Semiotics

(The study of the meaning of signs)

What do these signs mean?

Although they may seem obvious to you, each sign has come to mean very different things to different people. The skull and crossbones has its root in piracy, since then it has come to represent a warning against poison. It has also been used in a children’s cartoon, and features on car stickers and badges.

The swastika, in ancient times, was used religiously to symbolise the power of God or nature. The German Nazi party adopted it in the 1930s, so that it became linked to fascist politics. It has since been used by Hell’s Angels and punks on the backs of jackets and on Destroy shirts. Other groups have revived it to signify racial hatred of ethnic minorities in Britain.

Such signs do not in themselves mean anything at all. People give them meaning, and it is the study of such meanings that is the purpose of semiotics.

A sign can be any physical form to which we give meaning, including words, pictures, colours, clothes, etc.

A sign, such as a word or image, is composed of two parts:

a) The physical form – that which we can see or hear. This is what we call the signifier.

b) The meaning of the form, which is called the signified.

For example, the word ‘cat’, composed of the letters C, A and T is a signifier, which those people who speak English all agree signifies a four legged, furry mammal with a tail and pointy teeth which makes a ‘miaow’ sound.

Discussion point

When you hear or read the word ‘cat’ what image do you see in your mind? Describe the image you see here (be as particular as you can – size, colour, etc):

Cute

Small

Black

Do we all see the same ‘cat’ in our mind’s eye?

Yes (my mum said pretty much the same), but this depends on the representations of cats we are exposed to. My mum and I both owned a small, cute black cat called Tia which could influence what we imagine when we hear the word cat.

Why do you think this is?

The media creates an un-generalised image of something so that we all see the representation of it as the same. For the cat in this case, there are examples of black cats in the media such as Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Cat Woman who wears a black suit. Also most people adore small kittens, represented in The Aristocats (one of these kittens is black) and the cute kitten in the surprised kitten video on YouTube.

It would be surprising if everyone in the whole group imagined identical cats. The reason we don’t is because we bring our own experiences and knowledge to our understanding of signs. I have had three different tabby cats, so it is my pet’s image that will probably first spring to my mind when I hear the word ‘cat’. This means that we all read slightly different meanings into signs all the time because we use our own personal experience to understand them.

Subject Position

On a bigger scale this means that we will all read media texts slightly differently because we approach them from our own personal subject position. Our subject position is everything that goes to make up what we are and where we fit in the world. For example, my subject position is female,, white, married with no children, not very rich teacher who lives in Bristol. Because of this, I might read some images very differently to somebody who is male, black, gay, 26, wealthy and lives in Scotland. This is because we will have had very different life experiences.

What do you think your subject position is? Note it down here:

In a relationship, weird, lives in Portishead, female and shy.

Denotation and Connotation

Think back to the example we used to illustrate the meaning of ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ – the word (or sign) ‘cat’. We discovered that CAT is the signifier, and the image in our mind is the signified. The signified is the obvious meaning of the signifier or sign – the denotation. But many signs have other meanings as well as their obvious ones – these are meanings that they have picked up from the culture that they are used by. We call these extra meanings connotations.

For example, think about the word (or signifier) ‘heart’. The obvious meaning (denotation or signified) of this sign is, according to the dictionary: ‘the hollow muscular organ which makes the blood circulate’. Now think about the underlying meanings of the word that we use in our culture – for example, love, courage, warmth and affection, passion, comfort and good health. These are its connotations.

Exercise

Note down the denotations and connotations of the following signs:

Sign	Denotation	Connotation(s)
‘Rose’	A pretty flower.	Love, romance, beauty.
‘Gold’	An expensive metal.	Wealth, royalty, high status.
‘Mouse’	A small animal.	Disney- Mickey Mouse, helpless, scared.
‘Wicked’	Another word for evil.	Witches, crows, demons.
‘Black’	A dark tone.	Evil, scary, night, empty.
‘White’	A light tone.	Bright, day, snow.
‘Feminine’	A way of behaving often associated with women.	Make up, shopping, ponies, long hair, pink.
‘Masculine’	A way of behaving often associated with men.	Strong, athletic, un-emotional, short hair, blue.

Now do the same thing with the following:

Sign	Denotation	Connotation(s)
ÿ	A dove, a type of bird.	Christianity, hope.
!	A spider.	Spiderman, scary, super powers, poisonous.
%	Trophy.	Winning, achievements, rewards, congratulations.
	Lips.	Kissing, smiling, lipstick.
	Graduation hat.	Achievement, success, intellectuality.

Finally, once more think back to the signifier ‘cat’. When we are considering the connotations of an image we need to think not only about what is represented, but also about how it is represented. This also affects the meanings of a sign.

Consider the following representations of cats: