2003.09.03 - SLIDE 1IS246 - FALL 2003

Lecture 03: Semiotics

IS 246Multimedia Information

Prof. Marc DavisUC Berkeley SIMS

Monday and Wednesday 3:30 pm – 5:00 pmFall 2003

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is246/f03/

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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What and How Do We Communicate?

• What “gifts” do we give each other?

• What do we do with these gifts?

• How does this gift exchange bring us together (or not)?

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Beyond the Conduit Metaphor

• Reddy– Identification of the Conduit Metaphor– Suggestion of alternate Toolmakers’

Paradigm

• Iser– The reading process as a primary example of

the Toolmakers’ Paradigm– Phenomenology of the reading process

• Barthes– New conceptions of “author” and “text”

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The Conduit Metaphor

• Language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another

• In writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings in the words

• Words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others

• In listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words

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Toolmakers’ Paradigm

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Semantic Pathology

• Semantic Pathology– “Whenever two or more incompatible senses

capable of figuring meaningfully in the same context develop around the same name”

• Example– “This text is confusing.”

• Text(1) = The layout/font of the text is confusing.• Text(2) = The argument of the text is confusing.• Question: Where is Text(2)?

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Iser on the Literary Work

• Literary work has two poles– Artistic

• Text created by the author (Reddy’s signals)

– Esthetic• Realization accomplished by the reader (Reddy’s

Repertoire Members)

• Literary work comes to life in the interaction between text reader– Virtual dimension– Gaps

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Iser on the Reading Process

• Phenomenology of reading process similar to phenomenology of perception– Anticipation– Retrospection– Gestalt– Illusion-building/Illusion-breaking

• Interaction with repertoire (familiar)• Alien associations (unfamiliar)

• Text(1) and Text(2)

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Roland Barthes

• Death of the Author– Who is the “I” that writes?– The reader constructs the author by means of the text

• From Work to Text– Method: “The text is experienced only in an activity of

production.”– Plurality: “The text is plural.”– Filiation: The author returns to his/her text as a guest– Text is a social space which coincides only with a

practice of writing

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Foundations of Semiotics

• Ferdinand de Saussure Course in General Linguistics (1906-1911)

• One of the founders of modern linguistics– Established the structural study of language,

emphasizing the arbitrary relationship of the signifier to signified and the diacritical nature of signs

– Distinguished synchronic linguistics (studying language at a given moment) from diachronic linguistics (studying the changing state of a language over time)

• Creation of “semiology” the study of sign systems

• Hugely influential on modern literary and media theory

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Language and Linguistics

• The object of study of linguistics is language (langue) not human speech (langage)

• Linguistic study can be divided up into– Diachronic linguistics

• How a system of values relates to and changes over time

– Synchronic linguistics• How a system of values works per se (at a point in time)

• Linguistics is not just a subset of the general study of signs (semiology) but is its template

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• Sign, Signified, Signifier – The linguistic sign is the unity of the signifier

(a sound-image) and the signified (a concept)

Linguistic Sign

Concept

Sound-Image

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Linguistic Sign

• “The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The latter is not the material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression that it makes on our senses. The sound-image is sensory, and if I happen to call it "material," it is only in that sense, and by way of opposing it to the other term of the association, the concept, which is generally more abstract.” (p. 66)

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Linguistic Signs and Language

• The sign is arbitrary

• A multiplicity of signs is necessary to form any language

• Language is an over-complex system

• Language exhibits a collective inertia toward innovation

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From Signification to Values

• “[...] to consider a term as simply the union of a certain sound with a certain concept is grossly misleading. To define it in this way would isolate the term from its system; it would mean assuming that one can start from the terms and construct the system by adding them together when, on the contrary, it is from the interdependent whole that one must start and through analysis obtain its elements.” (p. 113).

• “Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others [...].” (p. 114)

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Linguistic Values

• Values are composed of– A dissimilar thing that can be exchanged for

the thing of which the value is to be determined

– Similar things that can be compared with the thing of which the value is to be determined

Signified

Signifier

Signified

Signifier

Signified

Signifier

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Differences

• “Everything that has been said up to this point boils down to this: in language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms.” (p. 120).

• “In reality the idea evokes not a form but a whole latent system that makes possible the oppositions necessary for the formation of the sign. By itself the sign would have no signification.” (p. 130).

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Syntagmatic and Associative Relations

• “In discourse, on the one hand, words acquire relations based on the linear nature of language because they are chained together. [...] Combinations supported by linearity are syntagms. The syntagm is always composed of two or more consecutive units [...]. In the syntagm a term acquires its value only because it stands in opposition to everything that precedes or follows it, or to both.Outside discourse, on the other hand, words acquire relations of a different kind. Those that have something in common are associated in memory, resulting groups are marked by diverse relations. [...]We see that the co-ordinations formed outside discourse differ strikingly from those formed inside discourse. Those formed outside discourse are not supported by linearity. Their seat is in the brain; they are a part of the inner storehouse that makes up the language of each speaker. They are associative relations.” (p. 123).

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Syntagmatic and Associative Relations

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Discussion Questions (Saussure)

• Aaron Brick on Saussure – De Saussure wrote that “language is a form, not a

substance.” Do not languages' mutually-defined units, and the network of their relationships, constitute content - or, dare I say, information?

– A spectrum is described between arbitrary, “lexicological” languages and those with strongly motivated relationships, which are called “grammatical”. How does this attribute of language affect our usage and thinking? Can a qualitative judgment be made in favor of one extreme?

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Discussion Questions (Saussure)

• Prof. Davis on Saussure

– How could signs (which are not positive units) be represented and manipulated computationally?

– How might Saussure’s ideas about linguistic signs apply to media such as video, photography, and music?

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

– Towards a New Understanding of Communication

– Iser on The Reading Process

– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Foundations of Semiotics

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Readings for Next Week

• Monday 09/08 (Narrative and Narration)– Textbook

• David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson: Film Art: An Introduction. McGraw Hill, New York, 2003. Pages: 47-105.

• Wednesday 09/10 (Mise-en-scene and Cinematography)– Textbook

• David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson: Film Art: An Introduction. McGraw Hill, New York, 2003. Pages: 175-184 & 207-293.