01.02.2015 Views

69249454-chandler-semiotics

69249454-chandler-semiotics

69249454-chandler-semiotics

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

250<br />

GLOSSARY<br />

empty signifier An ‘empty’ or ‘floating’ signifier is variously defined<br />

as a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or nonexistent<br />

signified. Such signifiers mean different things to different<br />

people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds;<br />

they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean.<br />

See also signifier, transcendent(al) signified.<br />

encoding The production of texts by encoders with reference to relevant<br />

codes. Encoding involves foregrounding some meanings<br />

and backgrounding others. See also codes, decoding.<br />

expressive function See functions of signs.<br />

foregrounding, stylistic This term was used by the Prague school<br />

linguists to refer to a stylistic feature in which signifiers in a<br />

text attract attention to themselves rather than simulating<br />

transparency in representing their signifieds. This primarily<br />

serves a ‘poetic’ function (being used ‘for its own sake’) rather<br />

than a ‘referential’ function. See also denaturalization, reflexivity.<br />

functions of signs In Jakobson’s model of linguistic communication,<br />

the dominance of any one of six factors within an<br />

utterance reflects a different linguistic function: referential,<br />

oriented towards the context; expressive, oriented towards the<br />

addresser; conative, oriented towards the addressee; phatic,<br />

oriented towards the contact; metalingual, oriented towards the<br />

code; poetic, oriented towards the message.<br />

hegemonic code See dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code and<br />

reading.<br />

homology See isomorphism.<br />

iconic A mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or<br />

imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding,<br />

feeling, tasting or smelling like it) – being similar in possessing<br />

some of its qualities. See also indexical, isomorphism,<br />

symbolic.<br />

ideal readers This is a term often used to refer to the roles in which<br />

readers of a text are ‘positioned’ as subjects through the use of<br />

particular modes of address. For Eco this term is not intended<br />

to suggest a ‘perfect’ reader who entirely echoes any authorial

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!