Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
• Expressive function: In Jakobson's model of linguistic communication this is deemed to be one of the key
functions of a sign. This function involves the (usually implicit) construction of an addressee (ideal reader). See
also: Addressee, Functions of a sign
• Extracinematic codes: See Filmic codes
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
• Fallacies (their status as such depends on point of view)
o Affective: See Affective fallacy
o Conventionalism: See Conventionalism
o Dualism: See Binarism
o Intentional: See Intentional fallacy
o Literalism: See Literalism
o Metonymic: See Metonymic fallacy
o Neutrality: See Non-neutrality of medium
o Referential: See Referential fallacy
o Relativism: See Relativism
o Reproductive: See Reproductive fallacy
o Synecdochic: See Metonymic fallacy
o Transparency: See Transparency
• Figurae: See Second articulation
• Filmic codes: Cinematic and televisual codes include: genre; camerawork (shot size, focus, lens movement,
camera movement, angle, lens choice, composition); editing (cuts and fades, cutting rate and rhythm);
manipulation of time (compression, flashbacks, flashforwards, slow motion); lighting; colour; sound (soundtrack,
music); graphics and narrative style. Extracinematic codes are codes used within film which are not unique to the
medium, such as language, narrative, gesture and costume. See also: Codes, Grande syntagmatique, Imaginary
signifier, Mise-en-scène, Montage
• First articulation: At the (higher) structural level of first articulation a semiotic system consists of the smallest
meaningful units available (e.g. morphemes or words in a language). See also: Articulation, Double articulation,
Second articulation, Single articulation
• Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness: Within his triadic model of the sign, Peirce referred to the sign as an
instance of 'Firstness', its object as an instance of 'Secondness' and the interpretant as an instance of 'Thirdness'.
See also: Peircean model of the sign
• Floating signifier: See Empty signifier
• Foregrounding, stylistic: This term, derived from the Gestalt psychologists' distinction between figure and ground
[background], was used by the Prague school linguists to refer to a stylistic feature in which signifiers in a text
attract attention to themselves rather than simulating transparency in representing their signifieds. This primarily
serves a 'poetic' function (being used 'for its own sake') rather than a 'referential' function. See also:
Denaturalization, Poetic function, Prague school, Reflexivity, Transparency
• Form and content: A distinction sometimes equated to Saussure's distinction between the signifier (seen as form)
and the signified (seen as content). However, the metaphor of form as a 'container' is problematic, tending to
support the equation of content with meaning, implying that meaning can be 'extracted' without an active process
of interpretation and that form is not in itself meaningful. In 'realistic' codes, content is foregrounded whilst form
retreats to transparency. See also: McLuhanism, Translatability
• Form and substance: Hjelmslev introduced the notion that both expression and content have substance and form.
In this framework signs have four dimensions: substance of content; form of content; substance of expression;
form of expression. See Plane of content, Plane of expression
• Formalism: Russian formalism was a structuralist, anti-realist aesthetic doctrine whose proponents included Victor
Shklovsky (see Denaturalization). The Prague school linguists were also structural formalists. Formalism
represented a linguistic focus on literary uses of language. As the name suggests, the primary focus of the
formalists was on form, structure, technique or medium rather than on content. They saw literary language as
language 'made strange' and their model was poetry rather than prose. They were particularly interested in
literary 'devices' such as rhyme, rhythm, metre, imagery, syntax and narrative techniques - favouring writing which
'laid bare' its devices. The term 'formalism' is sometimes used critically (especially by realists) to refer to what they