Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

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Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler • The villain captures Bond. • The villain tortures Bond. • Bond conquers the villain. • Bond convalescing enjoys woman, whom he then loses. (Eco 1966, 52) Unlike Propp and Greimas, Eco goes beyond the reductive formalism of structural analysis, making links with the broader context of literary and ideological discourses (Woollacott 1982, 96-7). Syntagmatic analysis can be applied not only to verbal texts but also to audio-visual ones. In film and television, a syntagmatic analysis would involve an analysis of how each frame, shot, scene or sequence related to the others (these are the standard levels of analysis in film theory). At the lowest level is the individual frame. Since films are projected at a rate of 24 frames a second, the viewer is never conscious of individual frames, but significant frames can be isolated by the analyst. At the next level up, a shot is a 'single take' - an unedited sequence of frames which may include camera movement. A shot is terminated by a cut (or other transition). A scene consists of more than one shot set in a single place and time. A sequence spans more than one place and or/time but it is a logical or thematic sequence (having 'dramatic unity'). The linguistic model often leads semioticians to a search for units of analysis in audio-visual media which are analogous to those used in linguistics. In the semiotics of film, crude equivalents with written language are sometimes postulated: such as the frame as morpheme (or word), the shot as sentence, the scene as paragraph, and the sequence as chapter (suggested equivalences vary amongst commentators) (see Lapsley & Westlake 1988, 39ff). For members of the Glasgow University Media Group the basic unit of analysis was the shot, delimited by cuts and with allowance made for camera movement within the shot and for the accompanying soundtrack (Davis & Walton 1983b, 43). Shots can be broken into smaller meaningful units (above the level of the frame), but theorists disagree about what these might be. Above the level of the sequence, other narrative units can also be posited. Christian Metz offered elaborate syntagmatic categories for narrative film (Metz 1974, Chapter 5) For Metz, these syntagms were analogous to sentences in verbal language, and he argued that there were eight key filmic syntagms which were based on ways of ordering narrative space and time. • The autonomous shot (e.g. establishing shot, insert) • The parallel syntagm (montage of motifs) • The bracketing syntagm (montage of brief shots) • The descriptive syntagm (sequence describing one moment) • The alternating syntagm (two sequences alternating) • The scene (shots implying temporal continuity) • The episodic sequence (organized discontinuity of shots) • The ordinary sequence (temporal with some compression) However, Metz's 'grande syntagmatique' has not proved an easy system to apply to some films. In their study of children's understanding of television, Hodge and Tripp (1986, 20) divide syntagms into four kinds, based on syntagms existing in the same time (synchronic), different times (diachronic), same space (syntopic), and different space (diatopic).
Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler • Synchronic/syntopic (one place, one time: one shot) • Diachronic/syntopic (same place sequence over time) • Synchronic/diatopic (different places at same time) • Diachronic/diatopic (shots related only by theme) They add that whilst these are all continuous syntagms (single shots or successive shots), there are also discontinuous syntagms (related shots separated by others). Beyond the fourfold distinction between frames, shots, scenes and sequences, the interpretative frameworks of film theorists differ considerably. In this sense at least, there is no cinematic 'language'. Paradigmatic Analysis Whereas syntagmatic analysis studies the 'surface structure' of a text, paradigmatic analysis seeks to identify the various paradigms (or pre-existing sets of signifiers) which underlie the manifest content of texts. This aspect of structural analysis involves a consideration of the positive or negative connotations of each signifier (revealed through the use of one signifier rather than another), and the existence of 'underlying' thematic paradigms (e.g. binary oppositions such as public/private). 'Paradigmatic relations' are the oppositions and contrasts between the signifiers that belong to the same set from which those used in the text were drawn. Semioticians often focus on the issue of why a particular signifier rather than a workable alternative was used in a specific context: on what they often refer to as 'absences'. Saussure noted that a characteristic of what he called 'associative' relations - what would now be called paradigmatic relations - was that (in contrast to syntagmatic relations) such relations held 'in absentia' - in the absence from a specific text of alternative signifiers from the same paradigm (Saussure 1983, 122; Saussure 1974, 123). He also argued that signs take their value within the linguistic system from what they are not (Saussure 1983, 115; Saussure 1974, 117). We have popular sayings in English concerning two kinds of absences: we refer to 'what goes without saying' and 'what is conspicuous by its absence'. What 'goes without saying' reflects what it is assumed that you 'take for granted' as 'obvious'. In relation to the coverage of an issue (such as in 'factual' genres) this is a profoundly ideological absence which helps to 'position' the text's readers, the implication being that 'people like us already agree what we think about issues like that'. As for the second kind of absence, an item which is present in the text may flout conventional expectations, making the conventional item 'conspicuous by its absence' and the unexpected item 'a statement'. This applies no less to cultural practices. If a man wears a suit at his office it says very little other than that he is conforming to a norm. But if one day he arrives in jeans and a tee-shirt, this will be interpreted as 'making a statement'. Analysing textual absences can help to reveal whose interests are served by their omission. Such analysis pays particular attention to the issue of which questions are left unasked. Paradigmatic analysis involves comparing and contrasting each of the signifiers present in the text with absent signifiers which in similar circumstances might have been chosen, and considering the significance
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Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

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