69249454-chandler-semiotics

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS
translation of a book by Greimas, Jameson reflects on his own use of
the technique. He suggests that the analyst should begin by provisionally
listing all of the entities to be coordinated and that even
apparently marginal entities should be on this initial list. He notes
that even the order of the terms in the primary opposition is crucial:
we have already seen how the first term in such pairings is typically
privileged. He adds that ‘the four primary terms . . . need to be conceived
polysemically, each one carrying within it its own range of
synonyms . . . such that . . . each of the four primary terms threatens
to yawn open into its own fourfold system’ (in Greimas 1987,
xv–xvi). Jameson suggests that Not S2, the negation of the negation,
‘is always the most critical position and the one that remains open or
empty for the longest time, for its identification completes the process
and in that sense constitutes the most creative act of the construction’
(ibid., xvi). Using the earlier example of aesthetic movements and
their dominant focuses, the reader might find it interesting to apply
the semiotic square to these.
To recap, it was suggested that realism tends to be primarily
oriented towards the world, neo-classicism towards the text and
romanticism towards the author. We may assign the concepts of
world, text and author to three corners of the square – a fourth term
is conspicuous by its absence. Jameson’s caveats about the order and
formulation of terms may be useful here.
Turning to other contexts, in relation to children’s toys Dan
Fleming offers an accessible application of the semiotic square
(Fleming 1996, 147ff.). Gilles Marion has used the Greimasian
square to suggest four purposes in communicating through clothing:
wanting to be seen; not wanting to be seen; wanting not to be seen;
and not wanting not to be seen (Marion 1994). Jean-Marie Floch
has used the grid to illustrate an interesting exploration of the
‘consumption values’ represented by Habitat and Ikea furniture
(Floch 2000, 116–44). However, the Greimasian analysis of texts in
terms of the semiotic square has been criticized as easily leading to
reductionist and programmatic decodings. Worse still, some theorists
seem to use the square as little more than an objective-looking
framework which gives the appearance of coherence and grand
theory to loose argument and highly subjective opinions.