Sign e.g. Cat
=
Signifer Signified
(significant) (Signifie)
The form: the shapes of the letters The concept: personal idea
Phonetic language: records the sounds that make up significants, e.g. the phonetic alphabet.
Ideographic: symbols that represent a thing or idea with no sound of it's own, e.g. chinese symbols.
Iconic signs: appear like the item that they signify, e.g. portraits, photos, film stills, stamps.
Indexical signs: refer to other knowledges for their own meaning, about associations, e.g. natural signs: clouds signify rain, footprints feet.
Symbolic signs: have meaning only due to convention, we attach meaning based on an agreement, they have no meaning of their own, e.g. words, flags.
Structuralism
-everything that we encounter is a 'text' that we 'read'.
Langue: the structural rules and conventions of a system, e.g. the dictionary, camera angles, location, lighting, costume.
Form - Website. Medium - Computer. Ink. Tools - Software.
Parole: the spoken/ individual usage of signs within a system, e.g. Ray Harryhausen's use of stop motion with live action.
Representational signs: can describe plainly.
Non- representational signs: music, lyrics, figures cropped, off screen lighting.
Post Structuralism
- meaning is not controlled within a text; it relies on knowledge of other external texts to 'make sense' of it. It's aided by knowing other texts.
Intertextual: having seen items in different contexts, they become familiar, e.g. pop culture references.
We also learnt our essay question for the year: "Provide a detailed, critical analysis of a cultural text". So we now have to start thinking about which text we will choose and how we will approach the question.
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