emoticons we use within live chats such as WhatsApp are iconic signs. The emoticon used, e.g. a crying face, relates to the feeling that the user currently has. Against this background, iconic signs differ from symbols, which do not necessarily display an obvious link to something in the ‘real world’ (e.g. why does the color green stand for ‘go’ in a traffic light?).
That said, symbols embody signs for which this relationship is arbitrary, such as language (p. 13). As Berger (2012) summarizes it, symbols describe societal important objects with deep historical and cultural meanings, such as the cross for Christians or the American flag for Americans, for instance (p. 14). Another example is the car brand one drives as a type of status symbol, i.e. Mercedes, or the technology one uses, i.e. an Apple iPhone. According to Geertz (as cited in Berger, 2010, p. 15), the meaning of symbols is learned while growing up in a certain culture and enhanced by important (historical) events in that cultural context.
Lastly, indexical signs include a causal link between the sign and that for which it stands, like smoke as a precursor for fire or a runny nose as a sign for a cold (p. 14). Or a traffic jam resulting from an accident and dark clouds signifying rain. Hence, they very much differ from symbols as arbitrary signs (no relationship at all), but also from iconic signs in the sense that these merely resemble reality and do not obtain a causal connection to it.
As the previous elaborations imply, signs are generally based on distinct cultural codes, that said, semiotic studies aim at identifying the “hidden codes that shape our beliefs and the way we find meaning in the world” (Berger, 2010, p. 25), affecting everything from child upbringing to food choices. Accordingly, semiotics is used as a qualitative research method and applied to culture and society – often in combination with Marxist theory and psychoanalytic theory within the framework of cultural studies (Berger, 2010, p. 11). Contemporary theorists such as Umberto Eco, Marshal McLuhan, Roland Barthes and Marshall Blonsky approached their field of study by drawing on semiotic theory since it offers valuable insights into “how people find meaning in their everyday lives, in the media they consume, and the messages they receive from marketers and advertisers in contemporary commercial culture” (Berger, 2012, p. 11). Similarly, Branston and Stafford (2003) position semiotics as a method to identify signs and how they work together to produce meanings (p. 12). It is ultimately impacted by structuralism – a critical paradigm focussing on the “universal structures underlying the surface differences and apparent randomness of cultures, stories, media texts, etc.” (p. 12). Culture basically is a collection of codes and these codes (e.g. the way we unconsciously behave or dress) are the research subjects of semiotics.
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.