This Means That

This Means That summary:

Semiotics: theory of signs, greek for "an interpreter of signs."

Semiotics is about tools,processes,and contexts we have for creating,interpreting, and understanding meaning in a variety of different ways.

Signs include: gestures, facial expressions,speech disorders,slogans,graffiti, commercials,medical symptoms, body language,poetry,design etc.

Signs can mean something other than themselves-

example:

Stop means danger

Apple means healthy

Crown means king

The context determines how we interpret signs.

Chapter 1: Signs and Signing

Signs produced in and consumed in context of specific society

Example: In the western world we live in a society that is mechanistic and consumerist

ex) Mechanistic terms: War against AIDS, fight against cancer

Consumerist terms: Using time, Wasting time, saving time, spending time

Key semiotic concept:

Sender (who)

Intention (With what aim)

Message (says what)

Transmission (by what means)

Noise (w/ what interference)

Receiver (to whom)

Destination (with what result)

Chapter 2: Ways of meaning

literal communication: more dominant, useful

non-literal communication: more interesting

poets, ad agencies,humanists,painters etc. often use non-literal communication.

Ways to communicate non-literally: Simile,metaphor,synecdoche,irony,lies,impossibility,depiction,and representation.

Simile: likening of one thing to another, comparison of two diff. objects,images,ideas.

ex) busy as a bee

flat as a pancake

dead as a doornail

Metaphor: implied comparison btw two similar or disimilar things that share certain quality

ex) simile: x is like y

metaphor: x is y

Transference: process of how metaphors work

Things: Meaning:

statue of liberty indicates freedom (concept)

brush indicates painting (activity)

Images:

pic of white house indicates president of USA(person)

Words:

Einstein indicates Genius (concept)

Synecdoche: part of a whole relationship

Ex) recognizing a person by their hair

-Elvis

-Donald Trump

SIGN,SYMBOL,INDEX: Notes from reading

sign:

3 kinds of a sign: index,icon,& symbol

sign is a stimulus pattern that has a meaning.The difference is inhow the meaning happens to be attached to (or associated with) the pattern.

a signal aspect, some physical pattern (eg, a sound or visible shape) and

a meaning - some semantic content that is implied or `brought to mind'

Signs include gestures, facial expressions,speech disorders,slogans, grafitti, commericals, body language, poetry, design etc. The context determines how we interperet signs

icon:

the icon is thesimplest since it is a pattern that physically resembles what it `stands for'. There is some resemblance btw. the signifier and signified.Icons have a physical resemblancebetween the signal and the meaning.

index:

Defined by somesensory feature, A, (directly visible, audible, smellable, etc) that correlates with and thus implies or points to B, something of interest to an animal.

A physical or casual relation btw. signifier(photo) and what is signified (what the photo depicts). The non-arbitrary relation that exists is said to be indexical.

symbol:

Symbols (content words like nouns, verbs and adjectives) are (sound)patterns) that get meaning:primarily from its mental association with other symbols and secondarily from its correlation with environmental patterns. An arbitrary pattern (usually a sound pattern) that gets its meaning primarily from its mental association with other symbols.