69249454-chandler-semiotics

CODES 171
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8222
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10
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9
20
1222
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30
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7222
make it particularly important that the evidence is closely examined
in the context of the particular code under study.
INTERACTION OF TEXTUAL CODES
Any text uses not one code, but many. Theorists vary in their classification
of such codes. In his book S/Z, Roland Barthes itemized
five codes employed in literary texts: hermeneutic (narrative turningpoints);
proairetic (basic narrative actions); cultural (prior social
knowledge); semic (medium-related codes) and symbolic (themes)
(Barthes 1973). Yuri Lotman argued that a poem is a ‘system of
systems’ – lexical, syntactical, metrical, morphological, phonological,
and so on – and that the relations between such systems generate
powerful literary effects. Each code sets up expectations which other
codes violate (Lotman 1976a). The same signifier may play its part
in several different codes. The meaning of literary texts may thus be
overdetermined by several codes. Just as signs need to be analysed
in their relation to other signs, so codes need to be analysed in relation
to other codes. Becoming aware of the interplay of such codes
requires a potentially recursive process of rereading. Nor can such
readings be confined to the internal structure of a text, since the
codes utilized within it extend beyond any specific text – an issue
of ‘intertextuality’ to which we will return.
CODIFICATION
The synchronic perspective of Saussurean semioticians tends to give
the impression that codes are static. But codes have origins and they
do evolve, and studying their evolution is a legitimate semiotic
endeavour. Guiraud argues that there is a gradual process of ‘codification’
whereby systems of implicit interpretation acquire the status
of codes (Guiraud 1975, 41). Codes are dynamic systems which
change over time and are thus historically as well as socioculturally
situated. Codification is a process whereby conventions are established.
For instance, Metz notes how in Hollywood cinema the white
hat became codified as the signifier of a ‘good’ cowboy; eventually
this convention became over-used and was abandoned (Metz 1968).