Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
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<strong>Semiotics</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>Beginners</strong> <strong>by</strong> <strong>Daniel</strong> <strong>Chandler</strong><br />
simply represent social reality, and how ideology works to make such practices seem transparent. See also:<br />
Absent signifiers, The bar, Denaturalization, Différance, Erasure, writing under, Markedness, Ontology,<br />
Oppositions, Paradigmatic analysis, Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Priorism, Valorization<br />
• Deep structure: See Structuralism<br />
• Denaturalization, defamiliarization: One of the goals of semioticians is denaturalization: revealing the socially<br />
coded basis of phenomena which are taken-<strong>for</strong>-granted as 'natural'. The concept was borrowed from Shklovsky's<br />
Formalist notion of defamiliarization, according to which ostranenie ('estrangement') was the key function of art -<br />
we need to 'make the familiar strange' - to look afresh at things and events which are so familiar that we no longer<br />
truly see them. The <strong>for</strong>malists favoured texts which drew attention to their constructedness and to the processes<br />
involved in their construction. As a literary technique, Shklovsky advocated the (surrealistic) practice of placing<br />
things in contexts in which they would not normally be found. A feature of many postmodern texts is a parodic use<br />
of intertextual references which functions to denaturalize the normally transparent representational conventions of<br />
'realistic' textual codes. The semiotician seeks to denaturalize signs and codes in order to make more explicit the<br />
underlying rules <strong>for</strong> encoding and decoding them, and often also with the intention of revealing the usually<br />
invisible operation of ideological <strong>for</strong>ces. See also: Deconstruction, Foregrounding, stylistic, Formalism,<br />
Naturalization, Poetic function, Reflexivity, Transparency<br />
• Denotation: The term refers to the relationship between the signifier and its signified. Denotation is routinely<br />
treated as the definitional, 'literal', 'obvious' or 'commonsense' meaning of a sign, but semioticians tend to treat it<br />
as a signified about which there is a relatively broad consensus. For Barthes, a denotative sign existed within<br />
what he called the first order of signification. In this framework connotation is a further sign (or signs) deriving<br />
from the signifier of a denotative sign. However, no clear distinction can be made between denotation and<br />
connotation. See also: Connotation, Orders of signification<br />
• Design features of language: Charles Hockett defined a number of key design features of human language,<br />
including double articulation, productivity (see Semiotic economy), arbitrariness and displacement (language<br />
enables us to refer to things even if they are displaced in space and time). See also: Arbitrariness, Displacement,<br />
Double articulation, Semiotic economy<br />
• Determinism<br />
o Audience: See Social determinism<br />
o Linguistic: See Linguistic determinism<br />
o Media: See Technological determinism<br />
o Social: See Social determinism<br />
o Structural: See Structural determinism<br />
o Technological: See Technological determinism<br />
o Textual: See Textual determinism, Literalism and Overdetermination<br />
• Devalorization: See Valorization<br />
• Diachronic analysis: Diachronic analysis studies change in a phenomenon (such as a code) over time (in contrast<br />
to synchronic analysis). Saussure saw the development of language in terms of a series of synchronic states.<br />
Critics argue that this fails to account <strong>for</strong> how change occurs. See also: Langue and parole, Synchronic analysis<br />
• Différance: Derrida coined this term to allude simultaneously to 'difference' and 'deferral'. He deliberately ensured<br />
that (in French) the distinction from the word <strong>for</strong> 'difference' was apparent only in writing. Adding to Saussure's<br />
notion of meaning being differential (based on differences between signs), the term is intended to remind us that<br />
signs also defer the presence of what they signify through endless substitutions of signifiers. Every signified is<br />
also a signifier: there is no escape from the sign system. Meaning depends upon absence rather than presence.<br />
See also: Deconstruction, Transcendent(al) signified, Unlimited semiosis<br />
• Differential meaning: See Meaning<br />
• Digital signs: Digital signs involve discrete units such as words and numerals, in contrast to analogical signs.<br />
Note, however, that digital technology can trans<strong>for</strong>m analogical signs into digital reproductions which may be<br />
perceptually indistinguishable from the 'originals', and that texts generated in a digital medium can be 'copies<br />
without originals' (e.g. a word-processed text). See also: Simulacrum, Tokens and types<br />
• Directness of address: Modes of address differ in their directness. This is reflected in the use of language ('you'<br />
may be directly addressed), and in the case of television and photography, in whether or not someone looks<br />
directly into the camera lens. See also: Modes of address<br />
• Discourse: The use of the term discourse <strong>by</strong> theorists generally reflects an emphasis on parole rather than<br />
langue. Many contemporary theorists influenced <strong>by</strong> Michel Foucault treat language not as a monolithic system but<br />
as structured into different discourses such as those of science, law, government, medicine, journalism and<br />
morality. A discourse is a system of representation consisting of a set of representational codes (including a