Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
The structuralist semiotician Algirdas Greimas introduced the semiotic
square (which he adapted from the 'logical square' of scholastic
philosophy) as a means of analysing paired concepts more fully
(Greimas 1987, xiv, 49). The semiotic square is intended to map the
logical conjunctions and disjunctions relating key semantic features in
a text. Fredric Jameson notes that 'the entire mechanism... is capable
of generating at least ten conceivable positions out of a rudimentary
binary opposition' (in Greimas 1987, xiv). Whilst this suggests that the
possibilities for signification in a semiotic system are richer than the either/or of binary logic, but that
they are nevertheless subject to 'semiotic constraints' - 'deep structures' providing basic axes of
signification.
The symbols S1, S2, Not S1 and Not S2 represent positions within the system which may be
occupied by concrete or abstract notions. The double-headed arrows represent bilateral relationships.
The upper corners of the Greimasian square represent an opposition between S1 and S2 (e.g. white
and black). The lower corners represent positions which are not accounted for in simple binary
oppositions: Not S2 and Not S1 (e.g. non-white and non-black). Not S1 consists of more than simply
S2 (e.g. that which is not white is not necessarily black). In the horizontal relationships represent an
opposition between each of the left-hand terms (S1 and Not S2) and its paired right-hand term (Not
S1 and S2). The terms at the top (S1, S2) represent 'presences', whilst their companion terms (Not
S1 and Not S2) represent 'absences'. The vertical relationships of 'implication' offer us an alternative
conceptual synthesis of S1 with Not S2 and of S2 with Not S1 (e.g. of white with not-black or of black
with not-white). Greimas refers to the relationships between the four positions as: contrariety or
opposition (S1/S2); complementarity or implication (S1/Not S2 and S2/Not S1); and contradiction
(S1/Not S1 and S2/Not S2). Varda Langholz Leymore offers an illustrative example of the linked
terms 'beautiful' and 'ugly'. In the semiotic square the four related terms (clockwise) would be
'beautiful', 'ugly', 'not beautiful' and 'not ugly'. The initial pair is not simply a binary opposition because
'something which is not beautiful is not necessarily ugly and vice versa a thing which is not ugly is not
necessarily beautiful' (Langholz Leymore 1975, 29). The same framework can be productively applied
to many other paired terms, such as 'thin' and 'fat'.
Occupying a position within such as framework invests a sign with
meanings. The semiotic square can be used to highlight 'hidden'
underlying themes in a text or practice. Using a slightly adapted
version of the square shown here, Fredric Jameson outlines how it
might be applied to Charles Dickens' novel, Hard Times.
In Hard Times we witness the confrontation of what amount to two antagonistic intellectual
systems: Mr Gradgrind's utilitarianism ('Facts! Facts!') and that world of anti-facts symbolized
by Sissy Jupe and the circus, or in other words, imagination. The novel is primarily the
education of the educator, the conversion of Mr Gradgrind from his inhuman system to the
opposing one. It is thus a series of lessons administered to Mr Gradgrind, and we may sort
these lessons into two groups and see them as the symbolic answers to two kinds of
questions. It is as though the plot of the novel, seeking now to generate the terms Not S1 and
Not S2, were little more than a series of attempts to visualize the solutions to these riddles: