69249454-chandler-semiotics

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reality to nothing more than signifying practices. They criticize
as ‘extreme conventionalism’ the stance that theories (and the
worlds which they construct) are incommensurable.
conventionality A term often used in conjunction with the term
arbitrary to refer to the relationship between the signifier and
the signified. In the case of a symbolic system such as verbal
language this relationship is purely conventional – dependent
on social and cultural conventions (rather than in any sense
natural). The conventional nature of codes means that they
have to be learned (not necessarily formally). See also arbitrariness,
primacy of the signifier, relative autonomy.
decoding The comprehension and interpretation of texts by decoders
with reference to relevant codes. Most commentators assume
that the reader actively constructs meaning rather than simply
‘extracting’ it from the text. See also codes, encoding.
deconstruction This is a poststructuralist strategy for textual
analysis, which was developed by Jacques Derrida. Practitioners
seek to dismantle the rhetorical structures within a text to
demonstrate how key concepts within it depend on their
unstated oppositional relation to absent signifiers. Deconstructionists
have also exposed culturally embedded conceptual
oppositions in which the initial term is privileged, leaving
‘Term B’ negatively ‘marked’. Radical deconstruction is not
simply a reversal of the valorization in an opposition but a
demonstration of the instability of such oppositions. See also
denaturalization, markedness, analogue oppositions, binary
oppositions, paradigmatic analysis.
denaturalization The denaturalization of signs and codes is a
Barthesian strategy seeking to reveal the socially coded basis
of phenomena which are taken for granted as natural. The goal
is to make more explicit the underlying rules for encoding and
decoding them, and often also to reveal the usually invisible
operation of ideological forces. See also deconstruction, naturalization.
denotatum Latin term for a referent. In relation to language, the
denonatum is extralinguistic as distinct from the signatum
(Morris, Jakobson). See also designatum, object, referent.