Mary Jackson Pitts, Ph.D.

mpitts@astate.edu

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Semiotics

•       Seiter, E. (1987) Semiotics and Television.  In, Channels of discourse by Rober Allen (ed). University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill.

Semiotics:  Coined by Charles Peirce(not merely linquistics) and advanced by Ferdinand de Saussure (looked at words).

•      How is meaning created, not what is meaning.

–   Peirce said signs were broken into two parts signifier and signified.

 Text Centered Criticism-  Saussure

•      The sign- Umberto Eco says “a sign is everything, that that on the grounds of a previously established social convention, can be taken as something standing for something else.

–   Signifier

–   Signified

 Text Centered Criticism– Charles Peirce

•      Words get meaning from their differences with other words in the sign system of language.

–   Focal length of camera lens, lighting, angle, color and composition are signifiers

 Peirce

•      A sign can be broken into three parts

–   Representament- = signifier

–   Object = signified

–   Interpretant—The sign we use to translate the first sign. 

•   We will constantly be translating signs.

Peirce

•      Three categories of signs

–   Symbolic

•   A rainbow symbolizes hope

•   A flag symbolizes a nation

–   Seiter says semiotics has a one of its goals making us conscious of the use of symbolic signs on television, so that we realize how much of what appears naturally meaningful on tv is acutally historical and changeable.

Peirce

•      Three categories of signs

–    Iconic

•   The signifier structurally resembles its signified.

•    These must be learned.

•   Can become as natural to us as symbolic signs.

Peirce

•      Three categories of signs

–   Indexical

•   Linked between signifier and signified

Metz

•       Suggests image, written language, voice,  music and sound effects are the five channels of communication.

•        I will add visual effects

•      Suggested tv and film could not be analyzed using the same system.

Metz

•      Its possible that all five channels might be in use at one time, there rendering a degree of redundancy

•      Semiotic may take a less condemning view of tv.

Decoding verbal, visual and acoustics signs

•      Ex.  Are they emphasizing different values.

•      Who gives orders

•      What characters are in the foreground of the shots, in the shadows, good lighting,

•      Who narrates