A short introduction in semiotics for media makers, originally taught at Stenden University, Leeuwarden

1. Guest lecture semiotics
SJOERD- JEROEN MOENANDAR (UNIVERSITY
OF GRONINGEN)

2. Communication?

3. Plaque on board of ASA’s Pioneer 10

4. Communication
sender message receiver
 Communication is only possible when sender
and receiver speak the same ‘language’
 Learning to communicate is learning signs and
their meanings

5. Meaning?
Gustave Doré,
The Flood

6. Renault advertisement
The crash tests show it: the safest cars are manufactured in France

7. Making meaning
Message (“text”)
Encoding Decoding
Sender
(Media companies)
Receiver
(audiences)

8. Meaning
 Denotation
 Connotation

9. denotation/connotation

10. denotation/connotation

11. denotation/connotation

12. denotation/connotation

13. denotation/connotation

14. denotation/connotation

15. denotation / connotation

16. Semiotics
 Study of signs
 A different field from:
 The study of the material aspects of signs (media studies)
 The study of the aesthetic aspects of signs (aesthetics)
 Semioticians study the relationship between signs
and their meaning

17. A sign represents

18. Representation
 = re-presentation: to make present that which is
absent through the use of signs.
 Produces meaning within and through a sign system

19. Sign
object
sign meaning
Semiotic
triangle

20. Three possible relations sing-meaning
 Symbolic relation
 Indexical relation
 Iconic relation

21. Symbolic relation sing-meaning
 Relation is arbitrary (ie: not necessary)
 Is created by conventions
 Almost all words


22. Symbolic relation sign-meaning
 In advertising

23. Indexical relation sign-meaning
 Relation between sign and meaning is a matter of
fact
 Sign is a part of the meaning
 Smoke-fire


24. Indexical relation sign-meaning
 Is something really indexical?

25. Iconic relation sign-meaning
 Relation because of similarity
 Portrait, picture
 But: how iconic is a picture really?
Also: A sign is often more or less iconic, indexical AND symbolic at the same time

26. Iconic?

27. square/curvy, man/woman?

28. Meaning
 A sign has no meaning in itself
 Meaning comes into being in relation to other signs

30. McSweeney’s Fine Sausages

31. Vegetarian restaurant The Happy Piglet

32. Sign relations
 Syntactic relations between signs
 Semantic relations between sign and meaning
 Pragmatic relations between a sign and its use
“The ice is thin!”

33. Rammstein: Mein Land

34. Polysemy
“Pig”
 A sign can have more than one meaning
 There is no such thing as a private sign
 Earlier use ‘sticks’ to a sign  there is always a
‘dialogue’ going on between texts that use the same
sign
 “Discourse”

35. Circulation
“Stahlhelm”

36. Circulation
Simon Williams,
Alpine Review
(2008)

37. Intertextuality
 Vertical intertextuality: direct comment
 Film review
 Top Gun (1986) in Sleep With Me (1994)
 Horizontal intertextuality: ‘texts’ refer to each other,
or recycle each other (often this means it’s a
comment as well, but implicitly)

38. Intertextuality
 “Strong” intertextuality (intentionally)
 “Weak” intertextuality (necessarily)

39. “Strong” intertextuality
Simon Williams,
Alpine Review
(2008)

40. “Weak” intertextuality
مونندر

41. Intertextuality
 Quoting: an earlier text literally becomes a part of a
new text (more recent term: “sampling”)
 Referring: a text is referred to in another text

42. Quoting
Soft Cell, “Tainted Love” Rihanna, “SOS”

43. Referring
 Spiderman  Spiderpig


44. Intertextuality: rhyming images

45. Intertextuality: rhyming images

46. Intertextuality: rhyming images

47. Intertextuality: rhyming images

48. Semiotics
Questions?