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Undertaking Semiotics
Dr Sarah Gibson
‘the material reality [of
texts] allows for the
recovery and critical
interrogation of discursive
politics in an “empirical”
form; [texts] are neither
scientific data nor
historical documents but
are, literally, forensic
evidence’
(Hartley, 1992: 29)
Today
1. Textual Analysis
2. Semiotics
1. Textual Analysis
– Ferdinand de Saussure
– Roland Barthes
3. Semiotics as a Research Methodology
What is Textual Analysis?
• Gather information about how people make sense of
the world
• Educated guess at the most likely interpretations of
that text
• Interpretation of something’s meaning
• Reveal concealed power relations
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Reading Texts
Textual Analysis Methodology
• Accessible Texts
• How texts tell their stories
• Relatively few resources
• How texts represent the world
• Interpretive method
• How texts make sense of the world
Limitations of Textual Analysis
Textual Analysis Methodology
• Meanings not fixed in text
• Does not reveal the author’s intention
• Does not reveal how it was received or
understood by the audience
• Privileges ‘academic readers’ of texts
• Genre Analysis
ØCritical Reflection of your own subject
position and choice of methodology
• Critical Discourse Analysis
• Narrative Analysis
• Semiotics
The Study of Signs
• Anything that communicates meaning is a sign
2. What is semiotics?
• Any sign can be studied using semiotics
• Allows us to examine the cultural specificity of
representations and their meanings
• One set of methods and terms can be used across
a range of different signifying practices
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Semiotic Analysis
What can semiotics be applied to?
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Film
Theatre
Fashion
Body
Television
Magazines
Museums
Cities
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Food
Material Culture
Hairstyles
Music
Photography
Advertising
Newspapers
Internet
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Define your object of analysis
Gather the texts
Describe the texts
Interpret the texts
Draw out the cultural codes
Make generalisations
Make conclusions
Ferdinand de Saussure
• ‘the linguistic sign unites not a thing and a
name, but a concept and a sound-image …. I
call the combination of a concept and a
sound-image a sign’ (Saussure, 1966: 66-67)
The Sign
1. Signifier
–
–
Material Aspect
Sound-Image or
text/writing
2. Signified
–
Mental concept
Signs
• All signs are arbitrary
• Negative value
• Binary oppositions
• Langue / Parole
• Codes and Conventions
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Traffic Lights / Robots
• Red - stop
• Amber - get
ready
• Green - go
Charles Sanders Peirce
Roland Barthes
• non-verbal signs in everyday life
• Iconic
• Indexical
• Symbolic
• the domain of culture
ICON
INDEX
SYMBOL
Signify by
Resemblance
Causal
connection
Convention
Examples
Pictures,
statues
Fire / smoke
Flags
Process
Can see
Can figure
out
Must learn
• Builds on the signifier-signified-sign model
• Myth is a second order semiological system
Mythologies
1. Collection of essays, first
appeared in the magazine Les
Lettres Nouvelles (1954-1956),
called ‘Mythology of the
Month’
2. ‘Myth today’ – a long essay
which appropriates and
extends Saussure’s theories
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Denotation and Connotation
“Rolls Royce”
• Denotation = the literal meaning
• Connotation is the second-order meaning =
culturally specific meanings
Myth
• Cultural values and beliefs expressed at level
of connotation
• allows connotative meaning to appear
denotative
• Semiotics the process of demystification
‘I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris- Match is offered to me.
On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with
his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this
is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see
very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire,
that all her sons, without any color discrimination, faithfully serve
under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the
detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this
Negro in serving his so- called oppressors. I am therefore again
faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself
already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving
the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful
mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is a
presence of the signified through the signifier’.
Denotation
• A photograph of a black soldier
saluting the French flag
• Signifer: the arrangement of
coloured dots on a white background
• Signified: the concept of the black
soldier saluting the tricolour
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Connotation
• Denotation [the black soldier is
saluting the flag] becomes a secondlevel signifier
• Connotation: French Imperiality
• ‘the saluting Negro becomes the
alibi of French imperiality’
‘The Rhetoric of
the Image’
Three Messages in an Advert
1. The linguistic message
2. Denotation: a non-coded iconic message
3. Connotation: a coded iconic message
1. The Linguistic Message
• All the words in the ad
• Captions, labels, brands
• Need cultural knowledge to decode text
(French language)
• Connotates "Italianicity" through the sound
and familiarity of this particular text
2. Non-coded Iconic Message
‘some packets of pasta, a tin, a sachet, some
tomatoes, onions, peppers, a mushroom, all
emerging form a half open string bag, in
yellows and greens on a red background’
(Barthes: 33)
• Anchorage
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3. The Coded Iconic Message
1. ‘Return from market’ (freshness of products
and domestic preparation)
Style of photo
– still life
Red background
Open string bag
2. Italianicity (yellow, green, red)
3. Total culinary service
4. Still Life
Product
Vegetables –
onion, tomato,
mushroom,
peppers
Text
The mythologist as cultural critic
• We inhabit a world of signs which purport to
be natural
• but which support existing power structures
3. Semiotics as a Research
Methodology
• the mythologist exposes these signs as
culturally constructed
Semiotics
Semiotics
• ‘Semiotics helps us to think analytically about
how such texts work and the implications they
have for the broader culture in which they are
produced and disseminated’ (Deacon et al.,
2007: 141)
• Semiotics is concerned with how meaning is created
and conveyed in texts
• The focus of semiotics is the signs found in texts.
Signs are combinations of signifiers and signifieds.
• Because nothing has meaning in itself, the
relationships that exist among signs are crucial
• Texts can be viewed as being similar to speech and
as implying grammars or languages that make texts
meaningful.
(Berger, 2012: 18)
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Semiotics: Theory or Method?
• ‘semiotics is all theory and very little method,
providing a powerful framework for analysis and
very few practical guidelines for rigorously
employing it’ (Slater, 1998: 238)
Semiotic Analysis
• ‘A semiological analysis entails the
deployment of a highly refined set of concepts
which produce detailed accounts of the exact
ways the meanings of an image are produced
through that image’
(Rose, 2002: 69-70)
‘Semiotics is a bunch of concepts’
Semiotics
• Concepts inform critical readings rather than
through any more precise or specific
application
• Requires a creative application of a
conceptual and theoretical corpus to
particular texts
• Conceptual and theoretical corpus provides a
framework for interpretive work
(see Deacon et al., 2007: 148)
• ‘Semiology very often takes the form of
detailed case studies of relatively few images,
and the case study stands or falls on its
analytical integrity and interest rather than on
its applicability to a wide range of material’
(Rose, 2002: 73)
Stages in a Semiotic Analysis
Choosing Images
• Define your object of analysis
• Gather the texts
• The analysis
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Denotation
Connotation
Cultural Knowledge
Ideological Position
• ‘Semiologists choose their images on the basis
of how conceptually interesting they are, it
seems’ (Rose, 2002: 73)
• Requires extensive knowledge of the type of
image which the case studies will analyse
• Relate to theoretical and conceptual
frameworks
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Strengths of Semiotics
Limitations of Semiotics
• Demands detailed analysis of images
• Relies on case studies and elaborate analytical
terminology
• Creates careful and precise accounts of how the
meanings of particular images are made
• Concerned with the construction of social difference
through signs
• Focuses on ideology, ideological complexes and
dominant codes
(Rose, 2002: 96)
• Questions about the representativeness and
replicability of its analyses
• Elaborate theoretical terminology
• Strong anti-reflexive strain in semiotics
• No empirical exploration of polysemy and
logonomic systems
(Rose, 2002: 97-99)
Critical Visual Methodology
Key Elements of a Research Question
• A range of tools for looking at images carefully
[vocabulary; analytical precision]
• Centrally concerned with the ways in which
social difference is created [science; ideology]
• Some of its practitioners advocate a reflexivity
(Rose, 2002: 73)
What?
Object of
analysis
Research Question
• Method: Semiotic analysis
• Object of Analysis: the implications and
meaning of a text or set of texts; the
ideological content of a media message; how
media messages relate to cultural myths
• Theoretical paradigm: feminist theory,
Marxism, sexuality, nationalism,
postcolonialism, racism, etc.
Why?
How?
Theoretical
paradigm
Research
Method
References
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Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies. Translated from the French by Lavers, A. London: Paladin Grafton.
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Barthes, R. (1977). Rhetoric of the Image. In Image Music Text. Translated from the French by
Heath, S. London: Fontana.
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Berger, A.A. 2012. Media Analysis Techniques. 4th edition. London: Sage.
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Deacon, S. et al. 2007. Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and
Cultural Analysis. 2nd edition. London: Hodder Education.
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Du Gay, P. et al. 2013. Doing Cultural Studies. 2nd edition. London: Sage.
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Hartley, J. 1992. The Politics of Pictures. London: Routledge.
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Rose, G. 2001. Visual Methodologies. London: Sage.
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Slater, D. 1998. Analysing Cultural Objects: content analysis and semiotics. In Researching Society
and Culture. Edited by Clive Seale. London: Sage.
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Stokes, J. 2013. How to do Media and Cultural Studies. 2nd edition. London: Sage.
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Suggested Wider Reading
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Bignell, J. 2002. Media Semiotics: An Introduction. 2nd edition. Manchester: Manchester UP.
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Chandler, D. 2002. Semiotics: the basics. London: Routledge.
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Couldry, N. 2000. Inside Culture: Re-Imagining the Method of Cultural Studies. London: Sage.
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Danesi, M. 2002. Understanding Media Semiotics. London: Arnold.
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Eco, U. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indian UP.
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Saukko, P. 2003. Doing Research in Cultural Studies. London: Sage.
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Thwaites, T. 2002. Introducing Cultural and Media Studies: a semiotic approach. Basingstoke:
Palgrave.
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Tudor, A. 1999. Decoding Culture: theory and method in cultural studies. London: Sage.
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