Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs within a culture, particularly with reference to how they are used for communication. Communication is the exchange of information between parties.

Semiotics states that the information exchange is an exchange of signs – things that have a form (e.g. writing, an object, a gesture) and refer to something other than itself. For communication to happen, both parties must both recognise that the thing is a sign, and understand what it refers to. This is not universal – different languages have different signs for the same thing for example, and different symbols mean different things in different cultures.

The picture above is of a collection of road signs in Llanberis, north Wales. All three are dependent on the reader knowing the signs they portray, but to different extent. The bottom one is giving directions to the village car park – two concepts, a “village” and a “car park” that speakers of the English language recognise by those two signs, which combine to make a third concept “the car park for the village”. Speakers of the Welsh language recognise the same concept also by a combination of the same smaller concepts, but represented by different signs “maes parcio” (“car park”, or literally “field [for] parking”) and “y pentref” (“the village”). The white-on-blue “P” sign is a pan-European sign that also represents the concept “car park”. The arrow is a near universally recognised sign representing direction. The brown background to the signs represent another sign when appearing on British road signs – that the information shown on the sign relates to tourist destinations.

The middle road sign uses linguistic signs to impart meaning to a new sign – those seeing this road sign are being taught that from this point on the picture represents the concept they already know as “Electric Mountain” in English or “Mynydd Gwefru” in Welsh. Further road signs do not need to repeat all this information.

The top road sign uses no linguistic signs at all. Some of the signs are familiar from being defined as standard signs for use throughout Britain (e.g. the “P” and “steam train” graphics) but others are defined only locally on a previous sign, for example symbol left of the “P” - if you have not seen the explanations previously this sign is nearly as meaningless to you as “Rheilffordd yr Wyddfa” is to a non-Welsh speaker. “Nearly” because it is aimed at tourists who will know that there is a funicular railway in Llanberis and recognise this as a train going up a slope, and thus it's a sign that signifies the “Snowdon Mountain Railway”.

Even within a culture, signs do not work if you don't have the expected knowlege to understand the meaning – the associations that are provided by the signified are not communicated and the communication becomes meaningless. Comapnies spend lots of money on getting celebrity endorsements for the products they are advertising, hoping that by the association the values associated with the celebrity will be associated with the product. For example, a golf club manufacturer will spend millions to get Tiger Woods to endorse their product – hoping that you will associate excellent golfing performance with their clubs and so buy them to improve your game.

The image above is another example of celebrity endorsement. This time for “Swift Cover car insurance” (and it is only because I've seen previous adverts that I know this much), who will have paid lots of money to get this man to appear in their adverts. However as I had no idea who he was, the advert means nothing to me. In finding a copy of the image above, I've learned that he is “Iggy Pop” and although I know he is (was?) a signer that is the exent of my knoweldge about him and I'm still clueless about what message the advert is trying to say. I do not recognise the sign and so the communication fails. The watch he is holding is another sign, but this one I do understand - it represents time. 

Referenes:
Chandler, Daniel. "Semitoics: the basics", 2007.
Bignell, Jonathan. "Media Semiotics: An introduction", 2002