Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
tee-shirts, tunics, sweaters), she selects one. These items share a similar structure, function,
and/or other attribute with others in the set: they are related to one another on the basis of
similarity. She further selects items related by similarity from the lower-body-garment and
footwear paradigms. A socially defined, shared classification system or code shapes her
selections.
2. She combines the selected signs through rules (i.e., tee-shirts go with sandals, not high
heels), sending a message through the ensemble - the syntagm. Selection requires her to
perceive similarity and opposition among signs within the set (the paradigm), classifying them
as items having the same function or structure, only one of which she needs. She can
substitute, or select, a blouse for the tee-shirt - conveying a different message. The
combination, tee-shirt–jeans–sandals, requires her to know the 'rules by which garments are
acceptably combined... The combination... is, in short, a kind of sentence' (Lodge 1977, 74).
The tee-shirt–jeans–sandals syntagm conveys a different meaning (sends a different
message) at the beach than at a formal occasion. (Spiggle 1998, 159)
In the case of film, our interpretation of an individual shot depends on both paradigmatic analysis
(comparing it, not necessarily consciously, with the use of alternative kinds of shot) and syntagmatic
analysis (comparing it with preceding and following shots). The same shot used within another
sequence of shots could have quite a different preferred reading. Actually, filmic syntagms are not
confined to such temporal syntagms (which are manifested in montage: the sequencing of shots) but
include the spatial syntagms found also in still photography (in mise-en-scène: the composition of
individual frames).
Both syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis treat signs as part of a system - exploring their functions
within codes and sub-codes - a topic to which we will return. Although we will discuss syntagmatic
and paradigmatic relations separately, it should be emphasized that the semiotic analysis of a text or
corpus has to tackle the system as a whole, and that the two dimensions cannot be considered in
isolation. The description of any semiotic system involves specifying both the membership of all of the
relevant paradigmatic sets and also the possible combinations of one set with another in well-formed
syntagms. For the analyst, according to Saussure (who was, of course, focusing on the language
system as a whole), 'the system as a united whole is the starting point, from which it becomes
possible, by a process of analysis, to identify its constituent elements'; one cannot try to construct the
system by working upwards from the constituent elements (Saussure 1983, 112; Saussure 1974,
113). However, Roland Barthes argued that 'an important part of the semiological undertaking' was to
divide texts 'into minimal significant units... then to group these units into paradigmatic classes, and
finally to classify the syntagmatic relations which link these units' (Barthes 1967, 48; cf. Langholz
Leymore 1975, 21 and Lévi-Strauss 1972, 211). In practice, the analyst is likely to need to move back
and forth between these two approaches as the analysis proceeds.