Pay me pls

Sir dan K. Lin
Professor kej
Child grooming University
Method Explication: Semiotics
Overview and Purpose
Semiotics is the “study of how signs communicate meaning” that “Encompasses every use of a system where something (the sign) carries a meaning for someone.” (Bignell pg.6 2002). In short, Semiotics is concerned with looking at symbols or signs in society, everything around them, about them, their symbolic relationships, and separating each layer of meaning one could derive from them. While usually being language based, semiotics can be applied to image-based signs like photographs or advertisements just as well, as semiotics takes applying how language works, and uses it onto these media-based symbols. (Bignell pg.6 2002). The expectation of this is that when a critic breaks down the different meanings of symbols, it will reveal how a person, society, and culture assumes or thinks.

Assumption 1
An assumption a critic using Semiotics would make is that symbol systems are both outwardly and inwardly directed social structures. Per Sillars and Gronbeck(2001) , “Symbols stand in place of some aspects of the world, and yet also stand for ideas and feelings we associate with them” (pg.143). By this they mean that we think of symbols as both objects in our reality, and as language to associate with non-tangible things. As an example, we think of the word branch. The outward meaning of this would be a physical branch we can go and pick from a tree; However, a branch of government is not something you can go and just pick off of a tree(depending on who you are asking and which branch); It is being used as a symbol that is meant to be associated with the intangible idea of departmentalizing a government into smaller related sectors. So, because of our language having this duality of meanings for the same word, when we hear the word, it brings up an image of something outside of our head, such as the physical branch; but as well, it brings up the feelings and ideas we associate with the word. (Sillars and Gronbeck, 2001, pg.143). This is important as this helps the critic understand the interchangeable and different meanings a simple symbol can have when trying to break down meaning from it and its context.

Assumption 2
Another assumption a critic using Semiotics would have would be that Symbols embody people’s perceptions and reactions toward the world. Because of this as Sillars and Gronbeck explain (2001) “The Symbolic world therefore is peculiarly human realm, one wherein human beings express not only their perceptual orientation to the world, but their reactions to it” (pg.143). By this, they are saying that the person who creates or alternatively sees the symbol brings with them their own perception, their own outlook, and how they feel about the symbol. Going back to the branch example, when you hear branch as someone who has no background in government OR trees, you will think of just a physical tree branch or something of the sort off probably an oak tree, or a very common tree you are used to seeing. However, if a political science major hears the word branch, several things could pop into their head. They could think about the 3 branches of power our government has, or they could think about the branching off of major political groups such as GOP and Log Cabin republicans; and someone who is a Dendrologist, or someone who specializes in trees, would start to think about how certain tree branches differ between species, or about potentially issues with wildfires burning down entire forests starting from the dry leaves and branches; The core of this assumption is so the Critic can understand the person who made the symbol, the audience reacting to the symbol, and even the critic them self all have their own backgrounds, beliefs, values and more that they bring with them when encoding(making and placing the symbol/sign), decoding(breaking meaning down from a sign or symbol)l and defining meaning from symbols. This is important, so the Critic can be able to both understand how an audience can see a symbol, how the author of the symbol in context can be inferring with this symbol or symbolic relationship of symbols, but also so they can see how their own background can alter how they are perceiving the symbol so they can have a more open minded when trying to break down meaning from said symbol(s).

Concept 1
Major concepts within semiotics I will discuss are Situational Variance, Perspectival Variance, and Polysemy. These all deal with each other in some form so I will begin with Situational Variance. Situational Variance is how a sign can give different meanings (or signify differently) depending on where it is placed. (Sillars and Gronbeck , 2001, pg.151). An example of this is the phrase “Help me, I’m drowning!”; If one was to hear this while at the beach, they would be invoked to panic, and to assist or get proper people to assist helping this person from their presumed dire situation. However, if you were to hear this in an office workplace, you would be more inclined to think of it as a sarcastic remark regarding workload and do that thing where you exhale air out of your nose; It is the same exact sign, and can even be said in the same exact manner, but where the sign is placed greatly changes how we decode the sign and what the sign invokes from us.

Concept 2
Differing from the previous concept explained almost inversely, Perspectival Variance is how a sign can differ in meaning depending on who is the one seeing the sign and what they are “seeing” or looking for. As said by Sillars and Gronbeck while they are using the example of 4 blind men identifying the shape of an elephant different as they grabbed different parts of the elephant (2001) “They defined the object differently, because each had a different perspective of the either.” (pg. 151). this is a metaphor to help explain how each person brings something different to the table when decoding meaning, which is very important to recognize. Not only from those who had made/placed the symbol, not only from the audience decoding the symbol and their background; but for the critic to be able to recognize their own perspectival variances when trying to do analysis of symbols. Being able to understand one’s own perspectival variance allows the critic to be able to think outside of it or try to from the perspective of others, or the author. This is a strong concept that never truly goes away, but is something once one sees and understands, lets them be able to open the door to other meanings and possibilities outside what they think or feel.

Concept 3
Polysemy is the idea of the multiple meanings a sign/symbol one can derive from, in differing orders of significance depending on the social situations that the person decoding has experienced.(Sillars and Gronbeck, 2001, pg. 152) This connects back to Perspectival Variance heavily, but implies more so on a large societal scale as well as to single society members. For example, if you have a classroom of viewers who are watching the movie Boyz n the Hood, if the backgrounds of them is even partially diverse, you are going to have each person in that room experience the movie differently. You will have audience members who see it and remember how they grew up in similar situations or had to watch these experiences roll out, thus letting them have that experience to filter for them the meaning in which the film is presenting to them. You will also have audience members who never had to experience these situations growing up, whether it’s better social status, housing, financial prosperity; this denies them that filter of experience like their previously stated classmates, but instead filters of their own stemming from this ignorance due to these factors of their upbringing. This can lead to 2 very different processes of decoding of meaning between each of these members and thus allows for what the book describes as “The multiplicity of meanings a wok can support” (Sillars and Gronbeck, 2001, pg 152). When using Semiotics, the critic must be able to understand how each of these meanings can be formulated, and is a big factor in why semiotics is used more so within other theories of rhetoric than as its own standing one. With so many different meanings people can derive, its aim becomes less to find out the absolute one or consensus of one, and more applied as a proof for how a meaning can be derived from symbols/signs.
Words: 1433