This Means This

This Means This, This Means That Notes

Semiotics: the theory of signs

Signs can mean something other than themselves

Semiotics is about the tools, processes, and contexts we have for creating, interpreting and understanding meaning in a variety of different ways.

Signs are formed though the society that creates them

Signs are shaped by different societies in different ways

Societies have two basic sources of signing

1. Natural

2. Conventional

signs are composed or two inseparable elements: the signifier and the signified.

Seventeenth- century philosopher Rene Descartes

First modern philosopher

He believed that in order to build a system of knowledge, one must start from first principles

I think therefore I am

Messages are always transmitted through a medium

1. Presentational

Through the face, the voice or the body

2. Representational

Paintings, books, photographs, drawings, writings, books

3. Mechanical

Telephones, television, internet, radio, film

“The window of the soul is the mouth”

Non-literal forms of meaning enable us to make the familiar seem unfamiliar and the unfamiliar seem familiar.

Non-literal communication: simile, metaphor, metonym, synecdoche, irony, lies, impossibility, depiction, and representation

The likening of one thing to another is a simile. A simile is a stated comparison between two different objects, images, ideas or likenesses.

Simile: x is like y

Metaphor: x is y

When one thing is substituted for another in a piece of communication we call it a metonym.

Using a part of something to stand for the whole thing, or the whole thing to stand for part, is called synecdoche. (Part/Whole relationship)