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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS
from a specific text of alternative signifiers from the same paradigm
(Saussure 1983, 122). He also argued that signs take their value
within the linguistic system from what they are not (ibid., 115). The
psychologist William James observed that ‘the absence of an item
is a determinant of our representations quite as positive as its presence
can ever be’ (James 1890, 584). We have popular sayings in
English concerning two kinds of absences: we refer to ‘what goes
without saying’ and ‘what is conspicuous by its absence’. What ‘goes
without saying’ reflects what it is assumed that you take for granted
as obvious. In relation to the coverage of an issue (such as in factual
genres) this is a profoundly ideological absence which helps to position
the text’s readers, the implication being that ‘people like us
already agree what we think about issues like that’. As for the second
kind of absence, an item which is present in the text may flout
conventional expectations, making the conventional item ‘conspicuous
by its absence’ and the unexpected item ‘a statement’. This
applies no less to cultural practices. If a man wears a suit at his
office it says very little other than that he is conforming to a norm.
But if one day he arrives in jeans and a tee-shirt, this will be interpreted
as ‘making a statement’.
Paradigmatic analysis involves comparing and contrasting each
of the signifiers present in the text with absent signifiers which in
similar circumstances might have been chosen, and considering the
significance of the choices made. It can be applied at any semiotic
level, from the choice of a particular word, image or sound to the
level of the choice of style, genre or medium. Figure 3.2 shows a
basic paradigm set for shot size in photography and film. The use
of one signifier rather than another from the same paradigm is based
on factors such as technical constraints, code (e.g. genre), convention,
connotation, style, rhetorical purpose and the limitations of the
individual’s own repertoire. The analysis of paradigmatic relations
helps to define the ‘value’ of specific items in a text.
THE COMMUTATION TEST
Structuralist semioticians refer to the ‘commutation test’ which can
be used in order to identify distinctive signifiers and to define their