ABSTRACT
The terms ‘semiotics’ and ‘semiology’ alike refer to the theory of signs, and thus to the way in which a study of signs and systems of signs can explicate problems of meaning and communication. (While ‘semiotics’ was coined in the seventeenth century by the English philosopher John Locke and ‘semiology’ by the twentiethcentury linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, the former term is perhaps used more frequently.) The study of signs can be broadly traced back to ancient Greece, for example in the medical study of symptoms as signs of disease. Similarly, modern semiotics may embrace everything that can act as a sign, and which can therefore generate and communicate meaning. Zoosemiotics, for example, is concerned with the natural processes that exist in animal communication. However, the importance of semiotics for cultural studies lies in the insight that it can provide into communication within human cultures, and thus with the artificial (as opposed to natural) processes that make possible human communication. It may not be an exaggeration to suggest that semiotics is the single most important set of theoretical tools that is available to cultural studies, precisely because of its power to recognise and analyse meaningful relationships in a vast range of human activities and products. Within cultural studies, semiotics may be applied, equally productively, to such diverse artefacts as literary texts, popular songs, photographs, advertisements, road signs, food and clothing. Crucially, semiotics therefore allows cultural studies to break from the evaluative approach of traditional literary criticism and aesthetics, for it does not seek to assess the worth of texts, but rather to understand the processes through which they become meaningful and how they are variously interpreted. Language is the dominant model of a sign system for semiotics, and
the linguistics of Saussure has had a major influence on the development of modern semiotics. At the core of Saussure’s approach to language is the claim that language (and thus the words or signs within a language) do not merely correspond to a pre-existing (extralinguistic) reality. Rather, language is seen as constituting the reality we experience. Thus, the word ‘herb’ does not point to some pre-existing segment of reality, for the distinction between, say, herbs, flowers and vegetables depends upon our possessing a language that allows us to recognise differences between these three types of plant. (We might readily imagine a language that did not make this distinction, and perhaps then imagine the difficulty we would have in explaining the difference to someone who did not speak English,
even if we were fluent in this other language.) Saussure therefore argues that language, as a sign system, works, not through the simple relationship of its component signs to external objects, but rather through the relations of similarity and difference that exist between signs (and thus wholly within language). Part of the meaning of ‘herb’ is that it is not ‘vegetable’. Similarly, to use a common example, the word ‘man’ in English means ‘not animal’, ‘not woman’ and ‘not boy’. This may be extended to suggest that it has further associations, such as ‘not vulnerable’ or ‘not emotional’. The meaning of the word ‘man’ therefore depends upon the particular understanding of masculinity that is current in the language-user’s culture. One more example will serve to develop this point, and particularly to emphasise the arbitrariness of semiotic structures. In Western cultures, ‘white’ is typically associated with positive emotions and events (hence a white wedding dress). White is therefore not black, for black is associated with negative emotions and events. In Eastern cultures, while the opposition of white and black may be retained, the associations may be reversed. The white is therefore the colour associated with funerals. The above examples may begin to indicate how semiotics moves
from language, as the model of a sign system, to other forms of sign system. A person’s choice of clothing, for example, is meaningful. A black dress is appropriate in certain social contexts, inappropriate in others, precisely because it communicates a message about the wearer (she is in mourning; is being formal; is being sexy). Just as there are conventions governing the meaning of a written or spoken word in a sentence, so there are conventional rules governing the meaning of a chosen item of clothing. Crucially these rules govern the choice of one item from a range of possibilities (a black dress, not a white or yellow or blue dress) (see paradigm) and the combination of the chosen items (see syntagm). Thus, one may differentiate between funeral wear, a suit for the office and a party dress, although all may be black, by recognising the combination of colour (as one sign) with style, hemline, material, and so on (as other signs), just as a sentence or any other spoken or written text makes sense through the combination of words. The examples of ‘man’ and ‘black’ used above indicate that signs
typically have a range of meanings, some of which are fairly literal (man is not woman), while others are more allusive (man is not emotional). Thus, a distinction is made between the denotations of a sign, being its most literal and stable meanings, and the connotations, being the associations or more emotional, expressive and evaluative
nuances of meaning that the sign evokes. In practice, no sign (with the possible exception of those used in mathematics and formal logic) is purely denotative. To choose to talk, say, of ‘steeds’ rather than ‘horses’ places a small but important twist upon what is said. Using the distinction between connotation and denotation, Roland Barthes builds upon Saussure’s original conception of semiotics in order to argue that connotation should be understood as calling forth the value system of the culture within which the sign is used and interpreted. Crucially, these culturally specific evaluations are linked to the distribution of power within the society (so that, for example, the association of masculinity-in the sign ‘man’—with rationality, action and strength is indicative of a patriarchal society). The fact that we take connotations for granted, confusing them with denotations and thereby accepting them as if they were natural or unchangeable, leads to what Barthes calls myth. The evaluative, and ultimately political, implications of signs are concealed, so that the reader may unwittingly absorb the dominant value system as he or she responds to the text. Thus, in looking at an advertisement, the nai?ve reader will absorb evaluations of masculinity and femininity, simply through the way in which men and women are portrayed and related to each other and to other signs in the advertisement. (Fiske and Hartley have therefore argued that an understanding of semiotics and mythology, in Barthes’s sense of the term, leads to a theory of ideology.) For all the analytical power that semiotics offers to cultural studies,
not least in the model of Barthes’s work, the Saussurean approach to signs may be seen to have certain weaknesses. An early alternative to Saussurean semiotics was posed by the Russian theorist V.N. Voloshinov. Voloshinov sees Saussure’s emphasis on the linguistic or sign system as giving a false objectivity to language. Voloshinov is concerned not with the ahistorical structure of language, but rather with the realisation of language and meaning in particular social situations. A sign may thereby be understood as a potential area of class struggle, for although all members of a society may share a common language, different classes will appropriate that language to different political uses. Signs thus have a ‘social multiaccentuality’, although this will be most explicit only in times of crisis and revolution. A further criticism may be made through reflection on the great
emphasis that Saussurean semiotics places on the role of language in structuring, and indeed creating, the world which we experience. This gives rise to the danger that semiotics collapses into a form of anti-realism, which is to say that it says too little about the restraints that the world external to languages and sign systems places upon us,
and the way in which signs refer to that external, non-linguistic world. A number of approaches have been developed to deal with this problem, not least through elaborating some notion of reference. However, the work of the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce has received attention, precisely because his semiotics is, from the first, more sensitive to the problem of the relationship of the sign to an extralingustic object. Peirce’s theory of signs involves a three-part scheme. What Peirce
terms the ‘sign’ is related to an ‘interpretant’, via an ‘object’. A simple example (borrowed from Hookway) best illustrates this. If I see bark stripped from a tree, then this may be a sign that a deer is around. The stripped bark is the sign, the real deer that did the stripping is the object, and my idea of a deer is the interpretant. The interpretant is thus the mental response of the reader to the original sign. Crucially, Peirce goes on to argue that signs generate chains of interpretants, which is to suggest that a sign is not self-evidently or transparently meaningful. Each reader will generate his or her own interpretation of the sign. The reader is therefore always separated from the real object by the sign and its interpretation. However, as the chain of interpretants progresses, Peirce argues (at least for certain types of sign, such as those used in communication within the community of scientists) that interpretants (and thus the reader’s understanding) gradually become more adequate to the object. In effect, the object, outside language, may then be seen to exert pressure on signs and sign systems. Thus, while different cultures may classify the realm of plants differently, a practical engagement and study of plants will, for Peirce, eventually lead the botanist and the cook to distinguish herb from vegetable, and rosemary from carrot. Peirce’s semiotics offers one further, useful set of concepts, in so far
as he distinguishes three types of sign. Symbols are signs that are only conventionally related to the objects to which they refer. Thus, the word ‘dog’ has nothing physically or otherwise in common with real dogs. A flag may signify a nation, but need be nothing more than an abstract design. Indices, conversely, have some causal or existential link to the object. Thus, the stripped bark is an index, because it is caused by the deer. Smoke is an index of fire. Finally, icons share certain properties with their object. A map is thus iconic, as are representational paintings and photographs.
