69249454-chandler-semiotics

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS
age, that they appear not to be constructed – the effect of an
articulation between sign and referent – but to be ‘naturally’
given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘nearuniversality’
in this sense: though evidence remains that even
apparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture-specific. However,
this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that
the codes have been profoundly naturalized.
(Hall 1973, 132)
Learning these codes involves adopting the values, assumptions and
worldviews which are built into them without normally being aware
of their intervention in the construction of reality. A startling example
of this relates to colour codes. When I show my own students a
picture of two teddy bears, one clothed in powder blue and the other
in pale pink, there is seldom any hesitation in suggesting that this
signifies respectively male and female. There follows an almost
tangible sense of shock when I confront them with this passage:
Pink or blue Which is intended for boys and which for girls
This question comes from one of our readers this month, and
the discussion may be of interest to others. There has been a
great diversity of opinion on this subject, but the generally
accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason
is that pink being a more decided and stronger color, is more
suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and
dainty is prettier for the girl.
Widely misattributed to the Ladies’ Home Journal, this is actually
from a Chicago-based trade magazine called The Infants’ Department:
A Monthly Magazine of Merchandising Helps for the Infants’
Wear Buyer (vol. 1, no. 10, June 1918, p. 161). Nor is this an isolated
source for the same sentiments in the early decades of the twentieth
century: for instance, a boy’s sailor suit dating from 1908 in the
Smithsonian Institution has pink trimmings (object #234865.10 in
the National Museum of American History; cf. Paoletti and Kregloh
1989). Only in more recent times has pink acquired such a powerfully
marked status as ‘feminine’ (Taft 1997). The profound sense