69249454-chandler-semiotics

GLOSSARY 257
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phonocentrism Phonocentrism is a typically unconscious interpretive
bias which privileges speech over writing (and consequently
the oral–aural over the visual). See also channel,
logocentrism.
poetic function See functions of signs.
positioning of the subject See subject.
poststructuralism See Appendix.
preferred reading (Stuart Hall). Readers of a text are guided
towards a preferred reading and away from ‘aberrant decoding’
through the use of codes. A preferred reading is not necessarily
the result of any conscious intention on the part of the
producer(s) of a text. The term is often used as if it refers to
a meaning which is in some way built into the form and/or
content of the text – a notion which is in uneasy accord with
a textual determinism which Hall rejected. See also dominant
(or hegemonic) code and reading.
primacy of the signifier The argument that reality or the world is
at least partly created by the language (and other media) we
use insists on the primacy of the signifier – suggesting that the
signified is shaped by the signifier rather than vice versa. Some
theorists stress the materiality of the signifier. Poststructuralist
theorists such as Lacan, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault have developed
the notion of the primacy of the signifier, but its roots
can be found in structuralism. See also arbitrariness, conventionality,
relative autonomy.
reading, dominant, negotiated and oppositional See dominant
code and reading, negotiated code and reading, oppositional
code and reading.
reference The meaning of a sign in relation to something beyond
the sign-system. Sometimes a synonym for referent.
referent Term used by some theorists (e.g. Ogden and Richards) for
what the sign ‘stands for’. In Peirce’s triadic model of the sign
this is called the object. In Saussure’s dyadic model of the
sign a referent in the world is not explicitly featured – this is
sometimes referred to as ‘bracketing the referent’. Note that
referents can include ideas, events and material objects. See
also representation.