Semiotics are the theories which explore:
- How systems of signs work to make meaning
- How we represent ideas and create meanings using a range of tools such as words and images
- How we represent ideas and create meanings using a range of tools such as words and images
Why do we need to know?
It is fundamental to and understanding of:
-How words and images - together with ideas, are used to make sense of the world
-How visual communications work. They can help with my assignments, and also my practical work
'All good designers are semioticians' - Anna
As both creators and consumers of visual art and design - and as participants in a culture which functions on the basis of shared meanings and common understanding - we decode meaning from signs and symbols with ease. Below is the semiotic iceberg that was shown in my lecture, it represents how we see signs, but also shows what is really behind the visual evidence, represented by the waterline covering the rest of the iceberg.
Semiotic IceBerg: http://english1312section078fall2012.pbworks.com/w/page/59782542/Semiotic%20Iceberg%20Exercise
The signs we see and interpret can range, from images and pictures, to objects and sounds, gestures and symbols and also codes. These signs can have different impacts whether it is emotional or anxious etc. They can mean different things to different people depending on individual experiences, cultural differences and context. Semiotics show how we make sense of the world through words, experience and interpretations. Our brains are wired to make sense of an sign in milliseconds. Our actions and thoughts - the things we do automatically - are often governed by a complex set of cultural messages and conventions, and dependant upon our ability to interrupt them instantly. The commercial world takes full advantage of our ability (big brands/super markets).
Through habit and practice we learn language and different words.
Phonemes, example: Each of which we have learned to connect to a certain sound, which, when placed together, make a word which signifies 'cat', the animal, along with all related ideas of cat-ness. Nothing about the 'c' 'a' or the 't' or about the whole word 'cat' have any inherit 'catness' about them, however. Associating this word with the mental image of a cat is learned behaviour.
Through habit and practice we learn language and different words.
Phonemes, example: Each of which we have learned to connect to a certain sound, which, when placed together, make a word which signifies 'cat', the animal, along with all related ideas of cat-ness. Nothing about the 'c' 'a' or the 't' or about the whole word 'cat' have any inherit 'catness' about them, however. Associating this word with the mental image of a cat is learned behaviour.
Colour semiotics:
The ways in which colours express certain codes, information that make the viewer understand a specific message or feel a certain emotions. This is culturally continued. It becomes habitual.
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in Genral Linguistics (1906)
'In itself, thought is like a swirling cloud, where no shape is intrinsically determine. No ideas are established in advance and nothing is distinct, before the introduction of the linguistic structure.'
Key vocab:
Inheret - existing as an innate or essential constituent of characteristic.
Codes and conventions:
Technological - camera angle, framing
Verbal - spoken or written
Symbolic - decoded on a conotational level
Anthony Burril:
The layout, colour, text (without semiotics)
(with semiotics) screen print, made with oil and water.
Image found at: http://www.2amfilms.co.uk/creative-review-anthony-burrill-oil-water-do-not-mix/
Visual onamatopeia?
Word signififes its meaning
'Relay: The words and images tell a story equally. They stand in a complementary relationship. The text and image tell the story equally, where text supplies meanings not found in the images alone.'
