Mary Jackson Pitts, Ph.D.
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Mary Jackson Pitts, Ph.D.
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Download in word.Text centered Criticism
A text is something verbal
Text is thought to be open and evolving
There is a level of stability and instability in meaning
There is a level of production and reception
Meaning depends on the weaver
What the makers intended and the viewers got
Multiple codes
Finding the text
Text Centered Criticism Text can be a variety of things. Dialogue Visual Aural Non verbal communicationText Centered Criticism Assigning meaning Sequences of signs arrayed in codes where the interpretor experiences in common waysText Centered Criticism Assigning meaning Dialogic approach Meaning is constructed socially through the interaction of the variety of languages that emanate from a given text. (Newcomb, 1984)Text Centered Criticism (Newcomb, 1984) Linguistic and etymological basis. Words are uttered by characters Vande Berg suggests that Newcomb has an incomplete definition of the dialogic approach. It is suggested that tv does not occur in a vacumn. But happens in a particular circumstance or or situation.Semiotics The study of signs and the way they work.Codes of televisual communication Verbal Codes- Linquistic units Verbal Codes- Communication Arts Visual Codes- Orientation Visual Codes- Complex Meaning Systems Acoustic Codes-Codes of televisual communication Multiple levels of interpretationCodes of televisual communication interpretation differences Social situations Open and closed texts Polyvalence Recoding and poachingCodes of televisual communication Meaning varies with people.Types of textual criticism Semiotic-structural Generic Rhetorical NarrativeSemiotics 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 SignifiedText 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 signifiersPeirce A sign can be broken into three parts Representament- = signifier Object = signified InterpretantThe 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 signifiedMetz 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.
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