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SEMIOTICS

THE BASICS

Following the success of the first edition, Semiotics: the Basics has
been revised to include new material on the development of semiotics from Saussure to contemporary socio-semiotics. This second
edition is fully updated with an extended index, glossary, and further
reading section. Using jargon-free language and lively up-to-dateexamples, this book demystifies this highly interdisciplinary subject
and addresses questions such as:
•
•
•
•
•

What is a sign?
Which codes do we take for granted?
What is a text?
How can semiotics be used in textual analysis?
Who are Saussure, Peirce, Barthes and Jakobson – and why
are they important?

The new edition of Semiotics: the Basics provides an interesting andaccessible introduction to this field of study, and is a must-have foranyone coming to semiotics for the first time.
Daniel Chandler is a Lecturer in the department of Theatre, Filmand Television Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM ROUTLEDGELANGUAGE: THE BASICS (SECOND EDITION)
R. L. TRASKPSYCHOLINGUISTICS: THE KEY CONCEPTS
JOHN FIELD
KEY CONCEPTS IN LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
R.L. TRASKTHE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO SEMIOTICS AND LINGUISTICS
PAUL COBLEYCOMMUNICATION, CULTURE AND MEDIA STUDIES:THE KEY CONCEPTS
JOHN HARTLEY

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SEMIOTICS

THE BASICS
SECOND EDITION

Daniel Chandler

First published 2002 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon,
Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Reprinted 2002, 2004 (twice), 2005

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Second edition 2007
© 2002, 2007 Daniel Chandler
The author has asserted his moral rights in relation to this work inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Chandler, Daniel.
Semiotics: the basics/Daniel Chandler. – 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Semiotics. I. Title.
P99.C463 2007 302.2–dc22
2006024738
ISBN 0–203–01493–6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–36376–4 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–36375–6 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–01493–6 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–36376–1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–36375–4 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–01493–6 (ebk)

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For Jem‘The subtlety of nature is greater many times
over than the subtlety of argument’Francis Bacon, Novum Organum(1620) Aphorism XXIV

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CONTENTS

List of illustrations
PrefaceAcknowledgements

Introduction
Definitions
Relation to linguistics
Langue and parole
Why study semiotics?

1 Models of the sign
The Saussurean model
Two sides of a pageThe relational system
Arbitrariness
The Peircean model
Relativity
Symbolic mode

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viii

CONTENTS

Iconic mode
Indexical mode
Modes not types
Changing relations
Digital and analogue
Types and tokens
Rematerializing the sign
Hjelmslev’s framework

2 Signs and things
Naming things
Referentiality
Modality
The word is not the thing
Empty signifiers

3 Analysing structures
Horizontal and vertical axes
The paradigmatic dimension
The commutation test
Oppositions
Markedness
Deconstruction
Alignment
The semiotic square
The syntagmatic dimension
Spatial relations
Sequential relations
Structural reduction

4 Challenging the literal
Rhetorical tropes
Metaphor
Metonymy
Synecdoche
Irony
Master tropes
Denotation and connotation
Myth

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CONTENTS

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5 Codes
Types of codes
Perceptual codes
Social codes
Textual codes
Codes of realism
Invisible editing
Broadcast and narrowcast codes
Interaction of textual codes
Codification

6 Textual interactions
Models of communication
The positioning of the subject
Modes of address
Reading positions
Intertextuality
Problematizing authorship
Reading as rewriting
No text is an island
Intratextuality
Bricolage
Types and degrees of intertextuality

7 Prospect and retrospect
Structuralist semiotics
Poststructuralist semiotics
Methodologies
An ecological and multimodal approach

Appendix: key figures and schools
Going further
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

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ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4

Saussure’s model of the sign
Concept and sound pattern
Planes of thought and soundThe relations between signs
Peirce’s semiotic triangle
Peirce’s successive interpretants
Substance and form
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes
Paradigm set for shot size
Markedness of some explicit oppositions in
online texts
The semiotic square
Little Red Riding Hood
Substitution in tropes
The four ‘master tropes’ as a semiotic square
Orders of signification
Some connotations of particular fonts

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xii

I L L U S T R AT I O N S

6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4

Pictorial plaque on Pioneer 10 spacecraft (1972)
Saussure’s speech circuit
Jakobson’s model of communication
Jakobson’s six functions of language

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PREFACEThe first version of this book was written in 1994 as an online hypertext document. No comparable introductory text on the subject wasavailable at the time so I rashly attempted to create one which suited
my own purposes and those of my media studies students. It was
partly a way of advancing and clarifying my own understanding of
the subject. Like many other readers driven by a fascination withmeaning-making, my forays into semiotics had been frustrated bymany of the existing books on the subject which seemed to make it
confusing, dull and deeply obscure. So much of what is written about
semiotics is written as if to keep out those who are not already‘members of the club’. This text is intended to be a ‘reader’scompanion’ in approaching more difficult semiotic texts, which sooften assume knowledge of much of the jargon.
One of the things that attracted me to semiotics was the way
in which it supports my own enjoyment of crossing the ‘boundaries’of academic disciplines, and of making connections between apparently disparate phenomena. However, I am not a polymath, so there

xiv

PREFACEare inevitably many subjects which are neglected here. In this text I
have confined myself to human semiosis, so that this is not the place
to find an introduction to such branches of semiotics as zoosemiotics (the study of the behaviour and communication of animals) orbiosemiotics (the study of the semiotics of biology and of the biological basis of signs). My focus is on the humanities and so there isno mathematical or computer semiotics here either. Even within thehumanities, I did not feel competent to cover topics such as musicalor architectural semiotics. I know that students of some of thesesubjects are among those who have consulted the text, which lendsme some hope that they will find the exploration of general principles of some relevance to their own priorities. To support the needsof such readers, the current edition does include suggestions forfurther reading in some of the subject areas not explicitly covered
within the text. The exclusion of certain subjects is not, of course,
to suggest that they are any less important to the semiotic enterprise.
The unavoidable selectivity of the text invites the productivity of thereader in its deconstruction. Driven by their own purposes, readers
will no doubt be alert to ‘what is conspicuous by its absence’.
Semiotics is a huge field, and no treatment of it can claim tobe comprehensive. My attempt to offer a coherent account of somekey concepts is in some ways misleading: there are divergent schoolsof thought in semiotics, and there is remarkably little consensus
among contemporary theorists regarding the scope of the subject,core concepts or methodological tools. In part through terminology
such as signifier, signified and code, this account reflects the influence of European ‘semiology’; however, it goes beyond theSaussurean legacy of ‘bracketing the referent’ and draws upon thePeircean tradition in recognizing that meanings depend on referential contexts as well as systemic codes. Indeed, in this second edition,
I have given more emphasis to the theories of Roman Jakobson
precisely because his version of structuralism, while both building
upon and reacting against some of Saussure’s tenets, also adopted
Peircean concepts. Indeed, Jakobson even co-opted Peirce as ‘one of
the greatest pioneers of structural linguistic analysis’ (Jakobson
1952b, 555). Nevertheless, readers seeking an introduction to specifically Peircean semiotics (as opposed to how Peircean concepts have

PREFACE

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been incorporated into the European structuralist tradition) arereferred elsewhere (Merrell 1995b, Zeman 1997, Deledalle 2000,
Merrell 2001).
The lengthy treatment of structuralist semiotics in this book isintended to be of particular value to readers who wish to use semiotics as an approach to textual analysis. However, semiotics is far
more than a method of analysing texts, and I hope I will also inspire
the reader’s enthusiasm for exploring some of the fascinating philosophical issues raised by semioticians. In case it is not obvious toreaders, I should declare a social constructionist bias, which is notshared by all semioticians. For semioticians who are (in contrast)
drawn towards philosophical realism, reality is wholly external toand independent of how we conceptualize the world. Social constructionism does not entail denying the existence of all external reality
but it does assume that our sign-systems (language and other media)
play a major part in ‘the social construction of reality’ (or at least‘the construction of social reality’) and that realities cannot be separated from the sign-systems in which they are experienced. It is
hardly surprising when social constructionists are drawn to semiotics, but readers may of course insist on being philosophical realists
without abandoning semiotics (many semioticians are indeed realists). Note that I make reference here to an opposition between
idealism and realism, and those who are already well-read in philosophy may object that this sometimes involves a common conflationof two pairings, namely:
1. idealism vs. epistemological realism (stances on the issueof whether or not the reality of a physical world is dependent on our minds or language);
2. nominalism vs. conceptual realism (stances on the issue of
whether or not the reality of abstract universals is dependent on our minds or language).
Though I may be blamed for oversimplification, such conflation
should be taken to refer to what these pairings have in common:
namely, the issue of whether we have any access to what is real apartfrom the mind and language. A potential problem is that I refer toPeirce (as do most commentators, and as did Peirce himself) as a

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PREFACE‘realist’ (by which I mean an epistemological realist), but he canalso be labelled a ‘conceptual idealist’ (Sebeok 1994a, 14–15; cf.
Merrell 1997, Chapter 4, on Peirce’s ‘objective idealism’).
In quoting from the text of Saussure’s Course in General
Linguistics, the translation used is that of Roy Harris (Saussure1983), although, following the practice of John Sturrock in using
this translation (Sturrock 1986, 31, 32), I have retained the terms‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ rather than use Harris’s translation ofsignifiant as ‘signal’ and signifié as ‘signification’. Citations from
Peirce’s Collected Papers (Peirce 1931–58) follow the standard practice of listing the volume number and section number thus: (2.227).
Wherever I include quotations within the current text it may be
assumed that any italicization was that of the original author except
where I add the note – ‘my emphasis’.
A Korean translation of the first edition of this book is currently
in progress. If there is a demand for translations into other languages,
please approach my British publishers.
At the time of writing, the online version of this text was at:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/
URLs change periodically, so, if necessary, you could use a searchengine to locate it.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The original online text might not have found its way into print if
it were not for the unsolicited encouragement to publish which I
received from the philosopher Anthony C. Grayling of Birkbeck
College, University of London, to whom I am particularly grateful.
Special thanks go to my linguist colleagues Bob Morris Jones andMarilyn Martin-Jones for their continued support and encouragement throughout the evolution of this text and of its author. I would
also like to thank Vanessa Hogan Vega and Iván Rodrigo Mendizábal
for producing a Spanish translation of an early online version(Chandler 1998), and Maria Constantopoulou of the Athens University of Economics and Business for the Greek translation of theonline version and for several invitations to teach summer schools
in Greece for MSc students of Marketing and Communication. The
development of both editions of the book has benefited from theuseful comments of a number of reviewers (although it was notalways possible to address all of their sometimes conflicting points).
Special thanks for helpful reviews are due to Juan A. Prieto-Pablos

xviiiACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

of the University of Seville, to Ernest W. B. Hess-Lüttich of the
University of Berne, to Edward McDonald of the University of
Auckland, and to Guy Cook of the Open University.
For specific assistance with the first edition I would like torepeat my thanks to Winfried Nöth of the University of Kassel for
his useful comments on articulation and empty signifiers and to
David Glen Mick of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who kept
me updated on the semiotics of advertising. For the second edition,
thanks to Roderick Munday, Osama Ammar and Tommi Turunen (allof whom have studied with me) for their helpful comments and to
Jo B. Paoletti of the University of Maryland for tracking down forme the original source of the widely misattributed ‘pink and blue’
quotation in Chapter 5. Martin Ryder of the University of Colorado
at Denver suggested weblinks. Figure 4.4 was adapted from diagrams©2001 Software Usability Research Laboratory, Wichita State
University. The image from the plaque on Pioneer 10 shown in Figure
6.1 was produced by the Pioneer Project at NASA Ames ResearchCenter and obtained from NASA’s National Space Science Data
Center with the kind assistance of John F. Cooper.
The publisher and author have made every effort to trace copyright holders and to obtain permission to publish extracts. Any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.

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INTRODUCTION

If you go into a bookshop and ask an assistant where to find a bookon semiotics, you are likely to meet with a blank look. Even worse,
you might be asked to define what semiotics is – which would be a
bit tricky if you were looking for a beginner’s guide. It’s worse still
if you do know a bit about semiotics, because it can be hard to offer
a simple definition which is of much use in the bookshop. If you’ve
ever been in such a situation, you’ll probably agree that it’s wise notto ask. Semiotics could be anywhere. The shortest definition is that
it is the study of signs. But that doesn’t leave enquirers much wiser.
‘What do you mean by a sign?’ people usually ask next. The kindsof signs that are likely to spring immediately to mind are those which
we routinely refer to as ‘signs’ in everyday life, such as road signs,
pub signs and star signs. If you were to agree with them that semiotics can include the study of all these and more, people will probably
assume that semiotics is about ‘visual signs’. You would confirm
their hunch if you said that signs can also be drawings, paintingsand photographs, and by now they’d be keen to direct you to the art

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS

and photography sections. But if you are thick-skinned and tell themthat it also includes words, sounds and ‘body language’, they may
reasonably wonder what all these things have in common and how
anyone could possibly study such disparate phenomena. If you get
this far, they’ve probably already ‘read the signs’ which suggest thatyou are either eccentric or insane and communication may haveceased.
DEFINITIONS
Beyond the most basic definition as ‘the study of signs’, there isconsiderable variation among leading semioticians as to what semiotics involves. One of the broadest definitions is that of Umberto
Eco, who states that ‘semiotics is concerned with everything thatcan be taken as a sign’ (Eco 1976, 7). Semiotics involves the study
not only of what we refer to as ‘signs’ in everyday speech, but ofanything which ‘stands for’ something else. In a semiotic sense, signs
take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects.
Contemporary semioticians study signs not in isolation but as partof semiotic ‘sign-systems’ (such as a medium or genre). They study
how meanings are made and how reality is represented.
Theories of signs (or ‘symbols’) appear throughout the historyof philosophy from ancient times onwards (see Todorov 1982), thefirst explicit reference to semiotics as a branch of philosophy
appearing in John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding(1690). However, the two primary traditions in contemporary semiotics stem respectively from the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure(1857–1913) and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce(pronounced ‘purse’) (1839–1914). Saussure’s term sémiologie dates
from a manuscript of 1894. The first edition of his Course in General
Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, contains the declaration that:
It is . . . possible to conceive of a science which studies the roleof signs as part of social life. It would form part of social
psychology, and hence of general psychology. We shall call itINTRODUCTION

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semiology (from the Greek sēmeîon, ‘sign’). It would investigate
the nature of signs and the laws governing them. Since it does
not yet exist, one cannot say for certain that it will exist. But it
has a right to exist, a place ready for it in advance. Linguistics
is only one branch of this general science. The laws which semiology will discover will be laws applicable in linguistics, andlinguistics will thus be assigned to a clearly defined place in thefield of human knowledge.
(Saussure 1983, 15–16)

While for the linguist Saussure ‘semiology’ was ‘a science which
studies the role of signs as part of social life’, to the philosopher
Charles Peirce the field of study which he called ‘semeiotic’ (or‘semiotic’) was the ‘formal doctrine of signs’, which was closely
related to logic (Peirce 1931–58, 2.227). Working quite independently from Saussure across the Atlantic, Peirce borrowed his termfrom Locke, declaring that:
Logic, in its general sense, is . . . only another name for semiotic (sémeiötiké), the quasi-necessary, or formal, doctrine ofsigns. By describing the doctrine as ‘quasi-necessary’, orformal, I mean that we observe the characters of such signs
as we know, and . . . by a process which I will not object tonaming abstraction, we are led to statements, eminently fallible,
and therefore in one sense by no means necessary, as to whatmust be the characters of all signs used by a ‘scientific’ intelligence, that is to say, by an intelligence capable of learning by
experience.
(Peirce 1931–58, 2.227)

Peirce and Saussure are widely regarded as the co-founders of what
is now more generally known as semiotics. They established two
major theoretical traditions. Saussure’s term ‘semiology’ is sometimes used to refer to the Saussurean tradition while the term
‘semiotics’ sometimes refers to the Peircean tradition. However,
nowadays the term ‘semiotics’ is widely used as an umbrella term

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to embrace the whole field (Nöth 1990, 14). We will outline anddiscuss both the Saussurean and Peircean models of the sign in thenext chapter.
Some commentators adopt Charles W. Morris’s definition ofsemiotics (a reductive variant of Saussure’s definition) as ‘the scienceof signs’ (Morris 1938, 1–2). The term ‘science’ is misleading. As
yet, semiotics involves no widely agreed theoretical assumptions,models or empirical methodologies. Semiotics has tended to belargely theoretical, many of its theorists seeking to establish its scopeand general principles. Peirce and Saussure, for instance, wereboth concerned with the fundamental definition of the sign. Peirce
developed logical taxonomies of types of signs. Many subsequentsemioticians have sought to identify and categorize the codes orconventions according to which signs are organized. Clearly there isa need to establish a firm theoretical foundation for a subject which
is currently characterized by a host of competing theoretical assumptions. As for methodologies, Saussure’s theories constituted a starting
point for the development of various structuralist methodologies foranalysing texts and social practices. For Roman Jakobson, semiotics‘deals with those general principles which underlie the structure of
all signs whatever and with the character of their utilization withinmessages, as well as with the specifics of the various sign systems
and of the diverse messages using those different kinds of signs’(Jakobson 1968, 698). Structuralist methods have been very widely
employed in the analysis of many cultural phenomena. However,they are not universally accepted: socially oriented theorists havecriticized their exclusive focus on structure, and no alternative
methodologies have as yet been widely adopted.
Semiotics is not widely institutionalized as an academic discipline (although it does have its own associations, conferences andjournals, and it exists as a department in a handful of universities).
It is a field of study involving many different theoretical stances andmethodological tools. Although there are some self-styled ‘semioticians’, those involved in semiotics include linguists, philosophers,
psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, literary, aesthetic andmedia theorists, psychoanalysts and educationalists.

INTRODUCTION

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RELATION TO LINGUISTICS
This book concentrates on structuralist semiotics (and its poststructuralist critiques). It is difficult to disentangle European semiotics
from structuralism in its origins. Linguistic structuralism derived primarily from Saussure, Hjelmslev and Jakobson. It was Jakobson who
first coined the term ‘structuralism’ in 1929 (Jakobson 1990, 6).
Structuralism is an analytical method which involves the applicationof the linguistic model to a much wider range of social phenomena.
Jakobson wrote that ‘Language is . . . a purely semiotic system . . .
The study of signs, however, . . . must take into consideration
also applied semiotic structures, as for instance, architecture, dress,or cuisine . . . any edifice is simultaneously some sort of refuge anda certain kind of message. Similarly, any garment responds to definitely utilitarian requirements and at the same time exhibits various
semiotic properties’ (1968, 703). He identified ‘the cardinal functionsof language’ (see Chapter 6) and argued that this should lead to ‘ananalogous study of the other semiotic systems’ (ibid.). Structuralists
search for ‘deep structures’ underlying the ‘surface features’ of signsystems: Lévi-Strauss in myth, kinship rules and totemism; Lacan in
the unconscious; Barthes and Greimas in the ‘grammar’ of narrative.
Julia Kristeva declared that ‘what semiotics has discovered . . . is thatthe law governing or, if one prefers, the major constraint affecting any social practice lies in the fact that it signifies; i.e. that it isarticulated like a language’ (Kristeva 1973, 1249).
Saussure argued that ‘nothing is more appropriate than the
study of languages to bring out the nature of the semiological problem’ (Saussure 1983, 16). Semiotics draws heavily on linguistic concepts, partly because of his influence, and also because linguistics isa more established discipline than the study of other sign-systems.
Saussure referred to language (his model being speech) as ‘the mostimportant’ of all of the systems of signs (Saussure 1983, 15). Manyother theorists have regarded language as fundamental. Roman
Jakobson insisted that ‘language is the central and most importantamong all human semiotic systems’ (Jakobson 1970, 455). Émile
Benveniste observed that ‘language is the interpreting system of allother systems, linguistic and non-linguistic’ (Benveniste 1969, 239),

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while Claude Lévi-Strauss noted that ‘language is the semiotic system par excellence; it cannot but signify, and exists only through signification’ (Lévi-Strauss 1972, 48). Language is almost invariably
regarded as the most powerful communication system by far.
One of the most powerful ‘design features’ of language iscalled double articulation (or ‘duality of patterning’). Double articulation enables a semiotic code to form an infinite number of
meaningful combinations using a small number of low-level units
which in themselves are meaningless (e.g. phonemes in speech orgraphemes in writing). The infinite use of finite elements is a feature
which in relation to media in general has been referred to as ‘semiotic economy’. Traditional definitions ascribe double articulation
only to human language, for which this is regarded as a key ‘design
feature’ (Hockett 1958). Louis Hjelmslev regarded it as an essential
and defining feature of language (Hjelmslev 1961). Jakobson asserted
that ‘language is the only system which is composed of elements
which are signifiers and yet at the same time signify nothing’(Jakobson 1976, 230). Double articulation is seen as being largely
responsible for the creative economy of language. The English
language, for instance, has only about forty or fifty elements ofsecond articulation (phonemes) but these can generate hundreds ofthousands of words. Similarly, from a limited vocabulary we cangenerate an infinite number of sentences (subject to the constraintof syntax which governs structurally valid combinations). It is bycombining words in multiple ways that we can seek to render theparticularity of experience. If we had individual words to represent
every particularity, we would have to have an infinite number ofthem, which would exceed our capability of learning, recalling andmanipulating them.
Double articulation does not seem to occur in the naturalcommunication systems of animals other than humans. A key semiotic debate is over whether or not semiotic systems such as
photography, film or painting have double articulation. The philosopher Susanne Langer argued that while visual media such as
photography, painting and drawing have lines, colours, shadings,
shapes, proportions and so on which are ‘abstractable and combinatory’, and which ‘are just as capable of articulation, i.e. of complex

INTRODUCTION

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combination, as words’, they have no vocabulary of units withindependent meanings (Langer 1951, 86–7).
A symbolism with so many elements, such myriad relationships,
cannot be broken up into basic units. It is impossible to findthe smallest independent symbol, and recognize its identity
when the same unit is met in other contexts . . . There is, ofcourse, a technique of picturing objects, but the laws governing
this technique cannot properly be called a ‘syntax’, since there
are no items that might be called, metaphorically, the ‘words’of portraiture.
(Langer 1951, 88)

Rather than dismissing ‘non-discursive’ media for their limitations,however, Langer argues that they are more complex and subtle thanverbal language and are ‘peculiarly well-suited to the expression ofideas that defy linguistic “projection” ’. She argues that we should
not seek to impose linguistic models upon other media since thelaws that govern their articulation ‘are altogether different fromthe laws of syntax that govern language’. Treating them in linguistic
terms leads us to ‘misconceive’ them: they resist ‘translation’ (ibid.,86–9).
Saussure saw linguistics as a branch of ‘semiology’:
Linguistics is only one branch of this general science [of semiology]. The laws which semiology will discover will be laws
applicable in linguistics . . . As far as we are concerned . . . thelinguistic problem is first and foremost semiological . . . If one
wishes to discover the true nature of language systems, onemust first consider what they have in common with all othersystems of the same kind . . . In this way, light will be thrown
not only upon the linguistic problem. By considering rites,customs etc. as signs, it will be possible, we believe, to seethem in a new perspective. The need will be felt to consider
them as semiological phenomena and to explain them in termsof the laws of semiology.
(Saussure 1983, 16–17)

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS

While Roland Barthes (1967b, xi) declared that ‘perhaps we must
invert Saussure’s formulation and assert that semiology is a branchof linguistics’, most of those who call themselves semioticians at least
implicitly accept Saussure’s location of linguistics within semiotics.
The linguist and semiotician Roman Jakobson was in no doubt that‘language is a system of signs, and linguistics is part and parcel ofthe science of signs or semiotics’ (Jakobson 1949a, 50; cf. 1970, 454).
However, even if we theoretically locate linguistics within semiotics
it is difficult to avoid adopting the linguistic model in exploring othersign-systems. The American linguist Leonard Bloomfield asserted
that ‘linguistics is the chief contributor to semiotics’ (Bloomfield
1939, 55). Jakobson defined semiotics as ‘the general science of signs
which has as its basic discipline linguistics, the science of verbal
signs’ (Jakobson 1963e, 289). Semioticians commonly refer to films,
television and radio programmes, advertising posters and so on as‘texts’, and to ‘reading television’ (Fiske and Hartley 1978). Media
such as television and film are regarded by some semioticians as
being in some respects like languages. The issue tends to revolvearound whether such media are closer to what we treat as reality inthe everyday world of our own experience or whether they have morein common with a symbolic system like writing. However, there is adanger of trying to force all media into a linguistic framework.
Contemporary ‘social semiotics’ has moved beyond the structuralist
focus on signifying systems as languages, seeking to explore the useof signs in specific social situations.
LANGUE AND PAROLE
We will shortly examine Saussure’s highly influential model of thesign, but before doing so it is important to understand something
about the general framework within which he situated it. Saussure
made what is now a famous distinction between langue (language)
and parole (speech). Langue refers to the system of rules and conventions which is independent of, and pre-exists, individual users; parolerefers to its use in particular instances. Applying the notion to semiotic systems in general rather than simply to language, the distinction
is one between system and usage, structure and event or code andINTRODUCTION

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message. According to the Saussurean distinction, in a semiotic
system such as cinema, for instance, individual films can be seen as
the parole of an underlying system of cinema ‘language’. Saussure
focused on langue rather than parole. To the Saussurean semiotician, what matters most are the underlying structures and rules of asemiotic system as a whole rather than specific performances or practices which are merely instances of its use. Saussure’s approach was
to study the system ‘synchronically’ as if it were frozen in time (likea photograph) – rather than ‘diachronically’ – in terms of its evolution over time (like a film). Some structuralist cultural theorists
subsequently adopted this Saussurean priority, focusing on the functions of social and cultural phenomena within semiotic systems.
Theorists differ over whether the system precedes and determines
usage (structural determinism) or whether usage precedes and determines the system (social determinism) (although note that moststructuralists argue that the system constrains rather than completely
determines usage).
The structuralist dichotomy between usage and system has
been criticized for its rigidity, splitting process from product, subject
from structure (Coward and Ellis 1977, 4, 14; Csikszentmihalyi andRochberg-Halton 1981, 44, 173–4). A fundamental objection is thatthe prioritization of structure over usage fails to account for changes
in structure. Marxist theorists have been particularly critical. In thelate 1920s, Valentin Voloshinov rejected Saussure’s synchronic
approach and his emphasis on internal relations within the systemof language (Voloshinov 1973; Morris 1994). Voloshinov reversed
the Saussurean priority of langue over parole: ‘The sign is part oforganized social intercourse and cannot exist, as such, outside it,reverting to a mere physical artifact’ (Voloshinov 1973, 21). The
meaning of a sign is not in its relationship to other signs within thelanguage system but rather in the social context of its use. Saussure
was criticized for ignoring historicity (ibid., 61). The Russian
linguists Roman Jakobson and Yuri Tynyanov declared in 1927 that‘pure synchronism now proves to be an illusion’, adding that ‘every
synchronic system has its past and its future as inseparable structural elements of the system’ (cited in Voloshinov 1973, 166).
Writing in 1929, Voloshinov observed that ‘there is no real moment

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in time when a synchronic system of language could be constructed. . . A synchronic system may be said to exist only from the pointof view of the subjective consciousness of an individual speaker
belonging to some particular language group at some particular
moment of historical time’ (Voloshinov 1973, 66). While the French
structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss applied a synchronic approach in
the domain of anthropology, most contemporary semioticians havesought to reprioritize historicity and social context. Language isseldom treated as a static, closed and stable system which is inherited from preceding generations but as constantly changing. The sign,
as Voloshinov put it, is ‘an arena of the class struggle’ (ibid., 23).
Seeking to establish a wholeheartedly ‘social semiotics’, Robert
Hodge and Gunther Kress declare that ‘the social dimensions ofsemiotic systems are so intrinsic to their nature and function that thesystems cannot be studied in isolation’ (Hodge and Kress 1988, 1).
WHY STUDY SEMIOTICS?
While Saussure may be hailed as a founder of semiotics, semiotics
has become increasingly less Saussurean since the 1970s. While thecurrent account of semiotics focuses primarily on its structuralist
forms, we will also explore relevant critiques and subsequent developments. But before launching on an exploration of this intriguing
subject, let us consider why we should bother: why should we study
semiotics? This is a pressing question in part because the writingsof semioticians have a reputation for being dense with jargon: one
critic wittily remarked that ‘semiotics tells us things we already know
in a language we will never understand’ (Paddy Whannel, cited in
Seiter 1992, 31).
The semiotic establishment may seem to be a very exclusive
club but its concerns are not confined to members. No one with aninterest in how things are represented can afford to ignore an
approach which focuses on, and problematizes, the process of representation. While we need not accept the postmodernist stance that
there is no external reality beyond sign-systems, studying semiotics
can assist us to become more aware of the mediating role of signs
and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing social

INTRODUCTION

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realities. It can make us less likely to take reality for granted as
something which is wholly independent of human interpretation.
Exploring semiotic perspectives, we may come to realize that information or meaning is not ‘contained’ in the world or in books,
computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not ‘transmitted’ to us– we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes orconventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware ofsuch codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs andwe have no way of understanding anything except through signs andthe codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics, we become aware that these signs and codes are normallytransparent and disguise our task in reading them. Living in a worldof increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most
realistic signs are not what they appear to be. By making more
explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted, we may performthe valuable semiotic function of denaturalizing signs. This is not tosuggest that all representations of reality are of equal status – quite
the contrary. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions.
Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose
realities are privileged and whose are suppressed. Such a study
involves investigating the construction and maintenance of reality byparticular social groups. To decline the study of signs is to leave toothers the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit.

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1
MODELS OF THE
SIGN

We seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meanings:
above all, we are surely homo significans – meaning-makers. Distinctively, we make meanings through our creation and interpretation of‘signs’. Indeed, according to Peirce, ‘we think only in signs’ (Peirce
1931–58, 2.302). Signs take the form of words, images, sounds,
odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic
meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.
‘Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign’, declares Peirce(ibid., 2.172). Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets
it as ‘signifying’ something – referring to or standing for somethingother than itself. We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously
by relating them to familiar systems of conventions. It is this meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of the concerns of semiotics.
The two dominant contemporary models of what constitutes asign are those of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and theAmerican philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. These will be discussed
in turn.

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS

THE SAUSSUREAN MODEL
Saussure’s model of the sign is in the dyadic tradition. Prior advocates of dyadic models, in which the two parts of a sign consist of a‘sign vehicle’ and its meaning, included Augustine (397), Albertus
Magnus and the Scholastics (13th century), Hobbes (1640) and Locke(1690) (see Nöth 1990, 88). Focusing on linguistic signs (such aswords), Saussure defined a sign as being composed of a ‘signifier’(signifiant) and a ‘signified’ (signifié) (see Figure 1.1). Contemporarycommentators tend to describe the signifier as the form that the sign
takes and the signified as the concept to which it refers. Saussure
makes the distinction in these terms:
A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but
between a concept [signified] and a sound pattern [signifier]. The
sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is somethingphysical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses.
This sound pattern may be called a ‘material’ element only inthat it is the representation of our sensory impressions. The
sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element
associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element isgenerally of a more abstract kind: the concept.
(Saussure 1983, 66)

For Saussure, both the signifier (the ‘sound pattern’) and the signified (the concept) were purely ‘psychological’ (ibid., 12, 14–15, 66).

signifiedsignifierF I G U R E 1 . 1 Saussure’s model of the sign
Source: Based on Saussure 1967, 158

MODELS OF THE SIGN

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Both were non-material form rather than substance. Figure 1.2 mayhelp to clarify this aspect of Saussure’s own model. Nowadays, while
the basic ‘Saussurean’ model is commonly adopted, it tends to be amore materialistic model than that of Saussure himself. The signifier is now commonly interpreted as the material (or physical) formof the sign – it is something which can be seen, heard, touched,smelled or tasted – as with Roman Jakobson’s signans, which hedescribed as the external and perceptible part of the sign (Jakobson
1963b, 111; 1984b, 98).
Within the Saussurean model, the sign is the whole that resultsfrom the association of the signifier with the signified (ibid., 67).
The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred
to as ‘signification’, and this is represented in the Saussurean diagramby the arrows. The horizontal broken line marking the two elementsof the sign is referred to as ‘the bar’.
If we take a linguistic example, the word ‘open’ (when it isinvested with meaning by someone who encounters it on a shop
doorway) is a sign consisting of:• a signifier: the word ‘open’;• a signified concept: that the shop is open for business.
A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot havea totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signifiedtree

F I G U R E 1 . 2 Concept and sound pattern

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS(ibid., 101). A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier witha particular signified. The same signifier (the word ‘open’) could
stand for a different signified (and thus be a different sign) if it wereon a push-button inside a lift (‘push to open door’). Similarly, many
signifiers could stand for the concept ‘open’ (for instance, on top ofa packing carton, a small outline of a box with an open flap for‘open this end’) – again, with each unique pairing constituting a
different sign.
Saussure focused on the linguistic sign and he ‘phonocentrically’ privileged the spoken word. As we have noted, he referred
specifically to the signifier as a ‘sound pattern’ (image acoustique).
He saw writing as a separate, secondary, dependent but comparable
sign-system (ibid., 15, 24–5, 117). Within the (‘separate’) system of
written signs, a signifier such as the written letter ‘t’ signified a soundin the primary sign-system of language (and thus a written word
would also signify a sound rather than a concept). Thus for Saussure,writing relates to speech as signifier to signified or, as Derrida puts
it, for Saussure writing is ‘a sign of a sign’ (Derrida 1967a, 43). Most
subsequent theorists who have adopted Saussure’s model tend to referto the form of linguistic signs as either spoken or written (e.g.
Jakobson 1970, 455–6 and 1984b, 98). We will return later to theissue of the post-Saussurean ‘rematerialization’ of the sign.
As for the signified, Umberto Eco notes that it is somewhere
between ‘a mental image, a concept and a psychological reality’ (Eco
1976, 14–15). Most commentators who adopt Saussure’s model stilltreat the signified as a mental construct, although they often notethat it may nevertheless refer indirectly to things in the world.
Saussure’s original model of the sign ‘brackets the referent’,excluding reference to objects existing in the world – somewhat ironically for one who defined semiotics as ‘a science which studies therole of signs as part of social life’ (Saussure 1983, 15). His signified is not to be identified directly with such a referent but is aconcept in the mind – not a thing but the notion of a thing. Somepeople may wonder why Saussure’s model of the sign refers only toa concept and not to a thing. An observation from Susanne Langer(who was not referring to Saussure’s theories) may be useful here.
Note that like most contemporary commentators, Langer uses theMODELS OF THE SIGN

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term ‘symbol’ to refer to the linguistic sign (a term which Saussure
himself avoided): ‘Symbols are not proxy for their objects but are
vehicles for the conception of objects . . . In talking about things wehave conceptions of them, not the things themselves; and it is theconceptions, not the things, that symbols directly mean. Behaviour
towards conceptions is what words normally evoke; this is the typical
process of thinking’. She adds that ‘If I say “Napoleon”, you do not
bow to the conqueror of Europe as though I had introduced him, but
merely think of him’ (Langer 1951, 61).
Thus, for Saussure the linguistic sign is wholly immaterial –although he disliked referring to it as ‘abstract’ (Saussure 1983, 15).
The immateriality of the Saussurean sign is a feature which tends
to be neglected in many popular commentaries. If the notion seems
strange, we need to remind ourselves that words have no value inthemselves – that is their value. Saussure noted that it is not themetal in a coin that fixes its value (ibid., 117). Several reasons could
be offered for this. For instance, if linguistic signs drew attention totheir materiality this would hinder their communicative transparency.
Furthermore, being immaterial, language is an extraordinarily economical medium and words are always ready to hand. Nevertheless,a principled argument can be made for the revaluation of the materiality of the sign, as we shall see in due course.
TWO SIDES OF A PAGE
Saussure stressed that sound and thought (or the signifier and the signified) were as inseparable as the two sides of a piece of paper(Saussure 1983, 111). They were ‘intimately linked’ in the mind ‘byan associative link’ – ‘each triggers the other’ (ibid., 66). Saussure presented these elements as wholly interdependent, neither pre-existing
the other. Within the context of spoken language, a sign could not consist of sound without sense or of sense without sound. He used thetwo arrows in the diagram to suggest their interaction. The bar and the
opposition nevertheless suggest that the signifier and the signified canbe distinguished for analytical purposes. Poststructuralist theorists
criticize the clear distinction which the Saussurean bar seems tosuggest between the signifier and the signified; they seek to blur or

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erase it in order to reconfigure the sign. Common sense tends to insist
that the signified takes precedence over, and pre-exists, the signifier:‘look after the sense’, quipped Lewis Carroll, ‘and the sounds will takecare of themselves’ (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 9).
However, in dramatic contrast, post-Saussurean theorists have seen themodel as implicitly granting primacy to the signifier, thus reversing
the commonsensical position.
THE RELATIONAL SYSTEM
Saussure argued that signs only make sense as part of a formal,
generalized and abstract system. His conception of meaning waspurely structural and relational rather than referential: primacy isgiven to relationships rather than to things (the meaning of signs
was seen as lying in their systematic relation to each other rather
than deriving from any inherent features of signifiers or any reference to material things). Saussure did not define signs in terms ofsome essential or intrinsic nature. For Saussure, signs refer primarily
to each other. Within the language system, ‘everything depends on
relations’ (Saussure 1983, 121). No sign makes sense on its own but

AB
F I G U R E 1 . 3 Planes of thought and soundSource: Based on Saussure 1967, 156

MODELS OF THE SIGN

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only in relation to other signs. Both signifier and signified are purely
relational entities (ibid., 118). This notion can be hard to understandsince we may feel that an individual word such as ‘tree’ does havesome meaning for us, but Saussure’s argument is that its meaning
depends on its relation to other words within the system (such as‘bush’).
Together with the ‘vertical’ alignment of signifier and signified
within each individual sign (suggesting two structural ‘levels’), theemphasis on the relationship between signs defines what are in effecttwo planes – that of the signifier and the signified. Later, Louis
Hjelmslev referred to the ‘expression plane’ and the ‘content plane’(Hjelmslev 1961, 59). Saussure himself referred to sound and thoughtas two distinct but correlated planes (see Figure 1.3). ‘We can envisage . . . the language . . . as a series of adjoining subdivisions simultaneously imprinted both on the plane of vague, amorphous thought(A), and on the equally featureless plane of sound (B)’ (Saussure
1983, 110–11). The arbitrary division of the two continua into signs
is suggested by the dotted lines while the wavy (rather than parallel)edges of the two ‘amorphous’ masses suggest the lack of any natural
fit between them. The gulf and lack of fit between the two planes
highlights their relative autonomy. While Saussure is careful not torefer directly to reality, the American literary theorist Fredric Jameson
reads into this feature of Saussure’s system that:
it is not so much the individual word or sentence that ‘stands
for’ or ‘reflects’ the individual object or event in the real world,
but rather that the entire system of signs, the entire field of thelangue, lies parallel to reality itself; that it is the totality of systematic language, in other words, which is analogous to whateverorganized structures exist in the world of reality, and that our
understanding proceeds from one whole or Gestalt to the other,rather than on a one-to-one basis.
(Jameson 1972, 32–3)

What Saussure refers to as the ‘value’ of a sign depends on its relations with other signs within the system (see Figure 1.4). A sign has
no ‘absolute’ value independent of this context (Saussure 1983, 80).

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signifiedsignifiedsignifiedsignifiersignifiersignifierF I G U R E 1 . 4 The relations between signs
Source: Based on Saussure 1967, 159

Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess, noting that thevalue of each piece depends on its position on the chessboard (ibid.,88). The sign is more than the sum of its parts. While signification– what is signified – clearly depends on the relationship between thetwo parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign and other signs within the system as awhole (ibid., 112–13).
The notion of value . . . shows us that it is a great mistake toconsider a sign as nothing more than the combination of acertain sound and a certain concept. To think of a sign asnothing more would be to isolate it from the system to which
it belongs. It would be to suppose that a start could be madewith individual signs, and a system constructed by putting them
together. On the contrary, the system as a united whole is thestarting point, from which it becomes possible, by a process ofanalysis, to identify its constituent elements.
(Saussure 1983, 112)

As an example of the distinction between signification and value,
Saussure notes that:
The French word mouton may have the same meaning as the
English word sheep; but it does not have the same value. There
are various reasons for this, but in particular the fact that the
English word for the meat of this animal, as prepared and served
for a meal, is not sheep but mutton. The difference in value
between sheep and mouton hinges on the fact that in English

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there is also another word mutton for the meat, whereas mouton
in French covers both.
(Saussure 1983, 114)

Saussure’s relational conception of meaning was specifically differential: he emphasized the differences between signs. Language forhim was a system of functional differences and oppositions. ‘In alanguage, as in every other semiological system, what distinguishes
a sign is what constitutes it’ (ibid., 119). It has been noted that ‘a
one-term language is an impossibility because its single term could
be applied to everything and differentiate nothing; it requires at least
one other term to give it definition’ (Sturrock 1979, 10). Advertisingfurnishes a good example of this notion, since what matters in ‘positioning’ a product is not the relationship of advertising signifiers toreal-world referents, but the differentiation of each sign from theothers to which it is related. Saussure’s concept of the relational
identity of signs is at the heart of structuralist theory.
Saussure emphasized in particular negative, oppositional
differences between signs. He argued that ‘concepts . . . are defined
not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast
with other items in the same system. What characterizes each mostexactly is being whatever the others are not’ (Saussure 1983, 115;
my emphasis). This notion may initially seem mystifying if notperverse, but the concept of negative differentiation becomes clearer
if we consider how we might teach someone who did not share ourlanguage what we mean by the term ‘red’. We would be unlikely tomake our point by simply showing that person a range of different
objects which all happened to be red – we would probably do betterto single out a red object from a set of objects which were identicalin all respects except colour. Although Saussure focuses on speech,
he also noted that in writing, ‘the values of the letter are purely negative and differential’ – all we need to be able to do is to distinguish
one letter from another (ibid., 118). As for his emphasis on negative differences, Saussure remarks that although both the signified
and the signifier are purely differential and negative when considered separately, the sign in which they are combined is a positive
term. He adds that ‘the moment we compare one sign with another

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as positive combinations, the term difference should be dropped. . . Two signs . . . are not different from each other, but only distinct.
They are simply in opposition to each other. The entire mechanismof language . . . is based on oppositions of this kind and upon thephonic and conceptual differences they involve’ (ibid., 119).
ARBITRARINESS
Although the signifier is treated by its users as ‘standing for’ thesignified, Saussurean semioticians emphasize that there is no necessary, intrinsic, direct or inevitable relationship between the signifier
and the signified. Saussure stressed the arbitrariness of the sign(ibid., 67, 78) – more specifically the arbitrariness of the link between
the signifier and the signified (ibid., 67). He was focusing on
linguistic signs, seeing language as the most important sign-system;
for Saussure, the arbitrary nature of the sign was the first principleof language (ibid., 67) – arbitrariness was identified later by Charles
Hockett as a key ‘design feature’ of language (Hockett 1958). The
feature of arbitrariness may indeed help to account for the extraordinary versatility of language (Lyons 1977, 71). In the context ofnatural language, Saussure stressed that there is no inherent, essential, transparent, self-evident or natural connection between thesignifier and the signified – between the sound of a word and theconcept to which it refers (Saussure 1983, 67, 68–9, 76, 111, 117).
Note that although Saussure prioritized speech, he also stressed that‘the signs used in writing are arbitrary, The letter t, for instance, has
no connection with the sound it denotes’ (Saussure 1983, 117).
Saussure himself avoids directly relating the principle of arbitrariness to the relationship between language and an external world, but
subsequent commentators often do. Indeed, lurking behind the purely
conceptual ‘signified’ one can often detect Saussure’s allusion toreal-world referents, as when he notes that ‘the street and the train
are real enough. Their physical existence is essential to our understanding of what they are’ (ibid., 107). In language, at least, the formof the signifier is not determined by what it signifies: there is nothing‘treeish’ about the word ‘tree’. Languages differ, of course, in how
they refer to the same referent. No specific signifier is naturally more

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suited to a signified than any other signifier; in principle any signifier could represent any signified. Saussure observed that ‘there isnothing at all to prevent the association of any idea whatsoever withany sequence of sounds whatsoever’ (ibid., 76); ‘the process which
selects one particular sound-sequence to correspond to one particularidea is completely arbitrary’ (ibid., 111).
This principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign was
not an original conception. In Plato’s dialogue Cratylus this issue isdebated. Although Cratylus defends the notion of a natural relationship between words and what they represent, Hermogenes
declares that ‘no one is able to persuade me that the correctness ofnames is determined by anything besides convention and agreement. . . No name belongs to a particular thing by nature’ (Plato 1998,
2). While Socrates rejects the absolute arbitrariness of language
proposed by Hermogenes, he does acknowledge that convention
plays a part in determining meaning. In his work On Interpretation,
Aristotle went further, asserting that there can be no natural connection between the sound of any language and the things signified. ‘Bya noun [or name] we mean a sound significant by convention . . .
the limitation “by convention” was introduced because nothing is bynature a noun or name – it is only so when it becomes a symbol’(Aristotle 2004, 2). The issue even enters into everyday discourse
via Shakespeare: ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet’. The notion of the arbitrariness of language was thus
not new; indeed, Roman Jakobson notes that Saussure ‘borrowed andexpanded’ it from the Yale linguist Dwight Whitney (1827–94) – towhose influence Saussure did allude (Jakobson 1966, 410; Saussure
1983, 18, 26, 110). Nevertheless, the emphasis which Saussure gave
to arbitrariness can be seen as highly controversial in the context ofa theory which bracketed the referent.
Saussure illustrated the principle of arbitrariness at the lexicallevel – in relation to individual words as signs. He did not, forinstance, argue that syntax is arbitrary. However, the arbitrarinessprinciple can be applied not only to the individual sign, but to thewhole sign-system. The fundamental arbitrariness of language isapparent from the observation that each language involves different
distinctions between one signifier and another (e.g. ‘tree’ and ‘free’)

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and between one signified and another (e.g. ‘tree’ and ‘bush’). The
signified is clearly arbitrary if reality is perceived as a seamless
continuum (which is how Saussure sees the initially undifferentiatedrealms of both thought and sound): where, for example, does a‘corner’ end? Common sense suggests that the existence of thingsin the world preceded our apparently simple application of ‘labels’
to them (a ‘nomenclaturist’ notion which Saussure rejected and towhich we will return in due course). Saussure noted that ‘if words
had the job of representing concepts fixed in advance, one would be
able to find exact equivalents for them as between one language andanother. But this is not the case’ (ibid., 114–15). Reality is divided
up into arbitrary categories by every language and the conceptual
world with which each of us is familiar could have been divided upvery differently. Indeed, no two languages categorize reality in thesame way. As John Passmore puts it, ‘Languages differ by differentiating differently’ (Passmore 1985, 24). Linguistic categories are notsimply a consequence of some predefined structure in the world.
There are no natural concepts or categories which are simply
reflected in language. Language plays a crucial role in constructing
reality.
If one accepts the arbitrariness of the relationship between
signifier and signified then one may argue counter-intuitively thatthe signified is determined by the signifier rather than vice versa.
Indeed, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, in adapting
Saussurean theories, sought to highlight the primacy of the signifierin the psyche by rewriting Saussure’s model of the sign in the formof a quasi-algebraic sign in which a capital ‘S’ (representing thesignifier) is placed over a lower-case and italicized ‘s’ (representing
the signified), these two signifiers being separated by a horizontal‘bar’ (Lacan 1977, 149). This suited Lacan’s purpose of emphasizing
how the signified inevitably ‘slips beneath’ the signifier, resisting ourattempts to delimit it. Lacan poetically refers to Saussure’s illustration of the planes of sound and thought as ‘an image resembling thewavy lines of the upper and lower waters in miniatures from manuscripts of Genesis; a double flux marked by streaks of rain’,suggesting that this can be seen as illustrating the ‘incessant slidingof the signified under the signifier’ – although he argues that one

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should regard the dotted vertical lines not as ‘segments of correspondence’ but as ‘anchoring points’ (points de capiton – literally,the ‘buttons’ which anchor upholstery to furniture). However, henotes that this model is too linear, since ‘there is in effect no signifying chain that does not have, as if attached to the punctuation ofeach of its units, a whole articulation of relevant contexts suspended“vertically”, as it were, from that point’ (ibid., 154). In the spirit of
the Lacanian critique of Saussure’s model, subsequent theorists haveemphasized the temporary nature of the bond between signifier andsignified, stressing that the ‘fixing’ of ‘the chain of signifiers’ issocially situated (Coward and Ellis 1977, 6, 13, 17, 67). Note thatwhile the intent of Lacan in placing the signifier over the signified
is clear enough, his representational strategy seems a little curious,
since in the modelling of society orthodox Marxists routinely represent the fundamental driving force of ‘the [techno-economic] base’as (logically) below ‘the [ideological] superstructure’.
The arbitrariness of the sign is a radical concept because it
establishes the autonomy of language in relation to reality. The
Saussurean model, with its emphasis on internal structures within asign-system, can be seen as supporting the notion that language does
not reflect reality but rather constructs it. We can use language ‘tosay what isn’t in the world, as well as what is. And since we cometo know the world through whatever language we have been born
into the midst of, it is legitimate to argue that our language determines reality, rather than reality our language’ (Sturrock 1986, 79).
In their book The Meaning of Meaning, Charles Ogden and Ivor
Richards criticized Saussure for ‘neglecting entirely the things forwhich signs stand’ (Ogden and Richards 1923, 8). Later critics havelamented his model’s detachment from social context (Gardiner 1992,
11). By ‘bracketing the referent’, the Saussurean model ‘severs text
from history’ (Stam 2000, 122). We will return to this theme of therelationship between language and reality in Chapter 2.
The arbitrary aspect of signs does help to account for the scope
for their interpretation (and the importance of context). There is no
one-to-one link between signifier and signified; signs have multiple
rather than single meanings. Within a single language, one signifier
may refer to many signifieds (e.g. puns) and one signified may be

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referred to by many signifiers (e.g. synonyms). Some commentators
are critical of the stance that the relationship of the signifier to thesignified, even in language, is always completely arbitrary (e.g.
Jakobson 1963a, 59, and 1966). Onomatopoeic words are often
mentioned in this context, though some semioticians retort that thishardly accounts for the variability between different languages intheir words for the same sounds (notably the sounds made by familiar
animals) (Saussure 1983, 69).
Saussure declares that ‘the entire linguistic system is founded
upon the irrational principle that the sign is arbitrary’. This provocative declaration is followed immediately by the acknowledgementthat ‘applied without restriction, this principle would lead to utter
chaos’ (ibid., 131). If linguistic signs were to be totally arbitrary inevery way language would not be a system and its communicative
function would be destroyed. He concedes that ‘there exists nolanguage in which nothing at all is motivated’ (ibid.). Saussureadmits that ‘a language is not completely arbitrary, for the system
has a certain rationality’ (ibid., 73). The principle of arbitrarinessdoes not mean that the form of a word is accidental or random, ofcourse. While the sign is not determined extralinguistically it issubject to intralinguistic determination. For instance, signifiers must
constitute well-formed combinations of sounds which conform withexisting patterns within the language in question. Furthermore, we
can recognize that a compound noun such as ‘screwdriver’ is notwholly arbitrary since it is a meaningful combination of two existing
signs. Saussure introduces a distinction between degrees of arbitrariness:
The fundamental principle of the arbitrary nature of the linguistic
sign does not prevent us from distinguishing in any language
between what is intrinsically arbitrary – that is, unmotivated –and what is only relatively arbitrary. Not all signs are absolutely
arbitrary. In some cases, there are factors which allow us torecognize different degrees of arbitrariness, although never todiscard the notion entirely. The sign may be motivated to a certain
extent.
(Saussure 1983, 130)

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Here, then, Saussure modifies his stance somewhat and refers to signs
as being ‘relatively arbitrary’. Some subsequent theorists (echoing
Althusserian Marxist terminology) refer to the relationship between
the signifier and the signified in terms of ‘relative autonomy’ (e.g.
Tagg 1988, 167). The relative conventionality of relationships between
signified and signifier is a point to which we will return shortly.
It should be noted that, while the relationships between signifiers and their signifieds are ontologically arbitrary (philosophically,
it would not make any difference to the status of these entities in‘the order of things’ if what we call ‘black’ had always been called‘white’ and vice versa), this is not to suggest that signifying systems
are socially or historically arbitrary. Natural languages are not, ofcourse, arbitrarily established, unlike historical inventions such as
Morse Code. Nor does the arbitrary nature of the sign make it socially‘neutral’ – in Western culture ‘white’ has come to be a privileged(but typically ‘invisible’) signifier (Dyer 1997). Even in the case ofthe ‘arbitrary’ colours of traffic lights, the original choice of red for‘stop’ was not entirely arbitrary, since it already carried relevant
associations with danger. As Lévi-Strauss noted, the sign is arbitrary
a priori but ceases to be arbitrary a posteriori – after the sign has
come into historical existence it cannot be arbitrarily changed (LéviStrauss 1972, 91). As part of its social use within a sign-system,
every sign acquires a history and connotations of its own which arefamiliar to members of the sign-users’ culture. Saussure remarked
that although the signifier ‘may seem to be freely chosen’, from thepoint of view of the linguistic community it is ‘imposed rather thanfreely chosen’ because ‘a language is always an inheritance from thepast’ which its users have ‘no choice but to accept’ (Saussure 1983,
71–2). Indeed, ‘it is because the linguistic sign is arbitrary that it
knows no other law than that of tradition, and [it is] because it isfounded upon tradition that it can be arbitrary’ (ibid., 74). The arbitrariness principle does not, of course mean that an individual canarbitrarily choose any signifier for a given signified. The relation
between a signifier and its signified is not a matter of individual
choice; if it were, then communication would become impossible.
‘The individual has no power to alter a sign in any respect once it
has become established in the linguistic community’ (ibid., 68). From

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the point of view of individual language-users, language is a ‘given’– we don’t create the system for ourselves. Saussure refers to thelanguage system as a non-negotiable ‘contract’ into which one isborn (ibid., 14) – although he later problematizes the term (ibid.,71). The ontological arbitrariness which it involves becomes invisible to us as we learn to accept it as natural. As the anthopologist
Franz Boas noted, to the native speaker of a language, none of its
classifications appear arbitrary (Jakobson 1943, 483).
The Saussurean legacy of the arbitrariness of signs leads semioticians to stress that the relationship between the signifier and thesignified is conventional – dependent on social and cultural conventions which have to be learned. This is particularly clear in the caseof the linguistic signs with which Saussure was concerned: a wordmeans what it does to us only because we collectively agree to letit do so. Saussure felt that the main concern of semiotics should be‘the whole group of systems grounded in the arbitrariness of thesign’. He argued that: ‘signs which are entirely arbitrary convey
better than others the ideal semiological process. That is why themost complex and the most widespread of all systems of expression,
which is the one we find in human languages, is also the most characteristic of all. In this sense, linguistics serves as a model for thewhole of semiology, even though languages represent only one typeof semiological system’ (ibid., 68). He did not in fact offer many
examples of sign-systems other than spoken language and writing,mentioning only: the deaf-and-dumb alphabet; social customs;
etiquette; religious and other symbolic rites; legal procedures; military signals and nautical flags (ibid., 15, 17, 68, 74). Saussure addedthat ‘any means of expression accepted in a society rests in principle upon a collective habit, or on convention – which comes to thesame thing’ (ibid., 68). However, while purely conventional signs
such as words are quite independent of their referents, other lessconventional forms of signs are often somewhat less independent ofthem. Nevertheless, since the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs isclear, those who have adopted the Saussurean model have tended to
avoid ‘the familiar mistake of assuming that signs which appear
natural to those who use them have an intrinsic meaning and require
no explanation’ (Culler 1975, 5).

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THE PEIRCEAN MODEL
At around the same time as Saussure was formulating his model ofthe sign and of ‘semiology’ (and laying the foundations of structuralist methodology), across the Atlantic closely related theoreticalwork was also in progress as the pragmatist philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce formulated his own model of the sign,of ‘semeiotic [sic]’ and of the taxonomies of signs. In contrast to
Saussure’s model of the sign in the form of a ‘self-contained dyad’,
Peirce offered a triadic (three-part) model consisting of:
1. The representamen: the form which the sign takes (notnecessarily material, though usually interpreted as such) –called by some theorists the ‘sign vehicle’.
2. An interpretant: not an interpreter but rather the sense madeof the sign.
3. An object: something beyond the sign to which it refers(a referent).
In Peirce’s own words:
A sign . . . [in the form of a representamen] is something which
stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.
It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that
person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign.
That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign.
The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that
object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea,
which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen.
(Peirce 1931–58, 2.228)

To qualify as a sign, all three elements are essential. The sign is aunity of what is represented (the object), how it is represented(the representamen) and how it is interpreted (the interpretant). The
Peircean model is conventionally illustrated as in Figure 1.5 (e.g.
Eco 1976, 59), though note that Peirce did not himself offer a visualization of it, and Floyd Merrell (who prefers to use a ‘tripod’ with

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a central node) argues that the triangular form ‘evinces no genuine
triadicity, but merely three-way dyadicity’ (Merrell 1997, 133). The
broken line at the base of the triangle is intended to indicate that
there is not necessarily any observable or direct relationship between
the sign vehicle and the referent. Note here that semioticians makea distinction between a sign and a ‘sign vehicle’ (the latter being a‘signifier’ to Saussureans and a ‘representamen’ to Peirceans). The
sign is more than just a sign vehicle. The term ‘sign’ is often used
loosely, so that this distinction is not always preserved. In the
Saussurean framework, some references to ‘the sign’ should be to
the signifier, and similarly, Peirce himself frequently mentions ‘thesign’ when, strictly speaking, he is referring to the representamen.
It is easy to be found guilty of such a slippage, perhaps because weare so used to ‘looking beyond’ the form which the sign happens totake. However, to reiterate: the signifier or representamen is the form
in which the sign appears (such as the spoken or written form of aword) whereas the sign is the whole meaningful ensemble.
The interaction between the representamen, the object and theinterpretant is referred to by Peirce as ‘semeiosis’ (ibid., 5.484; alternatively semiosis). A good explanation of how Peirce’s model works
is offered by one of my own students, Roderick Munday:

interpretant

representamen
F I G U R E 1 . 5 Peirce’s semiotic triangle

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The three elements that make up a sign function like a label onan opaque box that contains an object. At first the mere factthat there is a box with a label on it suggests that it contains
something, and then when we read the label we discover whatthat something is. The process of semiosis, or decoding thesign, is as follows. The first thing that is noticed (the representamen) is the box and label; this prompts the realization thatsomething is inside the box (the object). This realization, as wellas the knowledge of what the box contains, is provided by theinterpretant. ‘Reading the label’ is actually just a metaphor forthe process of decoding the sign. The important point to beaware of here is that the object of a sign is always hidden. We
cannot actually open the box and inspect it directly. The reason
for this is simple: if the object could be known directly, there
would be no need of a sign to represent it. We only know about
the object from noticing the label and the box and then ‘reading
the label’ and forming a mental picture of the object in our
mind. Therefore the hidden object of a sign is only brought torealization through the interaction of the representamen, theobject and the interpretant.
(personal correspondence, 14/4/2005)

The representamen is similar in meaning to Saussure’s signifier while
the interpretant is roughly analogous to the signified. However, theinterpretant has a quality unlike that of the signified: it is itself a signin the mind of the interpreter (see Figure 1.6). Peirce noted that ‘a sign
. . . addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an
equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. The sign which it
creates I call the interpretant of the first sign’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.228).
In Roman Jakobson’s words, for Peirce, ‘the meaning of the sign isthe sign it can be translated into’ (Jakobson 1952b, 566). Umberto Ecouses the phrase ‘unlimited semiosis’ to refer to the way in which this
could lead (as Peirce was well aware) to a series of successive interpretants (potentially) ad infinitum (Eco 1976, 68–9; Peirce 1931–58,
1.339, 2.303). Elsewhere Peirce added that ‘the meaning of a representation can be nothing but a representation’ (ibid., 1.339). Any
initial interpretation can be reinterpreted. That a signified can itself

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play the role of a signifier is familiar from using a dictionary and finding oneself going beyond the original definition to look up yet anotherword which it employs. Peirce’s emphasis on sense-making involves arejection of the equation of ‘content’ and meaning; the meaning of asign is not contained within it, but arises in its interpretation. Note that
Peirce refers to an ‘interpretant’ (the sense made of a sign) rather thandirectly to an interpreter, though the interpreter’s presence is implicit– which arguably applies even within Saussure’s model (Thibault
1997, 184). As we have seen, Saussure also emphasized the value ofa sign lying in its relation to other signs (within the relatively static
structure of the sign system) but the Peircean concept (based on thehighly dynamic process of interpretation) has a more radical potential
which was later to be developed by poststructuralist theorists. Arisingfrom Peirce’s concept of the interpretant is the notion of dialogical

r
i

r

o

i

r

o

F I G U R E 1 . 6 Peirce’s successive interpretants

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thought which was absent from Saussure’s model. Peirce argued that‘all thinking is dialogic in form. Your self of one instant appeals toyour deeper self for his assent’ (Peirce 1931–58, 6.338). This notion
resurfaced in a more developed form in the 1920s in the theories of
Mikhail Bakhtin (1981). One important aspect of this is its characterization even of internal reflection as fundamentally social. Some writers have experienced revision as a process of arguing with themselves– as I did when I revised this text (Chandler 1995, 53).
Variants of Peirce’s triad are often presented as ‘the semiotic
triangle’ – as if there were only one version. In fact, prior to Peirce,
a triadic model of the sign was employed by Plato (c.400 BC),
Aristotle (c.350 BC), the Stoics (c.250 BC), Boethius (c.500), Francis
Bacon (1605) and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (c.1700). Triadic
models were also adopted by Edmund Husserl (1900), Charles K.
Ogden and Ivor A. Richards (1923) and Charles W. Morris (1938).
The most obvious difference between the Saussurean andPeircean model is of course that (being triadic rather than dyadic)
Peirce’s model of the sign features a third term – an object (orreferent) beyond the sign itself. As we have seen, Saussure’s signified is not an external referent but an abstract mental representation.
Although Peirce’s object is not confined to physical things and (likeSaussure’s signified) it can include abstract concepts and fictional
entities, the Peircean model explicitly allocates a place for materiality
and for reality outside the sign system which Saussure’s model did
not directly feature (though Peirce was not a naïve realist, and heargued that all experience is mediated by signs). For Peirce the object
was not just ‘another variety of “interpretant” ’ (Bruss 1978, 96), but
was crucial to the meaning of the sign: ‘meaning’ within his model
includes both ‘reference’ and (conceptual) ‘sense’ (or more broadly,
representation and interpretation). Furthermore, Peircean semioticians argue that the triadic basis of this model enables it to operate
as a more general model of the sign than a dyadic model can (ibid.,86). Nevetheless, the inclusion of a referent does not make a triadic
model inherently less problematic than a dyadic one. John Lyons
notes that ‘there is considerable disagreement about the details of
the triadic analysis even among those who accept that all threecomponents . . . must be taken into account’ (Lyons 1977, 99).

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It is important in this particular account of semiotics to note
how one of the foremost post-Saussurean structuralists reacted to thePeircean model of the sign, since his inflection of structuralism had
important consequences for the evolution of the European semiotic
tradition. Prior to his discovery of Peirce’s work, Roman Jakobson,a consistent exponent of binary structures in language, had clearly
adopted the Saussurean sign – despite his critique of Saussure’s
analytical priorities: ‘The constitutive mark of any sign in general
or of any linguistic sign in particular is its twofold character: every
linguistic unit is bipartite and involves both aspects – one sensible(i.e., perceptible) and the other intelligible, or in other words, boththe “signifier” and the “signified”’ – his preferred terms (adopted
from St Augustine) usually being signans (signifier) and signatum(signified). Jakobson added that the linguistic sign involved ‘theindissoluble dualism of . . . sound and meaning’ (Jakobson 1949a,
50; cf. 1949b, 396). ‘Meaning’ can be a slippery term in this context,
since it can refer either to sense (accommodated in both theSaussurean and Peircean models) or reference (accounted for directly
only in Peirce’s model), but Jakobson’s signified at this stage seems
much the same as Saussure’s. Jakobson’s increasing emphasis on theimportance of meaning represented a reaction against the attempt of‘reductionist linguists’ in the USA (American structuralists and earlytransformational grammarians) ‘to analyze linguistic structure
without reference to meaning’ whereas he insisted that ‘everythingin language is endowed with a certain significative and transmissive
value’ (Jakobson 1972, 42). After his encounter with Peirce’s workin the early 1950s, Jakobson became and remained a key adopter
and promoter of Peircean ideas, yet in 1958 he still accepted thatthe signified/signatum ‘belonged to’ linguistics and the referent/
designatum to philosophy (Jakobson 1973, 320). Even when he cameto emphasize the importance of context in the interpretation of signs
he did not directly incorporate a ‘referent’ into his model of thesign, referring to the term as ‘somewhat ambivalent’ (Jakobson 1960,
353). By 1972 he had granted the referent (in the form of contextual and situational meaning) a more explicit status within linguistics(Jakobson 1973, 320), but his model of the sign still remained
formally dyadic.

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Nevertheless, he had come to equate the signified with Peirce’s‘immediate interpretant’ (Jakobson 1966, 409), and on one occasion
he referred to there being ‘two sets of interpretants . . . to interpretthe sign – one [referring] to the code, and the other to the context’(Jakobson 1956, 75), despite Peirce’s note that the interpretant
excluded ‘its context or circumstances of utterance’ (Peirce 1931–58,
5.473). Clearly Jakobson sought to incorporate into the dyadic model
the special quality of Peirce’s interpretant, referring to the signified
as the ‘translatable’ (or interpretable) part of the sign (e.g. Jakobson
1958, 261, 1963b, 111 and 1966, 408). Thus a major semiotician
felt able to accommodate reference (indirectly) without abandoninga dyadic model. Indeed, he insisted that ‘in spite of . . . attempts’ torevise the ‘necessarily twofold structure’ of the sign or its constituent
parts (the signifier/signans and the signified/signatum), ‘this morethan bimillenary model remains the soundest and safest base forthe newly developing and expanding semiotic research’ (Jakobson
1968, 699) – though there is some irony in the model he cites beingthat of the Stoics, who despite having prefigured the Saussurean
distinction between signifier and signified, did so as part of a triadic
rather than dyadic model (Eco 1984, 29–33). One Peircean scholar
comments that: ‘At base, Jakobson’s semiotics is still more
Saussurean than Peircean, committed to the diacritical nature of each
aspect and every instance of the sign’ (Bruss 1978, 93). Jakobson
was a key propagator of Peircean concepts in the European semiotic
tradition (Umberto Eco being the other), and although his structuralism was in many ways markedly different from that of Saussure,
his stance on the sign model enabled European semiotics to absorb
Peircean influences without a fundamental transformation of the
dyadic model.
RELATIVITY
Whereas Saussure emphasized the arbitrary nature of the (linguistic)
sign, most post-Saussurean semioticians stress that signs differ in
how arbitrary/conventional (or by contrast ‘transparent’) they are.
The relatively arbitrary ‘symbolism’ of the medium of verbal
language reflects only one form of relationship between signifiers

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and their signifieds. In particular, a common-sense distinction between‘conventional signs’ (the names we give to people and things) and‘natural signs’ (pictures resembling what they depict) dates back toancient Greece (Plato’s Cratylus). St Augustine later distinguished‘natural signs’ (signa naturalia) from conventional signs (signa data)on a different basis. For him, natural signs were those which wereinterpreted as signs by virtue of an immediate link to what theysignified – even though no conscious intention had created them assuch (he instanced smoke indicating fire and footprints indicatingthat an animal had passed by) (On Christian Doctrine, Book II,
Chapter 1). Both of these types of ‘natural’ signs (respectively iconic
and indexical) as well as ‘conventional’ (symbolic) signs feature in
Charles Peirce’s influential tripartite classification.
While Saussure did not offer a typology of signs, Peirce offered
several (Peirce 1931–58, 1.291, 2.243). What he himself regarded
as ‘the most fundamental’ division of signs (first outlined in 1867)
has been very widely cited in subsequent semiotic studies (ibid.,2.275). Although it is often referred to as a classification of distinct‘types of signs’, it is more usefully interpreted in terms of differing‘modes of relationship’ between sign vehicles and what is signified(Hawkes 1977, 129). In Peircean terms they are relationships between
a representamen and its object or its interpretant, but for the purpose of continuity I have continued to employ the Saussurean terms
signifier and signified (cf. Jakobson 1966). Here then are the threemodes:
1. Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does notresemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitraryor purely conventional – so that this relationship must be
agreed upon and learned: e.g. language in general (plusspecific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks,
words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic
lights, national flags.
2. Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as
resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking,sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) – being similarin possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon,

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a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, realistic soundsin ‘programme music’, sound effects in radio drama, adubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures.
3. Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically orcausally) to the signified (regardless of intention) – this link
can be observed or inferred: e.g. ‘natural signs’ (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours),
medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring
instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level),‘signals’ (a knock on a door, a phone ringing), pointers (apointing ‘index’ finger, a directional signpost), recordings(a photograph, a film, video or television shot, an audiorecorded voice), personal ‘trademarks’ (handwriting, catchphrases).
These three modes arose within (and because of) Peirce’s triadic
model of the sign, and from a Peircean perspective it is reductive totransform a triadic relation into a dyadic one (Bruss 1978). However,
our focus here is on how Peirce has been adopted and adapted within
the European structuralist tradition. The widespread use of thesePeircean distinctions in texts which are otherwise primarily withinthat tradition may suggest either the potential for (indirect) referentiality in dyadic models or merely slippage between ‘sense’ and‘reference’ in defining the ‘meaning’ of the sign. Certainly, as soon
as we adopt the Peircean concepts of iconicity and indexicality weneed to remind ourselves that we are no longer ‘bracketing thereferent’ and are acknowledging not only a systemic frame of reference but also some kind of referential context beyond the sign-systemitself. Iconicity is based on (at least perceived) ‘resemblance’ andindexicality is based on (at least perceived) ‘direct connection’. In
other words, adopting such concepts means that – even if we are notembracing a wholly Peircean approach – we have moved beyond theformal bounds of the original Saussurean framework (as in Roman
Jakobson’s version of structuralism).
The three forms of relationship between signifier and signified
are listed here in decreasing order of conventionality. Symbolic signs

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such as language are (at least) highly conventional; iconic signs
always involve some degree of conventionality; indexical signs‘direct the attention to their objects by blind compulsion’ (Peirce
1931–58, 2.306). Indexical and iconic signifiers can be seen as moreconstrained by referential signifieds whereas in the more conventional symbolic signs the signified can be seen as being defined toa greater extent by the signifier. Within each form signs also varyin their degree of conventionality. Other criteria might be applied torank the three forms differently. For instance, Hodge and Kresssuggest that indexicality is based on an act of judgement or inference whereas iconicity is closer to ‘direct perception’, making thehighest ‘modality’ that of iconic signs (Hodge and Kress 1988,26–7). Note that the terms ‘motivation’ (from Saussure) and ‘constraint’ are sometimes used to describe the extent to which thesignified determines the signifier. The more a signifier is constrainedby the signified, the more ‘motivated’ the sign is: iconic signs arehighly motivated; symbolic signs are unmotivated. The less motivated the sign, the more learning of an agreed convention is required.
Nevertheless, most semioticians emphasize the role of convention in
relation to signs. As we shall see, even photographs and films arebuilt on conventions which we must learn to ‘read’. Such conventions are an important social dimension of semiotics.
SYMBOLIC MODE
What in popular usage are called ‘symbols’ would be regarded bysemioticians as ‘signs’ of some kind but many of them would nottechnically be classified as purely ‘symbolic’. For instance, if we jokethat ‘a thing is a phallic symbol if it’s longer than it is wide’, thiswould allude to resemblance, making it at least partly iconic –Jakobson suggests that such examples may be best classified as ‘symbolic icons’ (Jakobson 1968, 702). In the Peircean sense, symbols are
based purely on conventional association. Nowadays language is generally regarded as a (predominantly) symbolic sign-system, though
Saussure avoided referring to linguistic signs as ‘symbols’ precisely
because of the danger of confusion with popular usage. He noted that

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symbols in the popular sense are ‘never wholly arbitrary’: they ‘showat least a vestige of natural connection’ between the signifier andthe signified – a link which he later refers to as ‘rational’ (Saussure
1983, 68, 73). While Saussure focused on the arbitrary nature of thelinguistic sign, a more obvious example of arbitrary symbolism ismathematics. Mathematics does not need to refer to an external world
at all: its signifieds are indisputably concepts and mathematics is asystem of relations (Langer 1951, 28).
For Peirce, a symbol is ‘a sign which refers to the object thatit denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas,
which operates to cause the symbol to be interpreted as referring tothat object’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.249). We interpret symbols according
to ‘a rule’ or ‘a habitual connection’ (ibid., 2.292, 2.297, 1.369).
‘The symbol is connected with its object by virtue of the idea of thesymbol-using mind, without which no such connection would exist’(ibid., 2.299). It ‘is constituted a sign merely or mainly by the factthat it is used and understood as such’ (ibid., 2.307). A symbol is‘a conventional sign, or one depending upon habit (acquired orinborn)’ (ibid., 2.297). Symbols are not limited to words, although‘all words, sentences, books and other conventional signs are
symbols’ (ibid., 2.292). Peirce thus characterizes linguistic signs interms of their conventionality in a similar way to Saussure. In a raredirect reference to the arbitrariness of symbols (which he then called‘tokens’), he noted that they ‘are, for the most part, conventional or
arbitrary’ (ibid., 3.360). A symbol is a sign ‘whose special significance or fitness to represent just what it does represent lies in nothing
but the very fact of there being a habit, disposition, or other effective general rule that it will be so interpreted. Take, for example, theword “man”. These three letters are not in the least like a man; noris the sound with which they are associated’ (ibid., 4.447). He adds
elsewhere that ‘a symbol . . . fulfils its function regardless of any
similarity or analogy with its object and equally regardless of any
factual connection therewith’ (ibid., 5.73). ‘A genuine symbol is asymbol that has a general meaning’ (ibid., 2.293), signifying a kindof thing rather than a specific thing (ibid., 2.301).

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ICONIC MODE
Unfortunately, as with ‘symbolic’, the terms ‘icon’ and ‘iconic’ areused in a technical sense in semiotics which differs from its everyday
meanings. In popular usage there are three key meanings which canlead to confusion with the semiotic terms:• to be ‘iconic’ typically means that something or someone
would be expected to be instantly recognized as famous by
any fully fledged member of a particular culture or subculture;• an ‘icon’ on the computer screen is a small image intended
to signify a particular function to the user (to the semiotician these are ‘signs’ which may be variously iconic, symbolic or indexical, depending on their form and function);• religious ‘icons’ are works of visual art representing sacredfigures which may be venerated as holy images by devout
believers.
In the Peircean sense, the defining feature of iconicity is merely
perceived resemblance. Peirce declared that an iconic sign represents
its object ‘mainly by its similarity’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.276). Notethat despite the name, icons are not necessarily visual. A sign is an
icon ‘insofar as it is like that thing and used as a sign of it’ (ibid.,
2.247). Indeed, Peirce originally termed such modes, ‘likenesses’(e.g. ibid., 1.558). He added that ‘every picture (however conventional its method)’ is an icon (ibid., 2.279). Icons have qualities
which ‘resemble’ those of the objects they represent, and they ‘excite
analogous sensations in the mind’ (ibid., 2.299; cf. 3.362). Unlike
the index, ‘the icon has no dynamical connection with the object it
represents’ (ibid.). Just because a signifier resembles that which it
depicts does not necessarily make it purely iconic. Susanne Langer
argues that ‘the picture is essentially a symbol, not a duplicate, ofwhat it represents’ (Langer 1951, 67). Pictures resemble what they
represent only in some respects. What we tend to recognize in animage are analogous relations of parts to a whole (ibid., 67–70). For
Peirce, icons included ‘every diagram, even although there be nosensuous resemblance between it and its object, but only an analogy

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between the relations of the parts of each’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.279).
‘Many diagrams resemble their objects not at all in looks; it is only
in respect to the relations of their parts that their likeness consists’(ibid., 2.282). Even the most realistic image is not a replica oreven a copy of what is depicted. It is not often that we mistake arepresentation for what it represents.
Semioticians generally maintain that there are no ‘pure’ icons.
All artists employ stylistic conventions and these are, of course,
culturally and historically variable. Peirce stated that although ‘anymaterial image’ (such as a painting) may be perceived as looking
like what it represents, it is ‘largely conventional in its mode ofrepresentation’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.276).
We say that the portrait of a person we have not seen isconvincing. So far as, on the ground merely of what I see in it,
I am led to form an idea of the person it represents, it is an
icon. But, in fact, it is not a pure icon, because I am greatly
influenced by knowing that it is an effect, through the artist,caused by the original’s appearance . . . Besides, I know that
portraits have but the slightest resemblance to their originals,
except in certain conventional respects, and after a conventional
scale of values, etc.
(ibid., 2.92)

Iconic and indexical signs are more likely to be read as natural thansymbolic signs when making the connection between signifier andsignified has become habitual. Iconic signifiers can be highly evocative. Such signs do not draw our attention to their mediation, seeming
to present reality more directly than symbolic signs.
An extended critique of ‘iconism’ can be found in Eco (1976,
191ff). The linguist John Lyons notes that iconicity is ‘always dependent upon properties of the medium in which the form is manifest’(Lyons 1977, 105). He offers the example of the onomatopoeic
English word cuckoo, noting that it is only (perceived as) iconic in
the phonic medium (speech) and not in the graphic medium (writing). While the phonic medium can represent characteristic sounds(albeit in a relatively conventionalized way), the graphic medium can

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represent characteristic shapes (as in the case of Egyptian hieroglyphs) (Lyons 1977, 103). We will return shortly to the importanceof the materiality of the sign.
INDEXICAL MODE
Indexicality is perhaps the most unfamiliar concept, though its links
with everyday uses of the word ‘index’ ought to be less misleading
than the terms for the other two modes. Indexicality is quite closely
related to the way in which the index of a book or an ‘index’ finger
point directly to what is being referred to. Peirce offers various criteria for what constitutes an index. An index ‘indicates’ something:for example, ‘a sundial or clock indicates the time of day’ (Peirce
1931–58, 2.285). He refers to a ‘genuine relation’ between the ‘sign’
and the object which does not depend purely on ‘the interpretingmind’ (ibid., 2.92, 298). The object is ‘necessarily existent’ (ibid.,2.310). The index is connected to its object ‘as a matter of fact’ (ibid.,
4.447). There is ‘a real connection’ (ibid., 5.75) which may be a‘direct physical connection’ (ibid., 1.372, 2.281, 2.299). An indexical sign is like ‘a fragment torn away from the object’ (ibid., 2.231).
Unlike an icon (the object of which may be fictional) an index stands‘unequivocally for this or that existing thing’ (ibid., 4.531). The relationship is not based on ‘mere resemblance’ (ibid.): ‘indices . . . haveno significant resemblance to their objects’ (ibid., 2.306). ‘Similarity
or analogy’ are not what define the index (ibid., 2.305). ‘Anythingwhich focuses the attention is an index. Anything which startles us is
an index’ (ibid., 2.285; cf. 3.434). Indexical signs ‘direct the attention to their objects by blind compulsion’ (ibid., 2.306; cf. 2.191,
2.428). Whereas iconicity is characterized by similarity, indexicality
is characterized by contiguity. ‘Psychologically, the action of indicesdepends upon association by contiguity, and not upon association byresemblance or upon intellectual operations’ (ibid.). Elizabeth Bruss
notes that indexicality is ‘a relationship rather than a quality. Hencethe signifier need have no particular properties of its own, only ademonstrable connection to something else. The most important ofthese connections are spatial co-occurrence, temporal sequence, andcause and effect’ (Bruss 1978, 88).

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While a photograph is also perceived as resembling that which
it depicts, Peirce noted that it is not only iconic but also indexical:‘photographs, especially instantaneous photographs, are very instructive, because we know that in certain respects they are exactly likethe objects they represent. But this resemblance is due to thephotographs having been produced under such circumstances thatthey were physically forced to correspond point by point to nature.
In that aspect, then, they belong to the . . . class of signs . . . by physical connection [the indexical class]’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.281; cf.
5.554). So in this sense, since the photographic image is an index
of the effect of light, all unedited photographic and filmic images
are indexical (although we should remember that conventional practices are always involved in composition, focusing, developing, andso on). Such images do of course ‘resemble’ what they depict, andsome commentators suggest that the power of the photographic andfilmic image derives from the iconic character of the medium.
However, while digital imaging techniques are increasingly eroding
the indexicality of photographic images, it is arguable that it is theindexicality still routinely attributed to the medium that is primarily
responsible for interpreters treating them as objective records ofreality. Peirce, a philosophical realist, observed that ‘a photograph. . . owing to its optical connection with its object, is evidence thatthat appearance corresponds to a reality’ (Peirce 1931–58, 4.447).
Of the three modes, only indexicality can serve as evidence of an
object’s existence. In many contexts photographs are indeed regarded
as evidence, not least in legal contexts. As for the moving image,
video-cameras are of course widely used ‘in evidence’. Documentary
film and location footage in television news programmes exploit theindexical nature of the medium (though of course they are not purely
indexical). However, in one of his essays on photographic history,
John Tagg, wary of ‘the realist position’, cautions that ‘the existenceof a photograph is no guarantee of a corresponding pre-photographic
existent . . . The indexical nature of the photograph – the causative
link between the pre-photographic referent and the sign . . . can guarantee nothing at the level of meaning.’ Even prior to digital
photography, both ‘correction’ and montage were practised, but Taggargues that every photograph involves ‘significant distortions’ (Tagg

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1988, 1–3). This is an issue to which we will return in Chapter 5
when we discuss whether photography is ‘a message without a code’.
We may nevertheless grant the unedited photograph at least potential evidentiality.
MODES NOT TYPES
It is easy to slip into referring to Peirce’s three forms as ‘types ofsigns’, but they are not necessarily mutually exclusive: a sign can be
an icon, a symbol and an index, or any combination. A map is indexical in pointing to the locations of things, iconic in representing thedirectional relations and distances between landmarks, and symbolic
in using conventional symbols (the significance of which must be
learned).
As we have noted, we are dealing with symbolic, iconic andindexical modes of relationship rather than with types of signs. Thus,
Jakobson observes that ‘strictly speaking, the main difference . . . israther in the hierarchy of their properties than in the properties themselves’ (Jakobson 1963d, 335; cf. 1968, 700). Peirce was fully awareof this: for instance, we have already noted that he did not regard a
portrait as a pure icon. A ‘stylized’ image might be more appropriately regarded as a ‘symbolic icon’ (Jakobson 1963d, 335). Suchcombined terms represent ‘transitional varieties’ (1968, 700). Peircealso insisted that ‘it would be difficult if not impossible to instancean absolutely pure index, or to find any sign absolutely devoid of theindexical quality’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.306). Jakobson points out thatmany deliberate indexes also have a symbolic or indexical quality,
instancing traffic lights as being both indexical and symbolic and noting that even the pointing gesture is not always interpreted purely
indexically in different cultural contexts (Jakobson 1968, 700–1). Nor
are words always purely symbolic – they can be ‘iconic symbols’(such as onomatopoeic words) or ‘indexical symbols’ (such as ‘that’,‘this’, ‘here’, ‘there’) (see Jakobson 1966 on iconicity and indexicality in language).
Jakobson notes that Peirce’s three modes co-exist in a ‘relative hierarchy’ in which one mode is dominant, with dominancedetermined by context (Jakobson 1966, 411). Whether a sign isMODELS OF THE SIGN

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symbolic, iconic or indexical depends primarily on the way in which
the sign is used, so textbook examples chosen to illustrate the various
modes can be misleading. The same signifier may be used iconicallyin one context and symbolically in another: a photograph of a woman
may stand for some broad category such as ‘women’ or may more
specifically represent only the particular woman who is depicted.
Signs cannot be classified in terms of the three modes without reference to the purposes of their users within particular contexts. A sign
may consequently be treated as symbolic by one person, as iconic
by another and as indexical by a third. Signs may also shift in modeover time. For instance, a Rolls-Royce is an index of wealth because
one must be wealthy to own one, but social usage has led to its
becoming a conventional symbol of wealth (Culler 1975, 17).
Consistently with his advocacy of binary relations, Jakobson
boldly asserts that Peirce’s three modes of relations are ‘actuallybased on two substantial dichotomies’ (Jakobson 1968, 700) – anassertion which understandably irritates a Peircean scholar (Bruss
1978, 92). Combining four terms used by Peirce, Jakobson proposesa matrix of his own with contiguity and similarity on one axis andthe qualities of being either ‘imputed’ or ‘factual’ on the other. Within
this scheme, the index is based on ‘factual contiguity’, the icon on‘factual similarity’ and the symbol on ‘imputed contiguity’ – leaving
an initially empty category of ‘imputed similarity’ to which Jakobson
assigns ostensibly non-referential signs which nevertheless generateemotional connotations – such as music and non-representational
visual art (ibid., 700–5).
CHANGING RELATIONS
Despite his emphasis on studying ‘the language-state’ ‘synchronically’ (as if it were frozen at one moment in time) rather than‘diachronically’ (studying its evolution), Saussure was well aware thatthe relationship between the signified and the signifier in language
was subject to change over time (Saussure 1983, 74ff.). However, thiswas not the focus of his concern. Critics emphasize that the relation
between signifier and signified is subject to dynamic change: any

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS‘fixing’ of ‘the chain of signifiers’ is seen as both temporary andsocially determined (Coward and Ellis 1977, 6, 8, 13).
In terms of Peirce’s three modes, a historical shift from one
mode to another tends to occur. Although Peirce made far moreallowance for non-linguistic signs than did Saussure, like Saussure,
he too granted greater status to symbolic signs: ‘they are the only
general signs; and generality is essential to reasoning’ (Peirce
1931–58, 3.363; cf. 4.448, 4.531). Saussure’s emphasis on the importance of the principle of arbitrariness reflects his prioritizing ofsymbolic signs while Peirce privileges ‘the symbol-using mind’(Peirce 1931–58, 2.299). The idea of the evolution of sign-systems
towards the symbolic mode is consistent with such a perspective.
Peirce speculates ‘whether there be a life in signs, so that – the requisite vehicle being present – they will go through a certain order ofdevelopment’. Interestingly, he does not present this as necessarily
a matter of progress towards the ‘ideal’ of symbolic form since heallows for the theoretical possibility that ‘the same round ofchanges of form is described over and over again’ (ibid., 2.111).
While granting such a possibility, he nevertheless notes that ‘a regularprogression . . . may be remarked in the three orders of signs, Icon,
Index, Symbol’ (ibid., 2.299). Peirce posits iconicity as the original
default mode of signification, declaring the icon to be ‘an originalian sign’ (ibid., 2.92), defining this as ‘the most primitive, simple
and original of the categories’ (ibid., 2.90). Compared to the ‘genuine
sign . . . or symbol’, an index is ‘degenerate in the lesser degree’
while an icon is ‘degenerate in the greater degree’. Peirce noted thatsigns were ‘originally in part iconic, in part indexical’ (ibid., 2.92).
He adds that ‘in all primitive writing, such as the Egyptian hieroglyphics, there are icons of a non-logical kind, the ideographs’ andhe speculates that ‘in the earliest form of speech there probably wasa large element of mimicry’ (ibid., 2.280). However, over time,
linguistic signs developed a more symbolic and conventional character (ibid., 2.92, 2.280). ‘Symbols come into being by development
out of other signs, particularly from icons’ (ibid., 2.302).
The historical evidence does indicate a tendency of linguistic
signs to evolve from indexical and iconic forms towards symbolic
forms. Alphabets were not initially based on the substitution of

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conventional symbols for sounds. Some of the letters in the Greek
and Latin alphabets, of course, derive from iconic signs in Egyptian
hieroglyphs. The early scripts of the Mediterranean civilizations used
pictographs, ideographs and hieroglyphs. Many of these were iconic
signs resembling the objects and actions to which they referred either
directly or metaphorically. Over time, picture writing became more
symbolic and less iconic (Gelb 1963). This shift from the iconic tothe symbolic may have been ‘dictated by the economy of usinga chisel or a reed brush’ (Cherry 1966, 33); in general, symbols
are semiotically more flexible and efficient (Lyons 1977, 103). The
anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss identified a similar general
movement from motivation to arbitrariness within the conceptual
schemes employed by particular cultures (Lévi-Strauss 1962, 156).
DIGITAL AND ANALOGUE
A distinction is sometimes made between digital and analogicalsigns. Anthony Wilden, a Canadian communication theorist, declaredthat ‘no two categories, and no two kinds of experience are more
fundamental in human life and thought than continuity and discontinuity’ (Wilden 1987, 222). While we experience time as a continuum,
we may represent it in either analogue or digital form. A watch withan analogue display (with hour, minute and second hands) has theadvantage of dividing an hour up like a cake (so that, in a lecture, forinstance, we can ‘see’ how much time is left). A watch with a digital display (displaying the current time as a changing number) has theadvantage of precision, so that we can easily see exactly what time itis ‘now’. Even an analogue display is now simulated on some digital
watches.
We have a deep attachment to analogical modes and we haveoften tended to regard digital representations as less real or lessauthentic – at least initially (as in the case of the audio CD comparedto the vinyl LP). The analogue–digital distinction is frequently represented as natural versus artificial – a logical extension of Claude
Lévi-Strauss’s argument that continuous is to discrete is as nature is
to culture (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 28). The privileging of the analogicalmay be linked with the defiance of rationality in romantic ideology

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS(which still dominates our conception of ourselves as ‘individuals’).
The deliberate intention to communicate tends to be dominant indigital codes, while in analogue codes ‘it is almost impossible . . .
not to communicate’ (Wilden 1987, 225). Beyond any conscious
intention, we communicate through gesture, posture, facial expression, intonation and so on. Analogical codes unavoidably ‘give us
away’, revealing such things as our moods, attitudes, intentions andtruthfulness (or otherwise). However, although the appearance of the‘digital watch’ in 1971 and the subsequent ‘digital revolution’ inaudio- and video-recording have led us to associate the digital modewith electronic technologies, digital codes have existed since theearliest forms of language – and writing is a ‘digital technology’.
Signifying systems impose digital order on what we often experience
as a dynamic and seamless flux. The very definition of something
as a sign involves reducing the continuous to the discrete. As weshall see later, binary (either/or) distinctions are a fundamental
process in the creation of signifying structures. Digital signs involve
discrete units such as words and ‘whole numbers’ and depend on
the categorization of what is signified.
Analogical signs (such as visual images, gestures, textures,
tastes and smells) involve graded relationships on a continuum. They
can signify infinite subtleties which seem ‘beyond words’. Emotions
and feelings are analogical signifieds. Unlike symbolic signifiers,
motivated signifiers (and their signifieds) blend into one another.
There can be no comprehensive catalogue of such dynamic analogue
signs as smiles or laughs. Analogue signs can of course be digitally
reproduced (as is demonstrated by the digital recording of sounds
and of both still and moving images) but they cannot be directly
related to a standard ‘dictionary’ and syntax in the way that linguistic
signs can. The North American film theorist Bill Nichols notes that‘the graded quality of analogue codes may make them rich inmeaning but it also renders them somewhat impoverished in syntactical complexity or semantic precision. By contrast the discrete unitsof digital codes may be somewhat impoverished in meaning but
capable of much greater complexity or semantic signification’(Nichols 1981, 47; cf. Wilden 1987, 138, 224). The art historian
Ernst Gombrich insisted that ‘statements cannot be translated into

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images’ and that ‘pictures cannot assert’ – a contention also foundin Peirce (Gombrich 1982, 138, 175; Peirce 1931–58, 2.291). Such
stances are adopted in relation to images unattached to verbal texts– such commentators would acknowledge that a simple verbal
caption may be sufficient to enable an image to be used in the serviceof an assertion. While images serving such communicative purposes
may be more ‘open to interpretation’, contemporary visual advertisements are a powerful example of how images may be used tomake implicit claims which advertisers often prefer not to make more
openly in words.
TYPES AND TOKENSThe Italian semiotician Umberto Eco offers another distinction
between sign vehicles; this relates to the concept of tokens and types
which derives from Peirce (Eco 1976, 178ff.; Peirce 1931–58, 4.537).
In relation to words in a spoken utterance or written text, a countof the tokens would be a count of the total number of words used(regardless of type), while a count of the types would be a count of
the different words used, ignoring repetitions. In the language ofsemantics, tokens instantiate (are instances of) their type. Eco notesthat ‘grouping manifold tokens under a single type is the way inwhich language . . . works’ (Eco 1999, 146). Language and thought
depend on categorization: without categories we would be ‘slaves tothe particular’ (Bruner et al. 1956, 1).
John Lyons notes that whether something is counted as a token
of a type is relative to one’s purposes – for instance:• Are tokens to include words with different meanings whichhappen to be spelt or pronounced in the same way?
• Does a capital letter instantiate the same type as the corresponding lower-case letter?
• Does a word printed in italics instantiate the same type asa word printed in Roman?
• Is a word handwritten by X ever the same as a word handwritten by Y?
(Lyons 1977, 13–15)

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From a semiotic point of view, such questions could only be answeredby considering in each case whether the different forms signified
something of any consequence to the relevant sign-users in thecontext of the specific signifying practice being studied.
Eco lists three kinds of sign vehicles, and it is notable that thedistinction relates in part at least to material form:• signs in which there may be any number of tokens (replicas)of the same type (e.g. a printed word, or exactly the samemodel of car in the same colour);• ‘signs whose tokens, even though produced according to a
type, possess a certain quality of material uniqueness’ (e.g.
a word which someone speaks or which is handwritten);• ‘signs whose token is their type, or signs in which type andtoken are identical’ (e.g. a unique original oil-painting or
Princess Diana’s wedding dress).
(Eco 1976, 178ff.)
The type–token distinction may influence the way in which a text isinterpreted. In his influential essay on ‘The work of art in the age of
mechanical reproduction’, written in 1935, the literary–philosophicaltheorist Walter Benjamin noted that technological society is dominated by reproductions of original works – tokens of the original type
(Benjamin 1992, 211–44). Indeed, even if we do see, for instance, ‘theoriginal’ of a famous oil-painting, we are highly likely to have seen it
first in the form of innumerable reproductions (books, postcards,
posters – sometimes even in the form of pastiches or variations on thetheme) and we may only be able to ‘see’ the original in the light of
the judgements shaped by the copies or versions which we haveencountered. In the postmodern era, the bulk of our texts are indeed‘copies without originals’.
The type–token distinction in relation to signs is important insocial semiotic terms not as an absolute property of the sign vehicle
but only insofar as it matters on any given occasion (for particularpurposes) to those involved in using the sign. Minute differences ina pattern could be a matter of life and death for gamblers in relation to variations in the pattern on the backs of playing-cards within

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the same pack, but stylistic differences in the design of each typeof card (such as the ace of spades), are much appreciated by collectors as a distinctive feature of different packs of playing cards.
REMATERIALIZING THE SIGNAs already indicated, Saussure saw both the signifier and the signified as non-material ‘psychological’ forms; language itself is ‘a form,
not a substance’ (Saussure 1983, 111, 120). He uses several examples to reinforce his point. For instance, in one of several chessanalogies, he notes that ‘if pieces made of ivory are substituted forpieces made of wood, the change makes no difference to the system’(ibid., 23). Pursuing this functional approach, he notes elsewherethat the 8.25 p.m. Geneva–Paris train is referred to as ‘the same
train’ even though the combinations of locomotive, carriages andpersonnel may change. Similarly, he asks why a street which iscompletely rebuilt can still be ‘the same street’. He suggests that
this is ‘because it is not a purely material structure’ (ibid., 107).
Saussure insists that this is not to say that such entities are ‘abstract’since we cannot conceive of a street or train outside of their material
realization (ibid.). This can be related to the type–token distinction.
Since Saussure sees language in terms of formal function rather thanmaterial substance, then whatever performs the same function within
the system can be regarded as just another token of the same type.
With regard to language, Saussure observes that ‘sound, as a material
element . . . is merely ancillary, a material the language uses’ (ibid.,116). Linguistic signifiers are ‘not physical in any way. They are
constituted solely by differences which distinguish one such soundpattern from another’ (ibid., 117). He admits at one point, with someapparent reluctance, that ‘linguistic signs are, so to speak, tangible:
writing can fix them in conventional images’ (ibid., 15). However,referring to written signs, he comments that ‘the actual mode of
inscription is irrelevant, because it does not affect the system . . .
Whether I write in black or white, in incised characters or in relief,
with a pen or a chisel – none of that is of any importance for themeaning’ (ibid.). One can understand how a linguist would tend to
focus on form and function within language and to regard the

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material manifestations of language as of peripheral interest. ‘The
linguist . . . is interested in types, not tokens’ (Lyons 1977, 28).
This was not only the attitude of the linguist Saussure, but alsoof the philosopher Peirce: ‘The word “man” . . . does not consist of
three films of ink. If the word “man” occurs hundreds of times in abook of which myriads of copies are printed, all those millions of
triplets of patches of ink are embodiments of one and the same word
. . . each of those embodiments a replica of the symbol. This showsthat the word is not a thing’ (Peirce 1931–58, 4.447). Peirce didallude to the materiality of the sign: ‘since a sign is not identicalwith the thing signified, but differs from the latter in some respects,
it must plainly have some characters which belong to it in itself. . . These I call the material qualities of the sign.’ He granted thatmateriality is a property of the sign which is ‘of great importancein the theory of cognition’. However, materiality had ‘nothing to dowith its representative function’ and it did not feature in hisclassificatory schemes (ibid., 5.287).
While Saussure chose to ignore the materiality of the linguistic
sign, most subsequent theorists who have adopted his model havechosen to reclaim the materiality of the sign (or more strictly of
the signifier). Semioticians must take seriously any factors to which
sign-users ascribe significance, and the material form of a sign does
sometimes make a difference. Contemporary theorists tend toacknowledge that the material form of the sign may generate connotations of its own. As early as 1929 Valentin Voloshinov publishedMarxism and the Philosophy of Language which included a materialist critique of Saussure’s psychological and implicitly idealist
model of the sign. Voloshinov described Saussure’s ideas as ‘themost striking expression’ of ‘abstract objectivism’ (Voloshinov 1973,
58). He insisted that ‘a sign is a phenomenon of the external world’and that ‘signs . . . are particular, material things’. Every sign ‘hassome kind of material embodiment, whether in sound, physical mass,
colour, movements of the body, or the like’ (ibid., 10–11; cf. 28).
For Voloshinov, all signs, including language, have ‘concrete material
reality’ and the physical properties of the sign matter (ibid., 65).
Though a structuralist theorist himself, Roman Jakobson also

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rejected Saussure’s notion of the immateriality of language, declaringthat ‘since the sound matter of language is a matter organized andformed to serve as a semiotic instrument, not only the significative
function of the distinctive features but even their phonic essence isa cultural artifact’ (Jakobson 1949c, 423). Furthermore, although heaccepted the traditional view that ‘writing . . . is – both ontologicallyand phylogenetically a secondary and optional acquisition’ (Jakobson
1970, 455–6) and that the written word ‘as a rule’ functions as asignifier for the spoken word, he regarded it as not only ‘the mostimportant transposition’ of speech into another medium (Jakobson
1968, 706) but also as characterized by ‘autonomous properties’(Jakobson 1971d, 718). He expressed his concern that ‘written
language [is] often underrated by linguists’ and referred the reader
to Derrida’s reversal of this tradition (Jakobson 1970, 455–6).
Psychoanalytic theory also contributed to the revaluation of
the signifier – in Freudian dream theory the sound of the signifier
could be regarded as a better guide to its possible signified than any
conventional ‘decoding’ might have suggested (Freud 1938, 319).
For instance, Freud reported that the dream of a young woman
engaged to be married featured flowers – including lilies-of-thevalley and violets. Popular symbolism suggested that the lilies werea symbol of chastity and the woman agreed that she associated themwith purity. However, Freud was surprised to discover that she associated the word ‘violet’ phonetically with the English word ‘violate’,suggesting her fear of the violence of ‘defloration’ (another word
alluding to flowers) (Freud 1938, 382–3). As the psychoanalyticaltheorist Jacques Lacan emphasized (originally in 1957), the Freudianconcepts of condensation and displacement illustrate the determination of the signified by the signifier in dreams (Lacan 1977, 159ff.).
In condensation, several thoughts are condensed into one symbol,
while in displacement unconscious desire is displaced into an
apparently trivial symbol (to avoid dream censorship).
Although widely criticized as idealists, poststructuralist theorists have sought to revalorize the signifier. The phonocentrism
which was allied with Saussure’s suppression of the materiality of
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poststructuralist Jacques Derrida, in his book Of Grammatology,
attacked the privileging of speech over writing which is found in
Saussure (as well as in the work of many other previous and subsequent linguists) (Derrida 1967a/1976). From Plato to Lévi-Strauss, thespoken word had held a privileged position in the Western worldview,
being regarded as intimately involved in our sense of self and constituting a sign of truth and authenticity. Speech had become so thoroughly naturalized that ‘not only do the signifier and the signified seemto unite, but also, in this confusion, the signifier seems to erase itself
or to become transparent’ (Derrida 1981, 22). Writing had traditionally been relegated to a secondary position. The deconstructive enterprise marked ‘the return of the repressed’ (Derrida 1967b, 197). In
seeking to establish ‘grammatology’ or the study of textuality, Derrida
championed the primacy of the material word. He noted that the specificity of words is itself a material dimension. ‘The materiality ofa word cannot be translated or carried over into another language.
Materiality is precisely that which translation relinquishes’ (ibid.,210). Some readers may note a degree of (characteristically postmodern) irony in such a stance being adopted by a theorist who also attacks
Western materialism and whom many critics regard as an extreme
idealist (despite his criticisms of idealism). Derrida’s ideas have nevertheless informed the perspectives of some theorists who have sought
to ‘rematerialize’ the linguistic sign, stressing that words and texts arethings (e.g. Coward and Ellis 1977, Silverman and Torode 1980).
Roland Barthes also sought to revalorize the role of the signifier in the act of writing. He argued that in ‘classic’ literary writing,
the writer ‘is always supposed to go from signified to signifier, fromcontent to form, from idea to text, from passion to expression’(Barthes 1974, 174). However, this was directly opposite to the way
in which Barthes characterized the act of writing. For him, writing
was a matter of working with the signifiers and letting the signifieds
take care of themselves – a paradoxical phenomenon which otherwriters have often reported (Chandler 1995, 60ff.).
Theoretical attention has thus been increasingly drawn to thematerial dimension of language since Voloshinov’s critique of theSaussurean stance (dating from only thirteen years after the first

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edition of the Course) and this perspective became widely acceptedfrom around the 1970s. More recently, studies have shown thatmaterial objects can themselves function directly as signs (morestrictly, of course, as signifiers), not only in the form of ‘status
symbols’ (such as expensive cars) but also (in the case of particular
objects in their homes which individuals regard as having somespecial importance for them) as part of the repertoire of signs uponwhich people draw in developing and maintaining their sense of
personal and social identity (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton
1981, Chalfen 1987). People attach ‘symbolic values’ to televisionsets, furniture and photograph albums which are not determined by
the utilitarian functions of such mundane objects (see also LeedsHurwitz 1993, Chapter 6). The groundwork for such thinking had
already been laid within structuralism. Lévi-Strauss had explored‘the logic of the concrete’ – observing, for instance, that animals are‘good to think [with]’ and that identity can be expressed through themanipulation of existing things (Lévi-Strauss 1962). Elsewhere, I
have explored the notion that personal homepages on the web function as manipulable objects with which their authors can think about
identity (Chandler 2006).
Jay David Bolter argues that ‘signs are always anchored in a
medium. Signs may be more or less dependent upon the characteristics of one medium – they may transfer more or less well to othermedia – but there is no such thing as a sign without a medium’ (Bolter
1991, 195–6). The sign as such may not be a material entity, but it
has a material dimension – the signifier (or sign vehicle). Robert
Hodge and David Tripp insist that, ‘fundamental to all semiotic analysis is the fact that any system of signs (semiotic code) is carried
by a material medium which has its own principles of structure’(Hodge and Tripp 1986, 17). Furthermore, some media draw onseveral interacting sign-systems: television and film, for example,
utilize verbal, visual, auditory and locomotive signs. The medium is
not ‘neutral’; each medium has its own affordances and constraints
and, as Umberto Eco notes, each is already ‘charged with cultural
signification’ (Eco 1976, 267). For instance, photographic and audiovisual media are almost invariably regarded as more real than other

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forms of representation. Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen argue
that ‘the material expression of the text is always significant; it is aseparately variable semiotic feature’ (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996,
231). Changing the signifier at the level of the form or medium maythus influence the signified – the sense which readers make of whatis ostensibly the same ‘content’. Breaking up a relationship by fax
is likely to be regarded in a different light from breaking up in aface-to-face situation.
HJELMSLEV’S FRAMEWORKThe distinction between signifier and signified has sometimes beenequated to the familiar dualism of ‘form and content’ (though notby Saussure). Within such a framework, the signifier is seen as theform of the sign and the signified as the content. However, themetaphor of form as a ‘container’ is problematic, tending to support
the equation of content with meaning, implying that meaning can be‘extracted’ without an active process of interpretation and that form
is not in itself meaningful (Chandler 1995, 104–6). The linguist Louis
Hjelmslev acknowledged that ‘there can be no content without anexpression, or expressionless content; neither can there be an expression without a content, or content-less expression’ (Hjelmslev 1961,49). He offered a framework which facilitated analytical distinctions(ibid., 47ff.). While he referred to ‘planes’ of expression and content(Saussure’s signifier and signified), he enriched this model (ibid., 60).
His contribution was to suggest that both expression and content
have substance and form (see Table 1.7). This strategy thus avoids
the dualistic reduction of the sign to form and content.
Within Hjelmslev’s framework there are four categories:
substance of expression, form of expression, substance of content,
form of content. Various theorists such as Christian Metz have built
upon this theoretical distinction and they differ somewhat in what
they assign to the four categories (see Tudor 1974, 110; Baggaley
and Duck 1976, 149; Metz 1981). Whereas Saussure had insisted
that language is a non-material form and not a material substance,
Hjelmslev’s framework allows us to analyse texts according to their

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Substance

Form

Signifiers: Substance of expression:plane ofphysical materials of theexpression medium (e.g.
photographs, recorded
voices, printed words on
paper)

Form of expression:
language, formal syntactic
structure, technique andstyle

Signified:plane ofcontent

Form of content:‘semantic structure’(Baggaley and Duck),‘thematic structure’(including narrative)(Metz)

Substance of content:‘human content’ (Metz),
textual world, subject
matter, genre

TA B L E 1 . 7 Substance and form
Source: Based on Tudor 1974

various dimensions and to grant to each of these the potential forsignification. Such a matrix provides a useful framework for thesystematic analysis of texts, broadens the notion of what constitutes
a sign, and reminds us that the materiality of the sign may in itself
signify.

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2
SIGNS AND THINGS

While semiotics is often encountered in the form of textual analysis,
there is far more to semiotics than this. Indeed, one cannot engage
in the semiotic study of how meanings are made in texts and cultural
practices without adopting a philosophical stance in relation to thenature of signs, representation and reality. We have already seen how
the Saussurean and Peircean models of the sign have different philosophical implications. For those who adopt the stance that reality
always involves representation and that signs are involved in theconstruction of reality, semiotics is unavoidably a form of philosophy. No semiotician or philosopher would be so naïve as to treat
signs such as words as if they were the things for which they stand,but as we shall see, this occurs at least sometimes in the psychological phenomenology of everyday life and in the uncriticalframework of casual discourse.

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NAMING THINGSTo semioticians, a defining feature of signs is that they are treatedby their users as ‘standing for’ or representing other things. Jonathan
Swift’s satirical account of the fictional academicians of Lagado
outlined their proposal to abolish words altogether, and to carryaround bundles of objects whenever they wanted to communicate.
This highlights problems with the simplistic notion of signs being
direct substitutes for physical things in the world around us. The
academicians adopted the philosophical stance of naïve realism inassuming that words simply mirror objects in an external world.
They believed that ‘words are only names for things’, a stanceinvolving the assumption that ‘things’ necessarily exist independentlyof language prior to them being ‘labelled’ with words. According tothis position there is a one-to-one correspondence between word andreferent (sometimes called language–world isomorphism), andlanguage is simply a nomenclature – an item-by-item naming ofthings in the world. Saussure felt that this was ‘the superficial view
taken by the general public’ (Saussure 1983, 16, 65).
Within the lexicon of a language, it is true that most of thewords are ‘lexical words’ (or nouns) which refer to ‘things’, but mostof these things are abstract concepts rather than physical objects
in the world. Only ‘proper nouns’ have specific referents in theeveryday world, and only some of these refer to a unique entity (e.g.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch – thename of a Welsh village). Even proper names are not specific asthey are imagined to be: for instance, a reference to ‘Charles Sanders
Peirce’ begs questions such as ‘Peirce at what date?’, ‘Peirce as aphilosopher or in some other role?’ or even ‘whose Peirce?’ (e.g.
‘Jakobson’s Peirce’?) Perhaps I should now hesitate to attribute toPeirce the observation that ‘a symbol . . . cannot indicate any particular thing; it denotes a kind of thing’ (Peirce 1931–58, 2.301; myemphasis). The communicative function of a fully functioning
language requires the scope of reference to move beyond the particularity of the individual instance. While each leaf, cloud or smile isdifferent from all others, effective communication requires generalcategories or ‘universals’. Anyone who has attempted to communicate

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with people who do not share their language will be familiar withthe limitations of simply pointing to things. You can’t point to ‘mind’,‘culture’ or ‘history’; these are not ‘things’ at all. The vast majorityof lexical words in a language exist on a high level of abstraction
and refer to classes of things (such as ‘buildings’) or to concepts(such as ‘construction’). Language depends on categorization, but
as soon as we group instances into classes (tokens into types), welose any one-to-one correspondence of word and thing (if by ‘things’
we mean specific objects). Furthermore, other than lexical words,
the remaining elements of the lexicon of a language consist of ‘function words’ (or grammatical words, such as ‘only’ and ‘under’) which
do not refer to objects in the world at all. The lexicon of a language
consists of many kinds of signs other than nouns. Clearly, language
cannot be reduced to the naming of objects.
The less naïve realists might note at this point that words do
not necessarily name only physical things which exist in an objective material world but may also label imaginary things and also
concepts. Peirce’s referent, for instance, is not limited to things which
exist in the physical world. However, as Saussure noted, the notionof words as labels for concepts ‘assumes that ideas exist independently of words’ (Saussure 1983, 65), and for him, ‘no ideas are
established in advance . . . before the introduction of linguistic structure’ (ibid., 110; cf. 114–15, 118). It remains a rationalist and‘nomenclaturist’ stance on language when words are seen as ‘labels’
for pre-existing ideas as well as for physical objects. It is reductionist: reducing language to the purely referential function of naming
things. When we use language, its various kinds of signs relate toeach other in complex ways which make nonsense of the reductionof language to a nomenclature. Referentiality may be a function of
language but it is only one of its functions.
A radical response to realists is that things do not exist independently of the sign-systems that we use; reality is created by the
media which seem simply to represent it. Language does not simply
name pre-existing categories; categories do not exist in ‘the world’(where are the boundaries of a cloud or when does a smile begin?).
We may acknowledge the cautionary remarks of John Lyons, thatsuch an emphasis on reality as invariably perceptually seamless may

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be an exaggeration. Lyons speculates that ‘most of the phenomenal
world, as we perceive it, is not an undifferentiated continuum’; andour referential categories do seem to bear some relationship to certain
features which seem to be inherently salient (Lyons 1977, 247; myemphasis; cf. ibid., 260). In support of this caveat, we may note that
the Gestalt psychologists reported a universal human tendency toseparate a salient figure from what the viewer relegates to the(back)ground. However, such observations clearly do not demonstrate that the lexical structure of language reflects the structure ofan external reality. As Saussure noted, if words were simply a nomenclature for a pre-existing set of things in the world, translation fromone language to another would be easy (Saussure 1983, 114–15)
whereas in fact languages differ in how they categorize the world –the signifieds in one language do not neatly correspond to those inanother. Within a language, many words may refer to ‘the same thing’
but reflect different evaluations of it (one person’s ‘hovel’ is anotherperson’s ‘home’). Furthermore, what is signified by a word is subject
to historical change. In this sense, reality or the world is created by
the language we use: this argument insists on the primacy of thesignifier. Even if we do not adopt the radical stance that the realworld is a product of our sign-systems, we must still acknowledge
that there are many things in the experiential world for which wehave no words and that most words do not correspond to objects inthe known world at all. Thus, all words are abstractions, and there
is no direct correspondence between words and things in the world.
REFERENTIALITY
Saussure’s model of the sign involves no direct reference to reality
outside the sign. This was not a denial of extralinguistic reality as
such but a reflection of his understanding of his own role as a linguist. Saussure accepted that in most scientific disciplines the ‘objectsof study’ were ‘given in advance’ and existed independently of theobserver’s ‘point of view’. However, he stressed that in linguistics, bycontrast, ‘it is the viewpoint adopted which creates the object’(Saussure 1983, 8). While such a statement might go without comment in a discipline with an acknowledged self-sufficiency (such as

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mathematics), in the context of human language one can understandhow it might be criticized as an idealist model. In the Saussurean
model the signified is only a mental concept; concepts are mental
constructs, not external objects. A concept may, of course, refer tosomething in experiential reality but the Saussurean stance is a denialof the essentialist argument that signifieds are distinct, autonomous
entities in an objective world which are definable in terms of somekind of unchanging essence. Saussurean semiotics asserts the nonessential nature of objects. Just like signifiers, signifieds are part ofthe sign-system; signifieds are socially constructed. According to the
Whorfian stance, the signified is an arbitrary product of our culture’s‘way of seeing’. The Saussurean perspective ‘tends to reverse theprecedence which a nomenclaturist accords to the world outside
language, by proposing that far from the world determining the orderof our language, our language determines the order of the world’(Sturrock 1986, 17).
In contrast to the Saussurean model, Peirce’s model of the sign
explicitly features the referent – something beyond the sign to which
the sign vehicle refers (though not necessarily a material thing).
However, it also features the interpretant which leads to an ‘infinite
series’ of signs, so it has been provocatively suggested that Peirce’s
model could also be taken to suggest the relative independence ofsigns from any referents (Silverman 1983, 15). In any event, forPeirce, reality can only be known via signs. If representations are
our only access to reality, determining their accuracy is a criticalissue. Peirce adopted from logic the notion of ‘modality’ to refer tothe truth value of a sign, acknowledging three kinds: actuality,(logical) necessity and (hypothetical) possibility (Peirce 1931–58,
2.454). Furthermore, his classification of signs in terms of the modeof relationship of the sign vehicle to its referent reflects their modality– their apparent transparency in relation to reality (the symbolic
mode, for instance, having low modality). Peirce asserted that, logically, signification could only ever be partial; otherwise it would
destroy itself by becoming identical with its object (Grayson 1998,
40; Peirce 1982–93, 1.79–80).
Theorists who veer towards the extreme position of philosophical idealism (for whom reality is purely subjective and is

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constructed in our use of signs) may see no problem with theSaussurean model, which has itself been described as idealist (e.g.
Culler 1985, 117). Those drawn towards epistemological realism (forwhom a single objective reality exists indisputably and independently
outside us) would challenge it. According to this stance, reality may
be distorted by the processes of mediation involved in apprehendingit, but such processes play no part in constructing the world. Even
those who adopt an intermediate constructionist (or constructivist)
position – that language and other media play a major part in ‘thesocial construction of reality’ – may object to an apparent indifference towards social reality in Saussure’s model. Those on the politicalleft in particular would challenge its sidelining of the importance ofthe material conditions of existence. A system which brackets
extralinguistic reality excludes truth values too. But post-Saussurean
semiotics is not imprisoned within language in this way: Umberto
Eco provocatively asserts that ‘semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie’ (Eco
1976, 7).
MODALITY
From the perspective of social semiotics the original Saussurean
model is understandably problematic. Whatever our philosophicalpositions, in our daily behaviour we routinely act on the basis thatsome representations of reality are more reliable than others. And
we do so in part with reference to cues within texts which semioticians (following linguists) call ‘modality markers’. Such cues refer
to what are variously described as the plausibility, reliability, credibility, truth, accuracy or facticity of texts within a given genre as
representations of some recognizable reality. Gunther Kress and Theovan Leeuwen acknowledge that:
A social semiotic theory of truth cannot claim to establish theabsolute truth or untruth of representations. It can only showwhether a given ‘proposition’ (visual, verbal or otherwise) isrepresented as true or not. From the point of view of social
semiotics, truth is a construct of semiosis, and as such the truth

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of a particular social group, arising from the values and beliefsof that group.
(Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 159)

From such a perspective, reality has authors; thus there are many
realities rather than the single reality posited by objectivists. This
stance is related to Whorfian framings of relationships between
language and reality. Constructionists insist that realities are notlimitless and unique to the individual as extreme subjectivists would
argue; rather, they are the product of social definitions and as such
far from equal in status. Realities are contested, and textual representations are thus ‘sites of struggle’.
Modality refers to the reality status accorded to or claimed bya sign, text or genre. More formally, Robert Hodge and Gunther
Kress declare that ‘modality refers to the status, authority and reliability of a message, to its ontological status, or to its value as truthor fact’ (Hodge and Kress 1988, 124). In making sense of a text, its
interpreters make modality judgements about it, drawing on theirknowledge of the world and of the medium. For instance, they assign
it to fact or fiction, actuality or acting, live or recorded, and theyassess the possibility or plausibility of the events depicted or theclaims made in it. Modality judgements involve comparisons of
textual representations with models drawn from the everyday world
and with models based on the genre; they are therefore obviously
dependent on relevant experience of both the world and the medium.
Robert Hodge and David Tripp’s semiotic study on children and television focuses on the development of children’s modality judgements(Hodge and Tripp 1986).
Clearly, the extent to which a text may be perceived as real
depends in part on the medium employed. Writing, for instance, generally has a lower modality than film and television. However, no rigid
ranking of media modalities is possible. John Kennedy showed children a simple line drawing featuring a group of children sitting in acircle with a gap in their midst (Kennedy 1974). He asked them to
add to this gap a drawing of their own, and when they concentrated
on the central region of the drawing, many of them tried to pick up
the pencil which was depicted in the same style in the top right-hand

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corner of the drawing! Being absorbed in the task led them to accept
unconsciously the terms in which reality was constructed within themedium. This is not likely to be a phenomenon confined to children,
since when absorbed in narrative (in many media) we frequently fall
into a ‘suspension of disbelief’ without compromising our ability to
distinguish representations from reality. Charles Peirce reflected that‘in contemplating a painting, there is a moment when we lose the consciousness that it is not the thing, the distinction of the real and the
copy disappears’ (Peirce 1931–58, 3.362).
While in a conscious comparison of a photographic image witha cartoon image of the same thing the photograph is likely to be
judged as more realistic, the mental schemata involved in visual
recognition may be closer to the stereotypical simplicity of cartoon
images than to photographs. People can identify an image as a handwhen it is drawn as a cartoon more quickly than when they are showna photograph of a hand (Ryan and Schwartz 1956). This underlines
the importance of perceptual codes in constructing reality. Umberto
Eco argues that through familiarity an iconic signifier can acquire primacy over its signified. Such a sign becomes conventional ‘step bystep, the more its addressee becomes acquainted with it. At a certain
point the iconic representation, however stylized it may be, appears
to be more true than the real experience, and people begin to look atthings through the glasses of iconic convention’ (Eco 1976, 204–5).
Modality cues within texts include both formal features of themedium (such as flatness or motion) and content features (such asplausibility or familiarity), though it is their interaction and interpretation which is most important. The media which are typicallyjudged to be the most realistic are photographic – especially film
and television. James Monaco suggests that ‘in film, the signifier
and the signified are almost identical . . . The power of language
systems is that there is a very great difference between the signifier
and the signified; the power of film is that there is not’ (Monaco
1981, 127–8). This is an important part of what Christian Metz wasreferring to when he described the cinematic signifier as ‘the imaginary signifier’ (Metz 1977). In being less reliant than writing on
symbolic signs, film, television and photography suggest less of an
obvious gap between the signifier and its signified, which make them

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seem to offer reflections of reality (even in that which is imaginary).
But photography does not reproduce its object: it ‘abstracts from,and mediates, the actual’ (Burgin 1982b, 61). While we do not
mistake one for the other, we do need to remind ourselves that aphotograph or a film does not simply record an event, but is only
one of an infinite number of possible representations. All media texts,
however ‘realistic’, are representations rather than simply recordings
or reproductions of reality.
The film theorist André Bazin describes what he calls the‘reproductive fallacy’ according to which the only kind of representation which can show things ‘as they really are’ would be one
which is (or appears to be) exactly like that which it represents inevery respect. Texts are almost always constructed from different
materials from that which they represent, and representations cannot
be replicas. For Bazin, aesthetic realism depended on a broader ‘truth
to reality’ (Bazin 1974, 64; Lovell 1983, 81). Ien Ang (1985) argues
that watching television soap operas can involve a kind of psychological or emotional realism for viewers which exists at theconnotative rather than the denotative level. Viewers find some representations emotionally or psychologically ‘true-to-life’ (even if at thedenotative level the treatment may seem ‘unrealistic’). I would argue
that especially with long-running soaps (which may become more
real to their fans over time) what we could call generic realism isanother factor. Viewers familiar with the characters and conventionsof a particular soap opera may often judge the programme largely
in its own generic terms rather than with reference to some external
reality. For instance, is a character’s current behaviour consistent withwhat we have learned over time about that character? The soap may
be accepted to some extent as a world in its own right, in whichslightly different rules may sometimes apply. This is of course thebasis for what Coleridge called the ‘willing suspension of disbelief ’on which drama depends.
Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress argue that:
Different genres, whether classified by medium (e.g. comic,
cartoon, film, TV, painting) or by content (e.g. Western, Science
Fiction, Romance, news) establish sets of modality markers,

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and an overall value which acts as a baseline for the genre. Thisbaseline can be different for different kinds of viewer/reader, andfor different texts or moments within texts.
(Hodge and Kress 1988, 142)

What are recognized as realistic styles of representation reflect anaesthetic code (a concept which we will explore in detail later). Overtime, certain methods of production within a medium and a genre
become naturalized. The content comes to be accepted as a reflection of reality. In the case of popular television and film, for instance,
the use of ‘invisible editing’ represents a widespread set of conventions which has come to seem natural to most viewers (as we shallsee later). In realistic texts, what is foregrounded is the content rather
than the form or style of production. As in the dominant mode ofscientific discourse, the medium and codes are discounted as neutral
and transparent and the makers of the text retreat to invisibility.
Consequently, reality seems to pre-exist its representation and to‘speak for itself’; what is said thus has the aura of truth. John Taggargues that in realist texts,
The signifier is treated as if it were identical with a pre-existentsignified and . . . the reader’s role is purely that of a consumer. . . Signifier and signified appear not only to unite, but the signifier seems to become transparent so that the concept seems
to present itself, and the arbitrary sign is naturalized by aspurious identity between reference and referents, between the
text and the world.
(Tagg 1988, 99)

Tagg adds that such a stance need not involve positing ‘a closed
world of codes’ (ibid., 101) or the denial of the existence of what
is represented outside the process which represents it (ibid., 167).
However, he stresses ‘the crucial relation of meaning to questionsof practice and power’, arguing that reality is ‘a complex of dominant and dominated discourses which given texts exclude, separate
or do not signify’ (ibid., 101).

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THE WORD IS NOT THE THING
The Belgian surrealist René Magritte painted La Trahison des Images(The Treachery of Images) in 1936. That it has become one of
Magritte’s most famous and widely reproduced works suggests theenduring fascination of its theme. At first glance, its subject is banal.
We are offered a realistic depiction of an object which we easily
recognize: a smoker’s pipe (in side-on view). However, the painting
also includes the text ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (‘This is not a pipe’).
The inclusion of text within the painting is remarkable enough, but
the wording gives us cause to pause. If this were part of a language
lesson or a child’s ‘reading book’ (the style reminds me of old-fashioned Ladybird books for children), we might expect to see the words‘This is a pipe.’ To depict a pipe and then provide a ‘label’ which
insists that ‘this is not a pipe’ initially seems perverse. Is it purely
irrational or is there something which we can learn from this apparent
paradox? What could it mean? As our minds struggle to find a stable,
meaningful interpretation we may not be too happy that there is no
single, ‘correct’ answer to this question – although those of us who
are relatively ‘tolerant of ambiguity’ may accept that it offers a great
deal of food for thought about levels (or modes) of reality. The indexical word ‘this’ can be seen as a key to the interpretation of thispainting: what exactly does the word ‘this’ refer to? Anthony Wilden
suggests several alternative interpretations:
•
•
•
•
•
•

this [pipe] is not a pipe;
this [image of a pipe] is not a pipe;
this [painting] is not a pipe;
this [sentence] is not a pipe;[this] this is not a pipe;[this] is not a pipe.
(Wilden 1987, 245)

Although we habitually relate the meaning of texts to the stated orinferred purposes of their makers, Magritte’s own purposes are notessential to our current concerns. It suits our purposes here to suggestthat the painting could be taken as meaning that this representation

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS(or any representation) is not that which it represents. That this imageof a pipe is ‘only an image’ and that we can’t smoke it seems obvious– nobody ‘in their right mind’ would be so foolish as to try to pick
it up and use it as a functional pipe (although many readers will
have heard by now of the unfortunate, deluded man who ‘mistook
his wife for a hat’). However, we do habitually refer to such realistic depictions in terms which suggest that they are nothing more
nor less than what they depict. Any representation is more thanmerely a reproduction of that which it represents: it also contributes
to the construction of reality. Even ‘photorealism’ does not depict
unmediated reality. The most realistic representation may also
symbolically or metaphorically ‘stand for’ something else entirely.
Furthermore, the depiction of a pipe is no guarantee of the existenceof a specific pipe in the world of which this is an accurate depiction. Indeed, it seems a fairly generalized pipe and could therefore
be seen (as is frequently true of language lessons, children’s encyclopedia entries and so on) as an illustration of the ‘concept’ of apipe rather than of a specific pipe. The label seeks to anchor ourinterpretation – a concept to which we will return later – and yet atthe same time the label is part of the painting itself rather than atitle attached to the frame. Magritte’s painting could be seen as akind of defamiliarization: we are so used to seeing things andattaching labels to them that we seldom look deeper and do not see
things in their specificity. One function of art (and of surrealistic art
in particular) is ‘to make the familiar strange’ (as the Russian formalists put it).
Alfred Korzybski, the founder of a movement known as‘general semantics’, declared that ‘the map is not the territory’ andthat ‘the word is not the thing’ (Korzybski 1933; cf. Chase 1938 andHayakawa 1941). The non-identity of sign and thing is, of course,a very basic Saussurean principle. However, while Saussure’s modelis anti-realist, the general semanticists adopted the realist stance that
language comes ‘between’ us and the objective world and they sought
to reform our verbal behaviour to counteract the linguistic distortionof reality. They felt that one reason for the confusion of signifiers
and referential signifieds was that we sometimes allow language toSIGNS AND THINGS

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take us further up the ‘ladder of abstraction’ than we think we are.
Here is a homely example of levels of verbal abstraction in relation
to a cow called ‘Bessie’:
1. The cow known to science ultimately consists of atoms,
electrons etc. according to present-day scientific inference...
2. The cow we perceive is not the word but the object of experience, that which our nervous system abstracts (selects)...
3. The word ‘Bessie’ (cow) is the name we give to the objectof perception of level 2. The name is not the object; itmerely stands for the object and omits reference to many
characteristics of the object.
4. The word ‘cow’ stands for the characteristics we haveabstracted as common to cow, cow, cow . . . cow. Characteristics peculiar to particular cows are left out.
5. When Bessie is referred to as ‘livestock’ only those characteristics she has in common with pigs, chickens, goats,etc. are referred to.
6. When Bessie is included among ‘farm assets’ reference ismade only to what she has in common with all other saleable
items on the farm.
7. When Bessie is referred to as an ‘asset’ still more of her
characteristics are left out.
8. The word ‘wealth’ is an extremely high level of abstraction,
omitting almost all reference to the characteristics of Bessie.
(McKim 1972, 128; the origins of this example
are in Korzybski, via Hayakawa 1941, 121ff.)
The ladder metaphor is consistent with how we routinely refer tolevels of abstraction – we talk of thinkers with ‘their heads in theclouds’ and of ‘realists’ with their ‘feet on the ground’. As we moveup the ladder we move from the particular to the general, fromconcrete reality to abstract generalization. The general semanticists
were of course hard-headed realists and what they wanted was forpeople to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. In alerting

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language-users to levels of abstraction, the general semanticists
sought to avoid the confusion of higher logical types with lower
logical types. ‘A map’ is of a higher (more general) logical type than‘the territory’, and linguistic representation in particular lends itself
to this process of abstraction. Clearly we can learn more about aplace by visiting it than by simply looking at a map of it, and we
can tell more about a person by meeting that person than by merely
looking at a photograph of that person. Translation from lower levels
to higher levels involves an inevitable loss of specificity – like earth
being filtered through a series of increasingly fine sieves or like
photocopies being repeatedly made of the ‘copies’ that they produce.
Being alert for the consequent losses, absences or exclusions isimportant to the semiotician as well as the ‘general semanticist’.
While the logician may be able to keep such levels separate, in mostacts of communication some ‘slippage’ occurs routinely, although
we are normally capable of identifying what kind of messages weare dealing with, assigning them to appropriate levels of abstraction.
Semioticians observe that some kind of ‘translation’ is unavoidable
in human communication. Claude Lévi-Strauss declared that ‘understanding consists in the reduction of one type of reality to another’(Lévi-Strauss 1961, 61; cf. Leach 1976, 27). Similarly, Algirdas
Greimas observed that ‘signification is . . . nothing but . . . transposition from one level of language to another, from one language toa different language, and meaning is nothing but the possibilityof such transcoding’ (Greimas 1970, 13; translation by Jameson
1972, 215–16).
While it can be useful to consider abstraction in terms of levels
and logical typing, the implicit filter metaphor in the general semanticists’ ‘ladder of abstraction’ is too uni-dimensional. Any given
object of perception could be categorized in a variety of ways rather
than in terms of a single objective hierarchy. The categories applied
depend on such factors as experience, roles and purposes. This raises
issues of interpretation. For instance, looking at an advertisement
featuring a woman’s face, some viewers might assume that the image
stood for women in general, others that she represented a particular
type, role or group, and yet others might recognize her as a particular individual. Knowing the appropriate level of abstraction in

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relation to interpreting such an image would depend primarily onfamiliarity with the relevant cultural codes.
The general semanticists set themselves the therapeutic goal of‘purifying’ language in order to make its relationship to reality moretransparent, and from such roots sprang projects such as the development of ‘Basic English’ (Ogden 1930). Whatever reservations we may
have about such goals, Korzybski’s popularization of the principle ofarbitrariness could be seen as a useful corrective to some of our habitsof mind. As a caveat, Korzybski’s aphorism seems unnecessary: we
all know that the word ‘dog’ cannot bark or bite, but in some circumstances we do behave as if certain signifiers are inseparable fromwhat they stand for. Common sense still leads us routinely to identify
sign and thing, representation with what it represents. Readers who
find this strange should consider how they would feel about ‘mutilating’ a photograph of someone for whom they care deeply.
In his massively influential book The Interpretation of Dreams(first published in 1900), Sigmund Freud argued that ‘dream-content
is, as it were, presented in hieroglyphics, whose symbols must betranslated . . . It would of course be incorrect to read these symbols
in accordance with their values as pictures, instead of in accordancewith their meaning as symbols’ (Freud 1938, 319). He also observedthat ‘words are often treated in dreams as things’ (ibid., 330).
Magritte played with our habit of identifying the signifier with thesignified in a series of drawings and paintings in which objects are
depicted with verbal labels which ‘don’t belong to them’. In an oilpainting entitled La Clef des Songes (The Interpretation of Dreams,
1930) we are confronted with images of six familiar objects together
with verbal labels. Such arrangements are familiar, particularly inthe language-learning context suggested by the blackboard-likebackground. However, we quickly realize that the words do not matchthe images under which they appear. If we then rearrange them in
our minds, we find that the labels do not correspond to any of theimages. The relation between the image of an object and the verbal
label attached to it is thus presented as arbitrary.
The confusion of the representation with the thing represented
is a feature of schizophrenia and psychosis (Wilden 1987, 201). ‘In
order to be able to operate with symbols it is necessary first of all

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to be able to distinguish between the sign and the thing it signifies’(Leach 1970, 43). However, the confusion of ‘levels of reality’ isalso a normal feature of an early phase of cognitive development inchildhood. Jerome Bruner observed that for pre-school children
thought and the object of thought seem to be the same thing, butthat during schooling one comes to separate word and thing (Bruner1966). The substitution of a sign for its referent (initially in the formof gestures and imitative sounds) constitutes a crucial phase in theinfant’s acquisition of language. The child quickly discovers theapparently magical power of words for referring to things in theirabsence – this property of displacement being a key ‘design feature’of language (Piaget 1971, 64; Hockett 1958). Helen Keller, whobecame blind and deaf at the age of 18 months, was gradually taught
to speak by her nurse (Keller 1945). At the age of nine while playing
with water she felt with her hand the motions of the nurse’s throat
and mouth vibrating the word ‘water’. In a sudden flash of revelation she cried out words to the effect that ‘everything has a name!’.
It is hardly surprising that, even in mid-childhood, children sometimes appear to have difficulty in separating words from what they
represent. Piaget illustrates the ‘nominal realism’ of young children
in an interview with a child aged 91⁄2:‘Could the sun have been called “moon” and the moon “sun”?’– ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’ – ‘Because the sun shines brighter than themoon . . .’ ‘But if everyone had called the sun “moon”, and themoon “sun”, would we have known it was wrong?’ – ‘Yes,
because the sun is always bigger, it always stays like it is and sodoes the moon.’ ‘Yes, but the sun isn’t changed, only its name.
Could it have been called . . . etc.?’ – ‘No . . . Because the moonrises in the evening, and the sun in the day.’(Piaget 1929: 81–2)

Thus for the child, words do not seem at all arbitrary. Similarly,
Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole found that unschooled Vai people
in Liberia felt that the names of sun and moon could not be changed,
one of them expressing the view that these were God-given names(Scribner and Cole 1981, 141).

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The anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed that people in‘primitive’ cultures had difficulty in distinguishing between names
and the things to which they referred, regarding such signifiers as an
intrinsic part of their signifieds (Olson 1994, 28). The fear of ‘graven
images’ within the Judeo-Christian tradition and also magical practices and beliefs such as Voodoo are clearly related to such a phenomenon. Emphasizing the epistemological significance of writing,
the Canadian psychologist David Olson argues that the invention(around 4,000 years ago) of ‘syntactic scripts’ (which superseded theuse of tokens) enabled referential words to be distinguished more easily from their referents, language to be seen as more than purely referential, and words to be seen as (linguistic) entities in their own right.
He suggests that such scripts marked the end of ‘word magic’ sincereferential words came to be seen as representations rather than as
intrinsic properties or parts of their referents. However, in the Middle
Ages words and images were still seen as having a natural connection to things (which had ‘true names’ given by Adam at theCreation). Words were seen as the names of things rather than as representations. As Michel Foucault has shown, only in the early modern period did scholars come to see words and other signifiers as
representations which were subject to conventions rather than as
copies (Foucault 1970). By the seventeenth century, clear distinctions
were being made between representations (signifiers), ideas (signifieds) and things (referents). Scholars now regarded signifiers as
referring to ideas rather than directly to things. Representations wereconventionalized constructions which were relatively independentboth of what they represented and of their authors; knowledge
involved manipulating such signs. Olson notes that once such distinctions are made, the way is open to making modality judgements
about the status of representations – such as their perceived truth or
accuracy (Olson 1994, 68–78, 165–8, 279–80). While the seventeenth-century shift in attitudes towards signs was part of a search for‘neutrality’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘truth’, in more recent times, of course,
we have come to recognize that ‘there is no representation without
intention and interpretation’ (ibid., 197).
It is said that someone once asked an astronomer how he had
discovered the name of a previously unknown star! Sophisticated

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literates are able to joke about the notion that names belong to things.
In one of Aldous Huxley’s novels an old farmworker points out his
pigs: ‘Look at them, sir,’ he said, with a motion of his hand towards
the wallowing swine. ‘Rightly is they called pigs’ (Chrome Yellow,
Chapter 5). Literate adults may not often seem to be prey to this sortof nominal realism. However, certain signifiers become regarded bysome as far from arbitrary, acquiring almost magical power – as inrelation to ‘graphic’ swearing and issues of prejudice – highlighting
the point that signifiers are not socially arbitrary. Children are just asaware of this: many are far from convinced by adult advice that ‘sticks
and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me’. We
may all still need some convincing that ‘the word is not the thing’.
Terence Hawkes notes the ‘anaesthetic function’ of language
by which we are numbed to the intervention of the medium (Hawkes
1977, 70). Catherine Belsey, another literary theorist, argues that:
Language is experienced as a nomenclature because its existence
precedes our ‘understanding’ of the world. Words seem to besymbols for things because things are inconceivable outside thesystem of differences which constitutes the language. Similarly,
these very things seem to be represented in the mind, in anautonomous realm of thought, because thought is in essence
symbolic, dependent on the differences brought about by thesymbolic order. And so language is ‘overlooked’, suppressed infavour of a quest for meaning in experience and/or in the mind.
The world of things and subjectivity then become the twin
guarantors of truth.
(Belsey 1980, 46)

Shakespeare’s Hamlet refers to: ‘the purpose of playing, whose end,
both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror
up to nature’ (Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, ii), and being ‘true to life’is probably still a key criterion in judgements of literary worth.
However, Belsey comments:
The claim that a literary form reflects the world is simply
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experience, the world differentiated by language, then the claimthat realism reflects the world means that realism reflects theworld constructed in language. This is a tautology. If discourses
articulate concepts through a system of signs which signify bymeans of their relationship to each other rather than to entities
in the world, and if literature is a signifying practice, all it canreflect is the order inscribed in particular discourses, not thenature of the world.
(Belsey 1980, 46)

The medium of language comes to acquire the illusion of transparency: this feature of the medium tends to blind its users to thepart it plays in constructing their experiential worlds. Realistic texts
reflect a mimetic purpose in representation – seeking to imitate so
closely that which they depict that they may be experienced as virtually identical (and thus unmediated). Obviously, purely verbal
signifiers cannot be mistaken for their real-world referents. While itis relatively easy for us to regard words as conventional symbols, it
is more difficult to recognize the conventionality of images which
resemble their signifieds. Yet even an image is not what it represents– the presence of an image marks the absence of its referent. The
difference between signifier and signified is fundamental. Nevertheless, when the signifiers are experienced as highly realistic – asin the case of photography and film – it is particularly easy to slip
into regarding them as identical with their signifieds. In contrast evento realistic painting and drawing, photographs seem far less obviously authored by a human being. Just as ‘the word is not the thing’and ‘the map is not the territory’ nor is a photograph or television
news footage that which it depicts. Yet in the common-sense attitudeof everyday life we routinely treat high modality signifiers in thisway. Indeed, many realistic filmic narratives and documentaries seemto invite this confusion of representation with reality (Nichols 1981,21). Thus television is frequently described as a ‘window on theworld’ and we usually assume that ‘the camera never lies’. We knowof course that in a film a dog can bark but it cannot bite (though,when ‘absorbed’, we may ‘suspend disbelief ’ in the context of what
we know to be enacted drama). However, we are frequently inclined

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to accept ‘the evidence of our own eyes’ even when events are mediated by the cameras of journalists.
Highly realistic representations in any medium always involvea point of view. Representations which claim to be real deny theunavoidable difference between map and territory. In the sense that
there is always a difference between the represented and its representation, ‘the camera always lies’. We do not need to adopt the‘scientific’ realism of the so-called general semanticists concerningthe ‘distortion of reality’ by our signifying systems, but may acknowledge instead that reality does not exist independently of signs,
turning our critical attention to the issue of whose realities are privileged in particular representations – a perspective which, avoiding
a retreat to subjectivism, pays due tribute to the unequal distributionof power in the social world.
EMPTY SIGNIFIERS
While Saussurean semioticians (with language as their model) haveemphasized the arbitrary relationship of the signifier to the signified,some subsequent theorists have stressed ‘the primacy of the signifier’ – Jacques Lacan even praised Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty
as ‘the master of the signifier’ for his declaration that ‘when I use
a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor
less’. Many postmodernist theorists postulate a complete disconnection of the signifier and the signified. An ‘empty’ or ‘floating
signifier’ is variously defined as a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified. Such signifiers meandifferent things to different people: they may stand for many or evenany signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want themto mean. In such a state of radical disconnection between signifierand signified, a sign only means that it means. Such a disconnection
is perhaps clearest in literary and aesthetic texts which foregroundthe act and form of expression and undermine any sense of a naturalor transparent connection between a signifier and a referent. However,Jonathan Culler suggests that to refer to an ‘empty signifier’ is an
implicit acceptance of its status as a signifier and is thus ‘to correlate it with a signified’ even if this is not known; ‘the most radical

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play of the signifier still requires and works through the positing ofsignifieds’ (Culler 1985, 115). Shakespeare famously referred to ‘atale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’(Macbeth V, iii). As early as 1939 Jakobson referred to the ‘zerosign’ in linguistics – the ‘unmarked’ form of a word (such as the
singular form of words in which the plural involves the addition of
the terminal marker -s) (Jakobson 1939). We will return to the notionof unmarked terms in Chapter 3. The concept of an ‘empty signifier’ also has some similarities with other linguistic concepts – with
the notion of an ‘empty category’ and with Hjelmslev’s figurae or
non-signifying sign elements. The ‘floating signifier’ is referred toin the year 1950 in Lévi-Strauss’s Introduction to the Work of Marcel
Mauss (Lévi-Strauss 1950). For Lévi-Strauss such a signifier is likean algebraic symbol which has no immanent symbolic value but
which can represent anything. Roland Barthes referred to nonlinguistic signs specifically as being so open to interpretation thatthey constituted a ‘floating chain of signifieds’ (Barthes 1964, 39).
The first explicit reference to an ‘empty signifier’ of which I amaware is that of Barthes in his essay ‘Myth today’ (Barthes 1957).
Barthes defines an empty signifier as one with no definite signified(cf. Barthes 1982, 108).
Whereas Saussure saw the signifier and the signified (however
arbitrary their relationship) as being as inseparable as the two sides
of a piece of paper, poststructuralists have rejected the apparently
stable and predictable relationship embedded in his model. The
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan wrote of ‘the incessant slidingof the signified under the signifier’ (Lacan 1977, 154) – he argued
that there could be no anchoring of particular signifiers to particularsignifieds – although this in itself is hardly contentious in the context
of psychoanalysis. Jacques Derrida refers (originally in the 1960s)
to the ‘play’ or ‘freeplay’ of signifiers: they are not fixed to theirsignifieds but point beyond themselves to other signifiers in an ‘indefinite referral of signifier to signified’ (Derrida 1967b, 25; ‘freeplay’has become the dominant English rendering of Derrida’s use of theterm jeu – see, for instance, Derrida 1967a, xix). Signs thus always
refer to other signs, and there is no final sign referring only to itself.
Derrida championed the ‘deconstruction’ of Western semiotic

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systems, denying that there were any ultimate determinable meanings. While for Saussure the meaning of signs derives from how theydiffer from each other, Derrida coined the term différance to allude
also to the way in which meaning is endlessly deferred. There is no‘transcendent signified’ (Derrida 1967b, 278–80; Derrida 1967a, 20).
Endless deferral is only superficially similar to Peirce’s ‘unlimited
semiosis’: Peirce was a realist who emphasized that in practice thispotentially endless process is inevitably cut short by the practicalconstraints of everyday life (Gallie 1952, 126), and the object isgraspable at the end of such a process. Unlike Peirce, postmodernist
theories grant no access to any reality outside signification. For
Derrida, ‘il n’y a rien hors du texte’ (‘there is nothing outside thetext’) – although this assertion need not necessarily be taken ‘literally’ (Derrida 1967a, 158, 163). For materialist Marxists and realists,
postmodernist idealism is intolerable: ‘signs cannot be permitted toswallow up their referents in a never-ending chain of signification,in which one sign always points on to another, and the circle is neverbroken by the intrusion of that to which the sign refers’ (Lovell 1983,
16). However, an emphasis on the unavoidability of signification need
not necessitate denying any external reality. Readers may be tempted
to conclude from this brief review of the notion of ‘the empty (orfree-floating) signifier’ that it has become something of an academic‘soundbite’ and that the term itself is ironically in danger of being
an empty signifier.
The notion of reality as degenerative is found in the Romantic
mythology of a primal state of unmediatedness (referring to children
before language or human beings before The Fall) (Chandler 1995,31–2). In his book The Image, Daniel Boorstin charted the rise ofwhat he called ‘pseudo-events’ – events which are staged for the mass
media to report (Boorstin 1961). However, any ‘event’ is a social construction – bounded ‘events’ have no objective existence, and all news
items are ‘stories’ (Galtung and Ruge 1981).
The postmodernist Jean Baudrillard interprets many representations as a means of concealing the absence of reality; he calls such
representations ‘simulacra’ (or copies without originals) (Baudrillard
1984). He sees a degenerative evolution in modes of representationin which signs are increasingly empty of meaning:SIGNS AND THINGS

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These would be the successive phases of the image:
1. It is the reflection of a basic reality.
2. It masks and perverts a basic reality.
3. It masks the absence of a basic reality.
4. It bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own
pure simulacrum.
(Baudrillard 1988, 170)

Baudrillard argues that when speech and writing were created, signs
were invented to point to material or social reality, but the bond
between signifier and signified became eroded. As advertising,propaganda and commodification set in, the sign began to hide ‘basic
reality’. In the postmodern age of ‘hyper-reality’ in which what are
only illusions in the media of communication seem very real, signs
hide the absence of reality and only pretend to mean something. For
Baudrillard, simulacra – the signs that characterize late capitalism –come in three forms: counterfeit (imitation) – when there was stilla direct link between signifiers and their signifieds; production (illusion) – when there was an indirect link between signifier andsignified; and simulation (fake) – when signifiers came to stand in
relation only to other signifiers and not in relation to any fixed
external reality. It is hardly surprising that Douglas Kellner has criticized Baudrillard as a ‘semiological idealist’ who ignores themateriality of sign production. Baudrillard’s claim that the Gulf War
never happened is certainly provocative (Baudrillard 1995).
Such perspectives, of course, beg the fundamental question,‘What is “real”?’ The semiotic stance which problematizes reality
and emphasizes mediation and convention is sometimes criticized as
extreme ‘cultural relativism’ by realists – such critics often object
to an apparent sidelining of referential concerns such as ‘accuracy’(e.g. Gombrich 1982, 188, 279, 286). However, even philosophicalrealists would accept that much of our knowledge of the world isindirect; we experience many things primarily (or even solely) as
they are represented to us within our media and communication technologies. Since representations cannot be identical copies of what
they represent, they can never be neutral and transparent but are
instead constitutive of reality. As Judith Butler puts it, we need to

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ask, ‘What does transparency keep obscure?’ (Butler 1999, xix).
Semiotics helps us to not to take representations for granted as reflections of reality, enabling us to take them apart and consider whose
realities they represent. As the linguist Edward Sapir famously
remarked, ‘all grammars leak’ (Sapir 1921, 38). Those who would
learn from semiotics should search for structural leaks, seams andscaffolding as signs of the making of any representation, and also
for what has been denied, hidden or excluded so that the text may
seem to tell ‘the whole truth’.

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3
ANALYSING
STRUCTURES

Semiotics is probably best known as an approach to textual analysis,
and in this form it is characterized by a concern with structural analysis. Structuralist analysis focuses on the structural relations which arefunctional in the signifying system at a particular moment in history.
It involves identifying the constituent units in a semiotic system (suchas a text or socio-cultural practice), the structural relationships
between them (oppositions, correlations and logical relations) and therelation of the parts to the whole. This is not an empty exercise since‘relations are important for what they can explain: meaningful contrasts and permitted or forbidden combinations’ (Culler 1975, 14).
HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL AXES
Saussure emphasized that meaning arises from the differences
between signifiers; these differences are of two kinds: syntagmatic(concerning positioning) and paradigmatic (concerning substitution).
Saussure called the latter associative relations (Saussure 1916/1983,

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the

girl

died

man

cried

paradigmatic axis

sangsyntagmatic axis
F I G U R E 3 . 1 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes121), but Roman Jakobson’s term is now used. The distinction is a
key one in structuralist semiotic analysis in which these two structural ‘axes’ (horizontal as syntagmatic and vertical as paradigmatic)
are seen as applicable to all sign systems (see Figure 3.1). The planeof the syntagm is that of the combination of ‘this-and-this-and-this’(as in the sentence, ‘the man cried’) while the plane of the paradigm
is that of the selection of ‘this-or-this-or-this’ (e.g. the replacementof the last word in the same sentence with ‘died’ or ‘sang’). Whilesyntagmatic relations are possibilities of combination, paradigmatic
relations are functional contrasts – they involve differentiation.
Temporally, syntagmatic relations refer intratextually to other signifiers co-present within the text, while paradigmatic relations referintertextually to signifiers which are absent from the text (ibid., 122).
The ‘value’ of a sign is determined by both its paradigmatic and its
syntagmatic relations. Syntagms and paradigms provide a structuralcontext within which signs make sense; they are the structural forms
through which signs are organized into codes.
Paradigmatic relationships can operate on the level of the signifier and on the level of the signified (ibid., 121–4; Silverman 1983,
10; Harris 1987, 124). A paradigm is a set of associated signifiers or
signifieds which are all members of some defining category, but inA N A LY S I N G S T R U C T U R E S

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which each is significantly different. In natural language there aregrammatical paradigms such as verbs or nouns. In a given context,
one member of the paradigm set is structurally replaceable withanother; the choice of one excludes the choice of another. The use of
one signifier (e.g. a particular word) rather than another from thesame paradigm set (e.g. adjectives) shapes the preferred meaning ofa text. Paradigmatic relations can thus be seen as ‘contrastive’.
Saussure’s notion of ‘associative’ relations was broader and less formal than what is normally meant by ‘paradigmatic’ relations. He
referred to ‘mental association’ and included perceived similarities inform (e.g. homophones) or meaning (e.g. synonyms). Such similarities were diverse and ranged from strong to slight, and might refer toonly part of a word (such as a shared prefix or suffix). He noted that
there was no end (or commonly agreed order) to such associations(Saussure 1983, 121–4). Jakobson rejected this conception, insistingthat there is a ‘hierarchical order within the paradigmatic set’
(Jakobson 1962, 599; cf. 1971d, 719–20).
Paradigms are not confined to the verbal mode. In film andtelevision, paradigms include ways of changing shot (such as cut,fade, dissolve and wipe). The medium or genre are also paradigms,
and particular media texts derive meaning from the ways in which
the medium and genre used differ from the alternatives. The aphorism of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan that ‘themedium is the message’ can thus be seen as reflecting a semiotic
concern: to a semiotician the medium is not neutral.
A syntagm is an orderly combination of interacting signifiers
which forms a meaningful whole within a text – sometimes,
following Saussure, called a ‘chain’. Such combinations are madewithin a framework of syntactic rules and conventions (both explicit
and inexplicit). In language, a sentence, for instance, is a syntagm
of words; so too are paragraphs and chapters. ‘There are always
larger units, composed of smaller units, with a relation of interdependence holding between both’ (ibid., 127): syntagms can containother syntagms. A printed advertisement is a syntagm of visual signifiers. Syntagmatic relations are the various ways in which elements
within the same text may be related to each other. Syntagms are

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created by the linking of signifiers from paradigm sets which arechosen on the basis of whether they are conventionally regarded as
appropriate or may be required by some rule system (e.g. grammar).
Syntagmatic relations highlight the importance of part–whole relationships: Saussure stressed that ‘the whole depends on the parts,and the parts depend on the whole’ (ibid., 126).
The structure of any text or cultural practice has both syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. Roland Barthes outlined the paradigmatic and syntagmatic elements of the ‘garment system’ (Barthes
1967a, 26–7). The paradigmatic elements are the items which cannot
be worn at the same time on the same part of the body (such as hats,
trousers, shoes). The syntagmatic dimension is the juxtaposition ofdifferent elements at the same time in a complete ensemble from hat
to shoes. Within a genre, while the syntagmatic dimension is the textual structure, the paradigmatic dimension can be as broad as the
choice of subject matter. In this framing, form is a syntagmatic dimension while content is a paradigmatic dimension. However, form is also
subject to paradigmatic choices and content to syntagmatic arrangement. In the case of film, our interpretation of an individual shot
depends on both paradigmatic analysis (comparing it, not necessarily
consciously, with the use of alternative kinds of shot) and syntagmatic
analysis (comparing it with preceding and following shots). The same
shot used within another sequence of shots could have quite a different preferred reading. Actually, filmic syntagms are not confined tosuch temporal syntagms (which are manifested in montage: thesequencing of shots) but include the spatial syntagms found also instill photography (in mise-en-scène: the composition of individual
frames). The determination of meaning in a narrative may seem to be
primarily dependent on the syntagmatic dimension, but a recent example of a film in which the paradigmatic dimension is foregrounded is
Crash (Paul Haggis 2004). This is a thematic film dealing with racial
prejudice, and making sense of it (at least initially) requires the audience to make comparative inferences about a series of separate (andheavily cross-cut) events – only as we move towards closure does thesyntagmatic dimension resume its conventional dominance.
Both syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis treat signs as partof a system – exploring their functions within codes and sub-codes –A N A LY S I N G S T R U C T U R E S

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a topic to which we will return. Although we will discuss paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations separately, it should be emphasizedthat the semiotic analysis of a text or corpus has to tackle the system
as a whole, and that the two dimensions cannot be considered in isolation. The description of any semiotic system involves specifying
both the membership of all of the relevant paradigmatic sets and also
the possible combinations of one set with another in well-formed syntagms. For the analyst, according to Saussure (who was, of course,
focusing on the language system as a whole), ‘the system as a unitedwhole is the starting point, from which it becomes possible, by aprocess of analysis, to identify its constituent elements’; one cannot
try to construct the system by working upwards from the constituent
elements (Saussure 1983, 112). However, Roland Barthes argued that‘an important part of the semiological undertaking’ was to divide
texts ‘into minimal significant units . . . then to group these units into
paradigmatic classes, and finally to classify the syntagmatic relations
which link these units’ (Barthes 1967a, 48; cf. Leymore 1975, 21 and
Lévi-Strauss 1972, 211). In practice, the analyst is likely to need tomove back and forth between these two approaches as the analysis
proceeds.
THE PARADIGMATIC DIMENSION
Whereas syntagmatic analysis studies the ‘surface structure’ of atext, paradigmatic analysis seeks to identify the various paradigms(or pre-existing sets of signifiers) which underlie the manifest content
of texts. This aspect of structural analysis involves a considerationof the positive or negative connotations of each signifier (revealed
through the use of one signifier rather than another), and the existence of ‘underlying’ thematic paradigms (e.g. binary oppositions
such as public–private).
Semioticians often focus on the issue of why a particular signifier rather than a workable alternative was used in a specific context:
on what they often refer to as ‘absences’. Saussure noted that a characteristic of what he called ‘associative’ relations – what would now
be called paradigmatic relations – was that (in contrast to syntagmatic relations) such relations held ‘in absentia’ – in the absence

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from a specific text of alternative signifiers from the same paradigm(Saussure 1983, 122). He also argued that signs take their value
within the linguistic system from what they are not (ibid., 115). The
psychologist William James observed that ‘the absence of an item
is a determinant of our representations quite as positive as its presence can ever be’ (James 1890, 584). We have popular sayings in
English concerning two kinds of absences: we refer to ‘what goes
without saying’ and ‘what is conspicuous by its absence’. What ‘goes
without saying’ reflects what it is assumed that you take for granted
as obvious. In relation to the coverage of an issue (such as in factual
genres) this is a profoundly ideological absence which helps to position the text’s readers, the implication being that ‘people like us
already agree what we think about issues like that’. As for the second
kind of absence, an item which is present in the text may flout
conventional expectations, making the conventional item ‘conspicuous by its absence’ and the unexpected item ‘a statement’. Thisapplies no less to cultural practices. If a man wears a suit at his
office it says very little other than that he is conforming to a norm.
But if one day he arrives in jeans and a tee-shirt, this will be interpreted as ‘making a statement’.
Paradigmatic analysis involves comparing and contrasting eachof the signifiers present in the text with absent signifiers which insimilar circumstances might have been chosen, and considering thesignificance of the choices made. It can be applied at any semiotic
level, from the choice of a particular word, image or sound to thelevel of the choice of style, genre or medium. Figure 3.2 shows abasic paradigm set for shot size in photography and film. The useof one signifier rather than another from the same paradigm is basedon factors such as technical constraints, code (e.g. genre), convention, connotation, style, rhetorical purpose and the limitations of theindividual’s own repertoire. The analysis of paradigmatic relations
helps to define the ‘value’ of specific items in a text.
THE COMMUTATION TEST
Structuralist semioticians refer to the ‘commutation test’ which canbe used in order to identify distinctive signifiers and to define their

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shot size
long shot
mid shotclose-up
F I G U R E 3 . 2 Paradigm set for shot size

significance – determining whether a change on the level of the signifier leads to a change on the level of the signified. Its origins lie ina linguistic test of substitution applied by the Prague school structuralists. In order to identify within a language its phonemes andtheir ‘distinctive features’, linguists experimented with changes in
the phonetic structure of a word in order to see at what point it
became a different word. The original commutation test has evolved
into a rather more subjective form of textual analysis. Roland Barthes
refers to using the commutation test to divide texts into minimal
significant units, before grouping these units into paradigmaticclasses (Barthes 1967a, 48). To apply this test, a particular signifier
in a text is selected. Then alternatives to this signifier are considered. The effects of each substitution are evaluated in terms of how
this might affect the sense made of the sign. This might involve
imagining the use of a close-up rather than a mid-shot, a substitution in age, sex, class or ethnicity, substituting objects, a different
caption for a photograph, etc. It could also involve swapping over
two of the existing signifiers, changing their original relationship.
The influence of the substitution on the meaning can help to suggest
the contribution of the original signifier and also to identify syntagmatic units (Barthes 1967a, 65–7; 1967b, 19–20). The commutation

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test can identify the sets (paradigms) and codes to which the signifiers used belong. For instance, if changing the setting used in an
advertisement contributes to changing the meaning, then ‘setting’ is
one of the paradigms; the paradigm set for the setting would consistof all of those alternative signifiers which could have been used andwhich would have shifted the meaning.
The commutation test may involve any of four basic transformations, some of which involve the modification of the syntagm.
However, the consideration of an alternative syntagm can itself beseen as a paradigmatic substitution.
Paradigmatic transformations• substitution;• transposition;
Syntagmatic transformations• addition;• deletion.
These four basic transformational processes were noted as featuresof perception and recall (Allport and Postman 1945; Newcomb 1952,
88–96). They correspond to the four general categories to which
Quintilian (c.35–100 AD) assigned the rhetorical figures (or tropes)
as ‘deviations’ from ‘literal’ language (Institutes of Oratory Book I,
Chapter 5, 38–41).
OPPOSITIONSRoman Jakobson argued that ‘binarism is essential; without it thestructure of language would be lost’ (Jakobson 1973, 321). Lyons
agrees that ‘binary opposition is one of the most important principles
governing the structure of languages’ (Lyons 1977, 271). Saussure, ofcourse, emphasized the differences between signs rather than theirsimilarities (though he did not discuss binary oppositions). Opposites(or antonyms) clearly have a very practical function compared withsynonyms: that of sorting. It was Jakobson who proposed that linguistic units are bound together by a system of binary oppositions

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(Jakobson 1976). Such oppositions are essential to the generation of
meaning: the meaning of ‘dark’ is relative to the meaning of ‘light’;‘form’ is inconceivable except in relation to ‘content’. It is an open
question whether our tendency to think in opposites is determined by
the prominence of oppositions in language or whether language
merely reflects a universal human characteristic. The various conventionally linked terms with which we are familiar within a culture mightmore appropriately be described as paired ‘contrasts’, since they are
not always direct ‘opposites’ (although their use often involves polarization). Distinctions can be made between various types of ‘oppositions’, perhaps the most important being the following:• oppositions (logical ‘contradictories’): mutually exclusive
terms (e.g. alive–dead, where ‘not alive’ can only be ‘dead’);• antonyms (logical ‘contraries’): terms which are comparatively graded on the same implicit dimension (e.g. good–bad, where ‘not good’ is not necessarily ‘bad’).
(Barthes 1967b, 162ff.; Leymore 1975,
7; Lyons 1977, 270ff.)
This is basically a distinction between digital and analogue oppositions: digital differences are ‘either/or’; analogue distinctions are‘more-or-less’. Analogue oppositions clearly allow for intermediate
positions. Even the apparently categorical ‘black’ and ‘white’ can ofcourse be reconfigured as shades of grey.
Structuralists emphasize the importance of relations of paradigmatic opposition. Roman Jakobson declared that:
In an oppositive duality, if one of the terms is given, then theother, though not present, is evoked in thought. To the idea ofwhite there is opposed only that of black, to the idea of beauty
that of ugliness, to the idea of large that of small, to the ideaof closed that of open, and so on. Opposites are so intimatelyinterconnected that the appearance of one of them inevitably
elicits the other.
(Jakobson 1976, 235; cf. 1973, 321)

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Largely through the influence of Jakobson, the primary analyticalmethod employed by many structuralist semioticians involves theidentification of binary or polar semantic oppositions (e.g. us–them,public–private) in texts or signifying practices. Claude Lévi-Strauss
described the initial steps in his own analytical procedure as being
to ‘define the phenomena under study as a relation between two
or more terms, real or supposed’ and then to ‘construct a table ofpossible permutations between these terms’ (Lévi-Strauss 1964, 16).
People have believed in the fundamental character of binary
oppositions since at least classical times. For instance, in his
Metaphysics, Aristotle advanced as primary oppositions: form–
matter, natural–unnatural, active–passive, whole–part, unity–variety,before–after and being–not-being. Jakobson and Halle observe that‘the binary opposition is a child’s first logical operation’ (Jakobson
and Halle 1956, 60). While there are no opposites in nature, thebinary oppositions which we employ in our cultural practices help
to generate order out of the dynamic complexity of experience. At
the most basic level of individual survival humans share with otheranimals the need to distinguish between our own species and others,
dominance and submission, sexual availability or non-availability,
the edible and the inedible (Leach 1970, 39). The range of humandistinctions is far more extensive than those which they share withother animals since it is supported by the elaborate system of categorization which language facilitates. The British anthropologist
Edmund Leach reflects that ‘a speechless ape presumably has some
sort of feelings for the opposition I/other, perhaps even for its
expanded version we/they, but the still more grandiose natural/supernatural (man/God) could only occur within a linguistic frame . . .
The recognition of a distinction natural/supernatural (real/imaginary)is a basic marker of humanity’ (Leach 1982, 108–9). So too is thatbetween (human) culture and (animal) nature. Lévi-Strauss, who sees
the opposition between nature and culture as of fundamental importance, suggests that the primary reason that human beings have
employed fire since prehistoric times to transform raw into cooked
food is not because this was necessary for their survival but in order
to signify their otherness from beasts (Lévi-Strauss 1969).

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It is a feature of culture that binary oppositions come to seem
natural to members of a culture. Many pairings of concepts (suchas male–female and mind–body) are familiar within a culture andmay seem commonsensical distinctions for everyday communicational purposes even if some of them may be regarded as ‘false
dichotomies’ in critical contexts. The opposition of self–other (orsubject–object) is psychologically fundamental. The mind imposessome degree of constancy on the dynamic flux of experienceby defining ‘the self ’ in relation to ‘the other’. The neo-Freudian
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan argued that initially, in the primal realmof ‘the Real’ (where there is no absence, loss or lack), the infant has
no centre of identity and experiences no clear boundaries between
itself and the external world. The child emerges from the real andenters ‘the Imaginary’ at the age of about 6 to 18 months, before
the acquisition of speech. This is a private psychic realm in which
the construction of the self as subject is initiated. In the realm ofvisual images, we find our sense of self reflected back by an otherwith whom we identify. Lacan describes a defining moment in theimaginary which he calls ‘the mirror phase’, when seeing one’s
mirror image (and being told by one’s mother, ‘That’s you!’) induces
a strongly defined illusion of a coherent and self-governing personal
identity. This marks the child’s emergence from a matriarchal stateof ‘nature’ into the patriarchal order of culture. As the child gains
mastery within the pre-existing ‘symbolic order’ (the public domainof verbal language), language (which can be mentally manipulated)
helps to foster the individual’s sense of a conscious self residing
in an ‘internal world’ which is distinct from ‘the world outside’.
However, a degree of individuality and autonomy is surrendered tothe constraints of linguistic conventions, and the self becomes a more
fluid and ambiguous relational signifier rather than a relatively fixed
entity. Subjectivity is dynamically constructed through discourse.
MARKEDNESS
Oppositions are rarely equally weighted. The Russian linguist andsemiotician Roman Jakobson introduced the theory of markedness:‘Every single constituent of any linguistic system is built on an

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opposition of two logical contradictories: the presence of an attribute(“markedness”) in contraposition to its absence (“unmarkedness”)’(Jakobson 1972, 42; cf. 1980a). The concept of markedness can beapplied to the poles of a paradigmatic opposition: paired signs consistof an ‘unmarked’ and a ‘marked’ form. This applies, as we shallsee, both at the level of the signifier and at the level of the signified. The marked signifier is distinguished by some special semiotic
feature. In relation to linguistic signifiers, two characteristic featuresof marked forms are commonly identified: these relate to formalfeatures and generic function. The more complex form is marked,
which typically involves both of the following features:• Formal marking: in morphologically related oppositions,marking is based on the presence or absence of some particular formal feature. The marked signifier is formed byadding a distinctive feature to the unmarked signifier (forinstance, the marked form ‘unhappy’ is formed by adding
the prefix un- to the unmarked signifier ‘happy’) (Greenberg
1966; Clark and Clark, 1977; Lyons 1977, 305ff.).
• Distributional marking: formally marked terms show atendency to be more restricted in the range of contexts inwhich they occur. (Lyons 1977, 306–7)
In English, linguistically unmarked forms include the present tenseof verbs and the singular form of nouns (Jakobson’s ‘zero-sign’).
The active voice is normally unmarked, although in the restricted
genre of traditional academic writing the passive voice is still often
the unmarked form.
The markedness of linguistic signs includes semantic marking:a marked or unmarked status applies not only to signifiers but also
to signifieds. With morphologically related pairings, there is an
obvious relation between formal and semantic marking, and John
Lyons suggests that distributional marking in oppositions is probably determined by semantic marking (Lyons 1977, 307). Jakobson
reported that ‘the general meaning of the marked is characterized
by the conveyance of more precise, specific, and additional information than the unmarked term provides’ (Jakobson 1980a, 138).
The unmarked term is often used as a generic term while the marked

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term is used in a more specific sense. General references to humanity
used to use the term ‘man’ (which in this sense was not intended to
be sex specific), and of course the word ‘he’ has long been usedgenerically. In English, the female category is generally marked inrelation to the male, a point not lost on feminist theorists (Clark and
Clark 1977, 524).
Where terms are paired, the pairing is rarely symmetrical but
rather hierarchical. For Jakobson, hierarchy was a fundamental structural principle (Jakobson 1980a, 137): ‘the entire network oflanguage displays a hierarchical arrangement that within each levelof the system follows the same dichotomous principle of marked
terms superposed on the corresponding unmarked terms’ (Jakobson
1972, 42). Whereas Saussure had asserted that the elements of aparadigm set have no fixed order, Jakobson argued that markedness
created hierarchical relations within paradigms (Jakobson 1962, 599;
1971d, 719–20). With apologies to George Orwell we might coin thephrase that ‘all signifieds are equal, but some are more equal thanothers’. With many of the familiarly paired terms, the two signifieds
are accorded different values. The unmarked term is primary, being
given precedence and priority, while the marked term is treated as
secondary or even suppressed as an ‘absent signifier’. While
linguistic markedness may not of itself imply negativity (e.g. theunmarked term cow versus the marked term bull), morphologicalmarkers (such as un- or -in) can generate negative connotations.
When morphological cues are lacking, the ‘preferred sequence’ ormost common order of paired terms usually distinguishes the firstas a semantically positive term and the second as a negative one(Lyons 1977, 276; Malkiel 1968).
‘Term B’ is referred to by some theorists as being produced
as an ‘effect’ of ‘Term A’. The unmarked term is presented as fundamental and originative while the marked term is conceived in relation
to it as derivative, dependent, subordinate, supplemental or ancillary(Culler 1985, 112). This framing ignores the fact that the unmarked
term is logically and structurally dependent on the marked term tolend it substance. Derrida demonstrated that within the oppositional
logic of binarism neither of the terms (or concepts) makes sense
without the other. This is what he calls ‘the logic of supplementarity’:

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the ‘secondary’ term which is represented as ‘marginal’ and external
is in fact constitutive of the ‘primary’ term and essential to it (Derrida
1967a). The unmarked term is defined by what it seeks to suppress.
In the pairing of oppositions or contraries, Term B is defined
relationally rather than substantively. The linguistic marking of signifiers in many of these pairings is referred to as ‘privative’ – consistingof suffixes or prefixes signifying lack or absence – e.g. non-, un- or-less. In such cases, Term B is defined by negation – being everything that Term A is not. For example, when we refer to ‘non-verbal
communication’, the very label defines such a mode of communication only in negative relation to ‘verbal communication’. Indeed,
the unmarked term is not merely neutral but implicitly positive incontrast to the negative connotations of the marked term. The association of the marked term with absence and lack is of course
problematized by those who have noted the irony that the dependence of Term A on Term B can be seen as reflecting a lack on thepart of the unmarked term (Fuss 1991, 3).
The unmarked form is typically dominant (e.g. statisticallywithin a text or corpus) and therefore seems to be neutral, normal andnatural. It is thus transparent – drawing no attention to its invisibly
privileged status, while the deviance of the marked form is salient.
Where it is not simply subsumed, the marked form is foregrounded– presented as ‘different’; it is ‘out of the ordinary’ – an extraordinary deviational ‘special case’ which is something other than thestandard or default form of the unmarked term. Unmarked–marked
may thus be read as norm–deviation. It is notable that empiricalstudies have demonstrated that cognitive processing is more difficult
with marked terms than with unmarked terms (Clark and Clark 1977).
Marked forms take longer to recognize and process and more errors
are made with these forms.
On the limited evidence from frequency counts of explicit
verbal pairings in written text (online texts retrieved using the former
Infoseek search engine, September 2000), while it was very common
for one term in such pairings to be marked, in some instances there
is not a clearly marked term (see Figure 3.3). For instance, in generalusage there seemed to be no inbuilt preference for one term in apairing such as old–young (one was just as likely to encounter

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high

I
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E
N
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90%+*
indoor/outdoor
up/down
yes/noEast/West
open/closed
wet/dryquestion/answer
true/false
major/minor
hot/cold
reader/writer
before/after
love/hate
top/bottom
good/badcause/effectfront/backprimary/secondary
birth/deathpresence/absence
problem/solution
win/lose
acceptance/rejection
inclusion/exclusion
success/failure
human/machineright/wrong
nature/nurture
theory/practicenear/farself/otherfigure/groundrich/poor
fact/opinion
system/use
hero/villain
fact/value
text/context
raw/cooked
substance/stylebase/superstructureknowledge/ignorance
fact/fantasy
knower/known
literal/metaphorical80%+*
on/offpublic/private
male/female
high/lowparent/childinternal/external
gain/loss
human/animal
past/present
gay/straight
more/lessabove/below
inner/outer
thought/feelinglife/death
subject/object
producer/consumer
work/play
good/evilmasculine/feminine
health/illness
comedy/tragedy
insider/outsider
happy/sadsuperior/inferior
present/absent
clean/dirty
natural/artificial
speaker/listenerclassical/romantic
type/token
nature/technology
rights/obligations
reason/emotion
sacred/profanemaker/user

70%+*
black/whitemind/bodyleft/rightpositive/negativeart/science
active/passive
light/dark
product/system
sex/gender
static/dynamic
liberal/conservative
higher/lower
teacher/learner
war/peacebody/soulfact/fiction
form/content
form/function
simple/complex
original/copymeans/ends
appearance/reality
competence/performance
one/many
speech/writing
straight/curved
signifier/signified
central/peripheral
wild/domestic
stability/change
realism/idealism

60%+*
adult/childurban/rural
product/process
horizontal/verticalphysical/mental
hard/soft
fast/slow
quantity/quality
foreground/backgroundsimilarity/difference
temporary/permanent
nature/culture
poetry/prose
part/wholemarried/single
strong/weaksubjective/objective
dead/alive
shallow/deep
competition/cooperation
live/recorded
head/heart
formal/casual
structure/agency
message/medium
form/meaningwords/deeds
fact/theory
words/things50%+*
new/oldlarge/small
local/global
them/ussystem/process
young/old
majority/minority
foreign/domestic
structure/processorder/chaosconcrete/abstract
words/actions
beautiful/ugly
individual/society
strange/familiar

lowmore marked

MARKEDNESS

less marked*Dominant order as percentage of total occurrences of both forms

F I G U R E 3 . 3 Markedness of some explicit oppositions in online texts

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young–old). Furthermore, the extent to which a term was marked
was variable. Some terms seemed to be far more clearly marked thanothers: in the pairing public–private, for instance, private was veryclearly the marked term (accorded secondary status). How strongly
a term is marked also depends on contextual frameworks such as
genres and sociolects, and in some contexts a pairing may be very
deliberately and explicitly reversed when an interest group seeks tochallenge the ideological priorities which the markedness may betaken to reflect. Not all of the pairs listed will seem to be ‘the rightway round’ to everyone – you may find it interesting to identify
which ones seem counterintuitive to you and to speculate as to why
this seems so.
The concept of markedness can be applied more broadly thansimply to paradigmatic pairings of words or concepts. Whether in textual or social practices, the choice of a marked form ‘makes a statement’. Where a text deviates from conventional expectations it is‘marked’. Conventional, or ‘over-coded’ text (which follows a fairly
predictable formula) is unmarked whereas unconventional or ‘undercoded’ text is marked. Marked or under-coded text requires the interpreter to do more interpretive work. Nor is the existence of marked
forms simply a structural feature of semiotic systems. The distinction
between norm and deviation is fundamental in socialization (Bruner
1990). Social differentiation is constructed and maintained throughthe marking of differences. Unmarked forms reflect the naturalization of dominant cultural values. Binary oppositions are almost
invariably weighted in favour of the male, silently signifying that thenorm is to be male and to be female is to be different.
Jakobson observed in 1930 that markedness ‘has a significancenot only for linguistics but also for ethnology and the history ofculture, and that such historico-cultural correlations as life–death,liberty–nonliberty, sin–virtue, holidays–working days, and so on arealways confined to relations a–non-a, and that it is important to findout for any epoch, group, nation etc. what the marked element is’(Jakobson 1980a, 136). However natural familiar dichotomies andtheir markedness may seem, their historical origins or phases ofdominance can often be traced. For instance, perhaps the most influential dualism in the history of Western civilization can be attributed

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primarily to the philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) who
divided reality into two distinct ontological substances – mind andbody. This distinction insists on the separation of an external or realworld from an internal or mental one, the first being material andthe second non-material. It created the poles of objectivity andsubjectivity and fostered the illusion that ‘I’ can be distinguishedfrom my body. Furthermore, Descartes’s rationalist declaration that
‘I think, therefore I am’ encouraged the privileging of mind overbody. He presented the subject as an autonomous individual with anontological status prior to social structures (a notion rejected by poststructural theorists). He established the enduring assumption of the
independence of the knower from the known. Cartesian dualism also
underpins a host of associated and aligned dichotomies: reason–
emotion, male–female, true–false, fact–fiction, public–private, self–other and human–animal. Indeed, many feminist theorists lay agreat deal of blame at Descartes’s door for the orchestration of the
ontological framework of patriarchal discourse. One of the mostinfluential of theorists who have sought to study the ways in which
reality is constructed and maintained within discourse by such dominant frameworks is the French historian of ideas, Michel Foucault,
who focused on the analysis of ‘discursive formations’ in specifichistorical and socio-cultural contexts (Foucault 1970 and 1974).
DECONSTRUCTION
Roman Jakobson highlighted the tensions and contradictions within
Saussure’s Course (Jakobson 1984b). He had already identified theterms foregrounded by Saussure within his oppositions, such as
langue rather than parole, synchrony rather than diachrony, the paradigmatic rather than the syntagmatic, linear temporality rather thanspatial concurrence and the immateriality of form rather than the substance of the signifier (Jakobson 1949a, 54; 1949c, 423; 1956, 74–5;
1966; 1980b). Jakobson’s own excursions beyond the formal domainof linguistics (e.g. his observations on cinema, music and fine art)
began to redress Saussure’s neglect of non-linguistic signs. Jakobson
argued that the two sides of the Saussurean dichotomies should be
regarded as complementary (Jakobson 1971d). For instance, the

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extralinguistic context (‘bracketed’ by Saussure) is as interpretively
important as structural linguistic relations (Jakobson 1956, 75; 1960,
353). Subsequently Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress have outlined
an explicitly social and materialist framework for semiotics based onreclaiming ‘the contents of Saussure’s rubbish bin’ (Hodge and Kress
1988, 17) – but Jakobson had already ransacked it.
While other critical theorists have been content to ‘valorize
term B’ in the semiotic analysis of textual representations, the workof the poststructuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida included a radical ‘deconstruction’ of Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, notonly revalorizing terms which Saussure had devalorized but moreradically seeking to destabilize the whole oppositional framework. In
the process, he sought to expose the phonocentric privileging ofspeech over writing in Western culture (Derrida 1967a and 1967b).
He rejected the privileging of the signified over the signifier, seeing
it as a perpetuation of the traditional opposition of matter and spirit
or substance and thought. He noted that within such discourse thematerial form is always subordinated to the less material form.
Derrida sought to blur the distinction between signifier and signified,insisting that ‘the signified always already functions as a signifier’(Derrida 1967a, 7). He similarly challenged other loaded oppositions
such as presence over absence, nature over culture, masculine overfeminine and literal over metaphorical.
ALIGNMENT
Paired signifiers are seen by structuralist theorists as part of the ‘deep[or ‘hidden’] structure’ of texts, shaping the preferred reading. Such
oppositions may appear to be resolved in favour of dominant ideologies but poststructuralists argue that tensions between them always
remain unresolved. It is not in isolation that the rhetorical power ofbinary oppositions resides, but in their articulation in relation to otheroppositions. Such linkages seem to become aligned in some texts
and codes so that additional ‘vertical’ relationships (such as male–mind, female–body) acquire apparent links of their own – as feminists and queer theorists have noted (e.g. Silverman 1983, 36; Grosz
1993, 195; Butler 1999, 17). As Kaja Silverman observes, ‘a cultural

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code is a conceptual system which is organized around key oppositions and equations, in which a term like “woman” is defined in
opposition to a term like “man”, and in which each term is alignedwith a cluster of symbolic attributes’ (Silverman 1983, 36).
Applying the concept of marked forms to mass media genres,
Merris Griffiths examined the production and editing styles of television advertisements for toys. Her findings showed that the style ofadvertisements aimed primarily at boys had far more in common
with those aimed at a mixed audience than with those aimed at girls,
making ‘girls’ advertisements’ the marked category in commercials
for toys (Chandler and Griffiths 2000). Notably, the girls’ ads had
significantly longer shots, significantly more dissolves (fade out/fadein of shot over shot), fewer long shots and more close-ups, fewer
low shots, more level shots and fewer overhead shots. The genderdifferentiated use of production features which characterized thesechildren’s commercials reflected a series of binary oppositions –fast–slow, abrupt–gradual, excited–calm, active–passive, detached–
involved. Their close association in such ads led them to line up
consistently together as stereotypically ‘masculine’ vs. ‘feminine’qualities. The ‘relative autonomy’ of formal features in commercials
seems likely to function as a constant symbolic reaffirmation of
the broader cultural stereotypes which associate such qualities withgender – especially when accompanied by gender-stereotyped
content. Readers may care to reflect on the way in which ‘brown
goods’ and ‘white goods’ have traditionally been sold in high-street
electrical shops (Cockburn and Ormrod 1993, Chapter 4). Brown
goods such as televisions, video-recorders, camcorders and soundsystems were primarily targeted at men and the sales staff focusedon technical specifications. White goods such as refrigerators,
washing-machines and cookers were targeted at women and the sales
staff focused on appearance. The extent to which this particularpattern still survives in your own locality may be checked by someinvestigative ‘window-shopping’.
The notion of semiotic alignment can be traced to Claude LéviStrauss’s discussion of analogical relationships which generate
systems of meaning within cultures. Influenced by Jakobson, LéviStrauss saw certain key binary oppositions as the invariants or

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universals of the human mind, cutting across cultural distinctions(Lévi-Strauss 1972, 21). His synchronic studies of cultural practices
identified underlying semantic oppositions in relation to suchphenomena as myths, totemism and kinship rules. Individual myths
and cultural practices defy interpretation, making sense only as apart of a system of differences and oppositions expressing fundamental reflections on the relationship of nature and culture. He
argued that binary oppositions form the basis of underlying ‘classificatory systems’, while myths represented a dreamlike working overof a fundamental dilemma or contradiction within a culture,
expressed in the form of paired opposites. Apparently fundamental
oppositions such as male–female and left–right become transformed
into ‘the prototype symbols of the good and the bad, the permitted
and the forbidden’ (Leach 1970, 44; cf. Needham 1973).
Lévi-Strauss argued that within a culture ‘analogical thought’leads to some oppositions (such as edible–inedible) being perceived
as metaphorically resembling the ‘similar differences’ of other oppositions (such as native–foreign) (Lévi-Strauss 1962/1974).
This yields a series of homologous oppositions, such as raw
is to cooked as nature is to culture (in structuralist shorthand ‘raw :cooked :: nature : culture’) (Lévi-Strauss 1969), or – in the Cartesiandualism of the modern Western world – culture : nature :: people :animals :: male : female :: reason : passion (Tapper 1994, 50). The
classification systems of a culture are a way of encoding differences
within society by analogy with perceived differences in the natural
world (somewhat as in Aesop’s Fables) (Lévi-Strauss 1969, 90–1,
cf. 75–6, 96–7). They transform what are perceived as natural categories into cultural categories and serve to naturalize cultural
practices. ‘The mythical system and the modes of representation
it employs serve to establish homologies between natural andsocial conditions or, more accurately, it makes it possible to equate
significant contrasts found in different planes: the geographical,
meteorological, zoological, botanical, technical, economic, social,ritual, religious and philosophical’ (ibid., 93). The aggregation of
fourfold distinctions associated with Aristotle’s ‘four elements’ andsustained in various combinations over two millenia are of this kind
(Chandler 2002, 102–3). The alignments which develop within such

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systems are not without contradictions, and Lévi-Strauss argued thatthe contradictions within them generate explanatory myths – such
codes must ‘make sense’ (ibid., 228).
In his critique of Saussure, Jakobson warned that in our interpretive strategies we should beware of allowing separate dichotomies
to slip into unquestioned alignments, as in the treatment of synchrony
as always static and of diachrony as always dynamic. In relation tosynchrony and diachrony Jakobson noted of cinematic perception:
If a spectator is asked a question of synchronic order (forexample, ‘What do you see at this instant on the movie
screen?’), he will inevitably give a synchronic answer, but not a
static one, for at that instant he sees horses running, a clown
turning somersaults, a bandit hit by bullets. In other words,
these two effective oppositions, synchrony–diachrony andstatic–dynamic, do not coincide in reality. Synchrony contains
many a dynamic element.
(Jakobson 1980b, 165; cf. 1952a, 227)

Rather than Saussure’s strict dichotomies, Jakobson proposed (in aquasi-poststructuralist vein) apparently oxymoronic alternative
formulations such as ‘permanently dynamic synchrony’ (Jakobson
1981, 64). Although Lévi-Strauss’s analytical approach remains
formally synchronic, involving no study of the historical dimension,
he does incorporate the possibility of change: oppositions are not
fixed and structures are transformable. He notes that we need notregard such frameworks from a purely synchronic perspective.
‘Starting from a binary opposition, which affords the simplest
possible example of a system, this construction proceeds by theaggregation, at each of the two poles, of new terms, chosen because
they stand in relations of opposition, correlation, or analogy to it’.
In this way, structures may undergo transformation (Lévi-Strauss
1962/1974, 161).
Aesthetic ‘movements’ can also be interpreted in terms of paradigms of characteristic oppositions. Each movement can be loosely
identified in terms of a primary focus of interest: for instance, realism
tends to be primarily oriented towards the world, neo-classicism

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towards the text and romanticism towards the author (which is not tosuggest, of course, that such goals have not been shared by othermovements). Such broad goals generate and reflect associated values.
Within a particular movement, various oppositions constitute a paletteof possibilities for critical theorists within the movement. For
instance, the codes of romanticism are built upon various implicit or
explicit articulations of such oppositions as: expressive–instrumental,
feeling–thought, emotion–reason, spontaneity–deliberation, passion–
calculation, inspiration–effort, genius–method, intensity–reflection,
intuition–judgement, impulse–intention, unconsciousness–design,
creativity–construction, originality–conventionality, creation–imitation, imagination–learning, dynamism–order, sincerity–facticity,
natural–artificial and organic–mechanical. The alignment of someof these pairs generates further associations: for instance, an alignment of spontaneity–deliberation with sincerity–facticity equates
spontaneity with sincerity. More indirectly, it may also associate
their opposites, so that deliberation reflects insincerity or untruthfulness. Romantic literary theorists often proclaimed spontaneity
in expressive writing to be a mark of sincerity, of truth to feeling –even when this ran counter to their own compositional practices(Chandler 1995, 49ff.).
Even within ‘the same’ aesthetic movement, various theorists
construct their own frameworks, as is illustrated in Abrams’s studyof romantic literary theory (Abrams 1971). Each opposition (orcombination of oppositions) involves an implicit contrast with thepriorities and values of another aesthetic movement: thus (in accord
with the Saussurean principle of negative differentiation) an aesthetic
movement is defined by what it is not. The evolution of aesthetic
movements can be seen as the working-out of tensions between suchoppositions.
Turning from the aesthetic to the commercial sphere, thestrategic manipulation of conceptual alignments has been a common
feature of the application of semiotics to marketing since British
Telecom’s famous advertising campaign of the 1990s – ‘It’s Good
to Talk’. That campaign sought to increase men’s willingness to use
the (landline) telephone at home – avoided by many men partly
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its association with ‘small-talk’. The traditional gender stereotypes
also led men to favour ‘instrumental’ (and therefore short) calls
rather than ‘expressive’ (and more expensive) uses of the medium –a state of affairs which was eventually undermined by the mobile
phone’s colonization of the (traditionally masculine) public sphere.
Part of the research involved mapping alignments in this universe of
discourse. The ‘cultural norm’ was a vertical alignment of female,emotional, trivial, [domestic] small-talk and male, rational, important, [public] ‘big talk’ (a term so unmarked that a label had to beinvented) (Alexander 1995). Challenging this alignment included
using gruff-voiced, ‘no-nonsense’ actor Bob Hoskins – a ‘man’s man’– to front the campaign.
More recently, the slogan for a campaign launched in 2005 forthe washing powder ‘Persil’ in the UK was ‘dirt is good’. This
provocative inversion of the Christian folklore that ‘cleanliness isnext to godliness’ can be seen as part of a deliberate strategy ofconceptual realignment which has a distinctly Lévi-Straussean
flavour (see in particular Lévi-Strauss 1968). For many years, thecore concept had been that ‘Persil washes whiter’ (alluded to even
by Barthes 1957, 40–2). Soap powder and detergent advertising(distinguished by Barthes in their rhetorical appeals) had longreflected conceptual frameworks in which cleanliness–dirt and godliness–evil were vertically aligned with science–nature. In other words,
the vertical alignments had been of dirt with evil and with nature.
This went back to the days when the advertising for many domestic
products regularly featured white-coated ‘scientists’ – often in laboratories – ‘testing’ the product and representing it as a technologicaladvance. In the new campaign, ‘dirt is good’ was the slogan for print
ads and television commercials in which we were shown people
enjoying themselves outdoors and getting dirty in the process. The
company literature also refers to one of their goals being to do ‘theleast possible harm to the environment’. The new campaign thus
challenged the traditional alignment of cleanliness, godliness andscience. Within this modified mythological framework not only had
dirt become explicitly good (rather than godly) but (inexplicitly)
nature rather than science had become the hero. Viewers might alsoinfer that ‘dirt is fun’. This implication generates a new pairing –

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namely, fun–boredom (aligning boredom with evil as in the proverbial wisdom that ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’). This
mythological revolution was acomplished in the simplest and yet
most ‘theologically’ radical switch – no less than the moral inversion of good and evil. In addition to the need to position (orreposition) the product in relation to rival brands, part of the thinking
was presumably that consumers no longer had the faith in science(or indeed God) which they were once assumed to have. Of course,
whether this revolution in conceptual alignment generated by semiotically inspired marketing actually ‘caught the public imagination’would require empirical testing.
THE SEMIOTIC SQUARE
One analytical technique that seeks to map oppositions and their intersections in texts and cultural practices involves the application of what
is known as ‘the semiotic square’. This was introduced by Algirdas
Greimas as a means of analysing paired concepts more fully by mapping the logical conjunctions and disjunctions relating key semantic
features in a text (Greimas 1987, xiv, 49). The semiotic square isadapted from the ‘logical square’ of scholastic philosophy and from
Jakobson’s distinction between contradiction and contrariety. FredricJameson notes that ‘the entire mechanism . . . is capable of generating at least ten conceivable positions out of a rudimentary binary
opposition’ (in Greimas 1987, xiv). While this suggests that the possibilities for signification in a semiotic system are richer than theeither/or of binary logic, they are nevertheless subject to ‘semiotic
constraints’ – ‘deep structures’ providing basic axes of signification.
In Figure 3.4, the four corners (S1, S2, Not S1 and Not S2) represent
positions within the system which may be occupied by concrete or
abstract notions. The double-headed arrows represent bilateral relationships. The upper corners of the Greimasian square represent an
opposition between S1 and S2 (e.g. white and black). The lower corners represent positions which are not accounted for in simple binary
oppositions: Not S2 and Not S1 (e.g. non-white and non-black). Not
S1 consists of more than simply S2 (e.g. that which is not white is
not necessarily black). The horizontal relationships represent an

A N A LY S I N G S T R U C T U R E S

complementarity

assertions1

negations2

contrariety

contradictioncomplementarity

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contrarietys2
non-negations1
non-assertionF I G U R E 3 . 4 The semiotic square

opposition between each of the left-hand terms (S1 and Not S2) andits paired right-hand term (Not S1 and S2). The terms at the top (S1,S2) represent ‘presences’, while their companion terms (Not S1 and
Not S2) represent ‘absences’. The vertical relationships of ‘implication’ offer us an alternative conceptual synthesis of S1 with Not S2and of S2 with Not S1 (e.g. of white with not-black or of black with
not-white). Greimas refers to the relationships between the four positions as: contrariety or opposition (S1/S2); complementarity or implication (S1/Not S2 and S2/Not S1); and contradiction (S1/Not S1 andS2/Not S2). For instance, in the case of the linked terms ‘beautiful’and ‘ugly’, in the semiotic square the four related terms (clockwise)
would be ‘beautiful’, ‘ugly’, ‘not beautiful’ and ‘not ugly’. The initial pair is not simply a binary opposition because something which
is not beautiful is not necessarily ugly and something which is not
ugly is not necessarily beautiful (Leymore 1975, 29). The same
framework can be productively applied to many other paired terms,
such as ‘thin’ and ‘fat’.
Occupying a position within such a framework invests a signwith meanings. The semiotic square can be used to highlight ‘hidden’ underlying themes in a text or practice. For instance, FredricJameson outlines how it might be applied to Charles Dickens’s novel,
Hard Times (Jameson 1972, 167–8). In his foreword to an English

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translation of a book by Greimas, Jameson reflects on his own use of
the technique. He suggests that the analyst should begin by provisionally listing all of the entities to be coordinated and that evenapparently marginal entities should be on this initial list. He notesthat even the order of the terms in the primary opposition is crucial:
we have already seen how the first term in such pairings is typicallyprivileged. He adds that ‘the four primary terms . . . need to be conceived polysemically, each one carrying within it its own range ofsynonyms . . . such that . . . each of the four primary terms threatens
to yawn open into its own fourfold system’ (in Greimas 1987,
xv–xvi). Jameson suggests that Not S2, the negation of the negation,‘is always the most critical position and the one that remains open or
empty for the longest time, for its identification completes the process
and in that sense constitutes the most creative act of the construction’(ibid., xvi). Using the earlier example of aesthetic movements andtheir dominant focuses, the reader might find it interesting to apply
the semiotic square to these.
To recap, it was suggested that realism tends to be primarilyoriented towards the world, neo-classicism towards the text andromanticism towards the author. We may assign the concepts ofworld, text and author to three corners of the square – a fourth term
is conspicuous by its absence. Jameson’s caveats about the order andformulation of terms may be useful here.
Turning to other contexts, in relation to children’s toys Dan
Fleming offers an accessible application of the semiotic square(Fleming 1996, 147ff.). Gilles Marion has used the Greimasiansquare to suggest four purposes in communicating through clothing:wanting to be seen; not wanting to be seen; wanting not to be seen;
and not wanting not to be seen (Marion 1994). Jean-Marie Flochhas used the grid to illustrate an interesting exploration of the‘consumption values’ represented by Habitat and Ikea furniture(Floch 2000, 116–44). However, the Greimasian analysis of texts interms of the semiotic square has been criticized as easily leading to
reductionist and programmatic decodings. Worse still, some theorists seem to use the square as little more than an objective-looking
framework which gives the appearance of coherence and grandtheory to loose argument and highly subjective opinions.

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There is a delightfully ironic quip (variously attributed) that
‘The world is divided into those who divide people into two types, andthose who don’t.’ The interpretive usefulness of simple dichotomies
is often challenged on the basis that life and (perhaps by a misleading
realist analogy) texts are ‘seamless webs’ and thus better described interms of continua. We may need to remind ourselves that any interpretive framework cuts up its material into manageable chunks; howappropriate this is can only be assessed in terms of whether it advances
our understanding of the phenomenon in question. Nevertheless, useful as it may be to construct an orderly and manageable reality by slicing experience into mutually exclusive categories, cultural practices
maintaining the conventional borders of what seem to be fundamental natural distinctions mask the permeability and fragility of the fabric of social reality. The ambiguous boundary zones between
conceptual categories (what semiotically inspired market researchers
have called areas of ‘cultural contradiction’) can be sacred or taboo invarious cultures, and their exploration can be very revealing (Leach
1976, 33–6).
THE SYNTAGMATIC DIMENSION
Saussure, of course, emphasized the theoretical importance of therelationship of signs to each other. He also noted that ‘normally we
do not express ourselves by using single linguistic signs, but groupsof signs, organized in complexes which themselves are signs’(Saussure 1983, 127). However, in practice he treated the individual
word as the primary example of the sign. Thinking and communication depend on discourse rather than isolated signs. Saussure’s focus
on the language system rather than on its use meant that discourse
was neglected within his framework. The linking together of signs
was conceived solely in terms of the grammatical possibilities which
the system offered. This is a key feature of the Saussurean framework
which led some theorists to abandon semiotics altogether in favourof a focus on ‘discourse’ while leading others to seek to reformulatea more socially oriented semiotics (e.g. Hodge and Kress 1988).
However, this is not to suggest that structural analysis is worthless.
Analysts still engage in formal textual studies based on structuralist

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principles. It remains important for anyone interested in the analysisof texts to be aware of what these principles are. Structuralists study
texts as syntagmatic structures. The syntagmatic analysis of a text
(whether it is verbal or non-verbal) involves studying its structure andthe relationships between its parts. Structuralist semioticians seek to
identify elementary constituent segments within the text – its syntagms. The study of syntagmatic relations reveals the conventionsor ‘rules of combination’ underlying the production and interpretation of texts (such as the grammar of a language). The use of one
syntagmatic structure rather than another within a text influences
meaning.
SPATIAL RELATIONS
Reversing Saussure’s priorities, we will begin with spatial rather than
temporal relations. As a result of Saussure’s influence, syntagms areoften defined only as ‘sequential’ (and thus temporal – as in speech
and music). Saussure emphasized ‘auditory signifiers’ which ‘are presented one after another’ and ‘form a chain’. But even in auditory
signs sequential relations are not the only dimension: in music, while
sequence may seem the most obvious feature, chords, polyphony andorchestration are manifestations of simultaneity. Furthermore, we
may grant that temporal relations tend to be dominant in auditory
signs, but in visual signs it is spatial relations that are dominant. As
we have seen, the visual medium of written language for Saussure
was secondary. ‘Linearity’, a consequence of Saussure’s phonocentric
stance, was the second of his two ‘general principles’ of the sign
(Saussure 1983, 67). As Jakobson noted, we need to recognize theimportance of not only temporal but also spatial syntagmatic relations (Jakobson 1956, 74–5; 1963a, 59; 1963d, 336). Spatial syntagms are important not only in the whole range of what we usually
think of as visual media (such as drawing, painting and photography)
but also in writing – in circumstances where specific layout contributes to the meaning (not only in relatively unusual genres such as‘shape poems’ but also routinely in contexts such as notices, newspapers and magazines). Jakobson recognizes key differences between
the dimensions of sequentiality and simultaneity and suggests that

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one important consequence is that whereas a verbal or musicalsequence ‘exhibits a consistently hierarchical structure and is resolvable into ultimate, discrete, strictly patterned components’, in the caseof a ‘primarily spatial, simultaneously visible picture’ there are ‘nosimilar components . . . and even if some hierarchical arrangement
appears, it is neither compulsory nor systematic’ (Jakobson 1963d,
336; cf. 1967, 341 and 1968, 701). Saussure noted only in passingthat visual signifiers (he instanced nautical flags) ‘can exploit morethan one dimension simultaneously’ (Saussure 1983, 70). Of course
many semiotic systems (including all audio-visual media, such as
television and film) rely heavily on both spatial and temporal syntagms. In any case, what Jakobson called Saussure’s ‘linearity dogma’(Jakobson 1963d, 336) is clearly not a ‘general principle’ of the sign
(even of linguistic signs) and any adequate semiotic framework
should acknowledge this.
Unlike sequential syntagmatic relations, which are essentiallyabout before and after, spatial syntagmatic relations include:
•
•
•
•
•
•

above/below;
in front/behind;close/distant;left/right (which can also have sequential significance);
north/south/east/west; andinside/outside (or centre/periphery).

Such structural relationships are not semantically neutral. The ‘cognitive semanticists’, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, have shown how
fundamental ‘orientational metaphors’ are routinely linked to key concepts in a culture (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Chapter 4). Gunther
Kress and Theo van Leeuwen identify three key spatial dimensions invisual texts: left/right, top/bottom and centre/margin (Kress and van
Leeuwen 1996 and 1998).
The horizontal and vertical axes are not neutral dimensions ofpictorial representation. Since writing and reading in European cultures proceed primarily along a horizontal axis from left to right (asin English but unlike, for instance, Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese), the‘default’ for reading a picture within such reading/writing cultures(unless attention is diverted by some salient features) is likely to be

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generally in the same direction. This is especially likely where pictures are embedded in written text, as in the case of magazines andnewspapers. There is thus a potential sequential significance in theleft-hand and right-hand elements of a visual image – a sense of‘before’ and ‘after’. In Western business magazines it is quite common for ‘facing the future’ to be signified by images of people facing
or moving to the right. Kress and van Leeuwen relate the left-handand right-hand elements to the linguistic concept of ‘the Given’ and‘the New’. They argue that on those occasions when pictures makesignificant use of the horizontal axis, positioning some elements leftof centre and others right of centre, then the left-hand side is ‘the sideof the “already given”, something the reader is assumed to know
already’, a familiar, well-established and agreed-upon point of departure – something which is commonsensical, assumed and self-evident,
while the right-hand side is the side of the New. ‘For something to be
New means that it is presented as something which is not yet known,or perhaps not yet agreed upon by the viewer, hence as something towhich the viewer must pay special attention’ – something more surprising, problematic or contestable (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996,
186–92; cf. 1998, 189–93 and van Leeuwen 2005, 201–4).
The vertical compositional axis also carries connotations.
Arguing for the fundamental significance of orientational metaphorsin framing experience, Lakoff and Johnson observe that (in English
usage) up has come to be associated with more and down with less.
They outline further associations:• up is associated with goodness, virtue, happiness, consciousness, health, life, the future, high status, having control or power, and with rationality, while• down is associated with badness, depravity, sickness, death,
low status, being subject to control or power, and withemotion.
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Chapter 4)
For one signifier to be located ‘higher’ than another is consequently
not simply a spatial relationship but also an evaluative one in relation to the signifieds for which they stand. Erving Goffman’s slim

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volume Gender Advertisements (1979) concerned the depictions ofmale and female figures in magazine advertisements. Although it
was unsystematic and only some of his observations have been
supported in subsequent empirical studies, it is widely celebrated asa classic of visual sociology. Probably the most relevant of his observations for our purposes here was that ‘men tend to be located higher
than women’ in these ads, symbolically reflecting the routine subordination of women to men in society (Goffman 1979, 43). Offering
their own speculative mapping of the connotations of top and bottom,
Kress and van Leeuwen argue that, where an image is structured
along a vertical axis, the upper and lower sections represent an opposition between ‘the Ideal’ and ‘the Real’ respectively. They suggestthat the lower section in pictorial layouts tends to be more ‘downto-earth’, concerned with practical or factual details, while the upper
part tends to be concerned with abstract or generalized possibilities(a polarization between respectively ‘particular/general’, ‘local/
global’, etc.). In many Western printed advertisements, for instance,‘the upper section tends to . . . show us “what might be”; the lower
section tends to be more informative and practical, showing us “whatis”’ (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 193–201; cf. 1998, 193–5 andvan Leeuwen 2005, 204–5).
The third key spatial dimension discussed by Kress and van
Leeuwen is that of centre and margin. The composition of somevisual images is based primarily not on a left–right or top–bottom
structure but on a dominant centre and a periphery. ‘For something
to be presented as Centre means that it is presented as the nucleus of
the information on which all the other elements are in some sense
subservient. The Margins are these ancillary, dependent elements’(Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 206; cf. 1998, 196–8 and van Leeuwen
2005, 205–9). This is related to the fundamental perceptual distinction between figure and ground. Selective perception involves ‘foregrounding’ some features and ‘backgrounding’ others. We owe theconcept of ‘figure’ and ‘ground’ in perception to the Gestalt psychologists. Confronted by a visual image, we seem to need to separate adominant shape (a ‘figure’ with a definite contour) from what ourcurrent concerns relegate to ‘background’ (or ‘ground’). In visual
images, the figure tends to be located centrally.

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SEQUENTIAL RELATIONS
The most obvious example of sequential relations is narrative. Somecritics claim that differences between narratives and non-narratives
relate to differences among media, instancing individual drawings,
paintings and photographs as non-narrative forms (though see
Andrews 1998); others claim that narrative is a ‘deep structure’ independent of the medium. Narrative theory (or narratology) is a majorinterdisciplinary field in its own right, and is not necessarily framed
within a semiotic perspective, although the analysis of narrative isan important branch of semiotics. Semiotic narratology is concernedwith narrative in any mode – literary or non-literary, fictional or nonfictional, verbal or visual – but tends to focus on minimal narrative
units and the ‘grammar of the plot’ (some theorists refer to ‘story
grammars’). It follows in the tradition of the Russian formalist
Vladimir Propp and the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.
Christian Metz observed that ‘a narrative has a beginning andan ending, a fact that simultaneously distinguishes it from the rest of
the world’ (Metz 1968, 17). There are no ‘events’ in the world(Galtung and Ruge 1981). Reality cannot be reduced objectively todiscrete temporal units; what counts as an ‘event’ is determined by
one’s purposes. It is narrative form which creates events. Perhaps themost basic narrative syntagm is a linear temporal model composedof three phases – equilibrium–disruption–equilibrium – a ‘chain’ of
events corresponding to the beginning, middle and end of a story (or,as Philip Larkin put it, describing the formula of the classic novel: ‘abeginning, a muddle and an end’; my emphasis). In the orderly
Aristotelian narrative form, causation and goals turn story (chronological events) into plot: events at the beginning cause those in the
middle, and events in the middle cause those at the end. This is thebasic formula for classic Hollywood movies in which the storyline isgiven priority over everything else. The film-maker Jean-Luc Godard
declared that he liked a film to have a beginning, a middle and an
end, but not necessarily in that order; in ‘classical’ (realist) narrative,
events are always in that order, providing continuity and closure.
Roland Barthes argued that narrative is basically translatable – ‘international, transhistorical, transcultural’ (Barthes 1977a, 79). It can be

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transposed from one medium to another (for instance, from novel tofilm or radio and vice versa). Some theorists argue that the translatability of narrative makes it unlike other codes and such commentators
grant narrative the privileged status of a ‘metacode’.
Narratives help to make the strange familiar. They provide
structure, predictability and coherence. In this respect they are similar
to schemas for familiar events in everyday life. Turning experience
into narratives seems to be a fundamental feature of the human drive
to make meaning. We are ‘storytellers’ with ‘a readiness or predisposition to organize experience into a narrative form’ which isencouraged in our socialization as we learn to adopt our culture’s
ways of telling (Bruner 1990, 45, 80).
Narrative coherence is no guarantee of referential correspondence. The narrative form itself has a content of its own; the medium
has a message. Narrative is such an automatic choice for representing
events that it seems unproblematic and natural. Robert Hodge andGunther Kress argue that the use of a familiar narrative structure
serves ‘to naturalize the content of the narrative itself’ (Hodge andKress 1988, 230). Where narratives end in a return to predictable equilibrium this is referred to as narrative closure. Closure is often effected
as the resolution of an opposition. Structural closure is regarded bymany theorists as reinforcing a preferred reading, or in Hodge andKress’s terms, reinforcing the status quo. According to theorists applying the principles of Jacques Lacan, conventional narrative (in dominant forms of literature, cinema and so on) also plays a part in theconstitution of the subject. While narrative appears to demonstrateunity and coherence within the text, the subject participates in thesense of closure (in part through ‘identification’ with characters). ‘The
coherence of narrative reciprocally reinscribes the coherence ofthe subject’, returning the subject to the pre-linguistic realm of the
Imaginary where the self had greater fixity and less fluidity than in
the Symbolic realm of verbal language (Nichols 1981, 78).
STRUCTURAL REDUCTION
The structuralist semiotician’s inductive search for underlying structural patterns highlights the similarities between what may initially

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seem to be very different narratives. As Barthes notes, for the structuralist analyst ‘the first task is to divide up narrative and . . . define
the smallest narrative units . . . Meaning must be the criterion of theunit: it is the functional nature of certain segments of the story
that makes them units – hence the name “functions” immediately
attributed to these first units’ (Barthes 1977a, 88).
In a highly influential book, The Morphology of the Folktale(1928), the Russian narrative theorist Vladimir Propp reported thata hundred fairy tales which he had analysed were all based on thesame basic formula. He reduced them to around thirty ‘functions’.
‘Function is understood as an act of character defined from the pointof view of its significance for the course of the action’ (Propp 1928,21). In other words, such functions are basic units of action. As
Barthes notes, structuralists avoid defining human agents in termsof ‘psychological essences’, and participants are defined by analysts
not in terms of ‘what they are’ as ‘characters’ but in terms of ‘what
they do’ (Barthes 1977a, 106). Propp listed seven roles: the villain,
the donor, the helper, the sought-for person (and her father), thedispatcher, the hero and the false hero and schematized the various‘functions’ within the story.
This form of analysis downplays the specificity of individual
texts in the interests of establishing how texts mean rather than whata particular text means. It is by definition, a ‘reductive’ strategy, andsome literary theorists fear that it threatens to make Shakespeare
indistinguishable from Star Wars. Even Barthes noted that ‘the first
analysts of narrative were attempting . . . to see all the world’s stories. . . within a single structure’ and that this was a task which was ‘ultimately undesirable, for the text thereby loses its difference’ (Barthes
1973, 3). Difference is, after all, what identifies both the sign and thetext. Despite this objection, Fredric Jameson suggests that the method
has redeeming features. For instance, the notion of a grammar of plots
allows us to see ‘the work of a generation or a period in terms of agiven model (or basic plot paradigm), which is then varied and articulated in as many ways as possible until it is somehow exhausted andreplaced by a new one’ (Jameson 1972, 124).
Unlike Propp, both Lévi-Strauss and Greimas based theirinterpretations of narrative structure on underlying oppositions.

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Lévi-Strauss saw the myths of a culture as variations on a limited
number of basic themes built upon oppositions related to nature versus culture (note that even the traditional distinctions between signs
as natural or conventional reflect this opposition). For Lévi-Strauss
any myth could be reduced to a fundamental structure. He wrote that‘a compilation of known tales and myths would fill an imposing number of volumes. But they can be reduced to a small number of simple types if we abstract from among the diversity of characters a few
elementary functions’ (Lévi-Strauss 1972, 203–4). Myths help people to make sense of the world in which they live. Lévi-Strauss saw
myths as a kind of a message from our ancestors about humankind
and our relationship to nature, in particular, how we became separated from other animals. For instance, myths of the domestic fireside
mediate our transition from nature to culture and from animality tohumanity via the transition from the raw to the cooked (1969).
However, the meaning was not to be found in any individual narrative but in the patterns underlying the myths of a given culture. Myths
make sense only as part of a system. Lévi-Strauss treated the form ofmyths as a kind of language. He reported that his initial method ofanalysing the structure of myths into ‘gross constituent units’ or‘mythemes’ involved ‘breaking down its story into the shortest possible sentences’ (Lévi-Strauss 1972, 211). This approach was basedon an analogy with the ‘morpheme’, which is the smallest meaningful unit in linguistics. In order to explain the structure of a myth, LéviStrauss classified each mytheme in terms of its ‘function’ within themyth and finally related the various kinds of function to each other.
He saw the possible combinations of mythemes as being governed bya kind of underlying universal grammar which was part of the deep
structure of the mind itself.
A good example of the Lévi-Straussean method is provided byVictor Larrucia in his own analysis of the story of Little Red RidingHood (originating in the late seventeenth century in a tale by Perrault)(Larrucia 1975). According to this method the narrative is summarized in several (paradigmatic) columns, each corresponding to someunifying function or theme (see Figure 3.5). The original sequence(indicated by numbers) is preserved when the table is read (syntagmatically) row by row. Rather than offering any commentators’

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suggestions as to what themes these columns represent, I will avoid
authorial closure and leave it to readers to speculate for themselves.
Suggestions can be found in the references (Larrucia 1975; Silverman and Torode 1980, 314ff.).
The structuralist semiotician and literary theorist Algirdas
Greimas (who established ‘the Paris school’ of semiotics) proposed agrammar of narrative which could generate any known narrative structure (Greimas 1966 and 1987). As a result of a ‘semiotic reduction’of Propp’s seven roles he identified three types of narrative syntagms:
syntagms performanciels – tasks and struggles; syntagms contractuels– the establishment or breaking of contracts; syntagms disjonctionnels– departures and arrivals (Culler 1975, 213; Hawkes 1977, 94;
Greimas 1987). Greimas claimed that three basic binary oppositions
underlie all narrative themes, actions and character types (which he

1 Grandmother's 2 Little Red
illness causes
Riding Hoodmother to(LRRH) obeys
makemother andgrandmothergoes off to
food
wood

3 LRRH meets(wolf as) friend
and talks

4 Woodcutter's
5 LRRH obeys
presence
wolf and takes
causes wolf tolong road tospeak to LRRH
grandmother's

6 Grandmotheradmits (wolfas) LRRH

7 Wolf eats
grandmother

8 LRRH meets(wolf as)grandmother
9 LRRH obeys
grandmotherand gets intobed
F I G U R E 3 . 5 Little Red Riding Hood
Source: Larrucia 1975, 528

10 LRRH
questions(wolf as)grandmother

11 Wolf eats
LRRH

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collectively calls ‘actants’); namely, subject–object (Propp’s hero andsought-for person), sender–receiver (Propp’s dispatcher and hero –again) and helper–opponent (conflations of Propp’s helper and donor,
plus the villain and the false hero) – note that Greimas argues that thehero is both subject and receiver. The subject is the one who seeks;
the object is that which is sought. The sender sends the object and thereceiver is its destination. The helper assists the action and the opponent blocks it. He extrapolates from the subject–verb–object sentence
structure, proposing a fundamental, underlying ‘actantial model’ as
the basis of story structures. He argues that in traditional syntax, ‘functions’ are the roles played by words – the subject being the one performing the action and the object being ‘the one who suffers it’(Jameson 1972, 124). For Greimas, stories thus share a common‘grammar’. However, critics such as Jonathan Culler have not always
been convinced of the validity of Greimas’s methodology or of theworkability or usefulness of his model (Culler 1975, 213–14, 223–4).
Syntagmatic analysis can be applied not only to verbal texts
but also to audio-visual ones. In film and television, a syntagmatic
analysis would involve an analysis of how each frame, shot, sceneor sequence related to the others (these are the standard levels ofanalysis in film theory). At the lowest level is the individual frame.
Since films are projected at a rate of twenty-four frames per second,the viewer is never conscious of individual frames, but significant
frames can be isolated by the analyst. At the next level up, a shot
is a ‘single take’ – an unedited sequence of frames which may include
camera movement. A shot is terminated by a cut (or other transition). A scene consists of more than one shot set in a single place
and time. A sequence spans more than one place and/or time but it
is a logical or thematic sequence (having ‘dramatic unity’). The
linguistic model often leads semioticians to a search for units ofanalysis in audio-visual media which are analogous to those used inlinguistics. In the semiotics of film, crude equivalents with written
language are sometimes postulated, such as the frame as morpheme(or word), the shot as sentence, the scene as paragraph, and thesequence as chapter (suggested equivalences vary among commentators). For members of the Glasgow University Media Group thebasic unit of analysis was the shot, delimited by cuts and with

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allowance made for camera movement within the shot and for theaccompanying soundtrack (Davis and Walton 1983b, 43). However,if the basic unit is the shot, the analytical utility of this concept ishighly restricted in the case of a film like Hitchcock’s Rope (1948),
in which each shot (or take) lasts up to ten minutes (the length ofa reel of film at the time the film was made). Similarly, what is one
to make of shots-within-shots in a film like Buster Keaton’s Sherlock
Jr. (1924), where we see a film within a film? Shots can be broken
into smaller meaningful units (above the level of the frame), buttheorists disagree about what these might be. Above the level of thesequence, other narrative units can also be posited.
Christian Metz offered elaborate syntagmatic categories fornarrative film (Metz 1968, Chapter 5). For Metz, these syntagms
were analogous to sentences in verbal language, and he argued that
there were eight key filmic syntagms which were based on ways ofordering narrative space and time.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

the autonomous shot (e.g. establishing shot, insert);
the parallel syntagm (montage of motifs);
the bracketing syntagm (montage of brief shots);
the descriptive syntagm (sequence describing one moment);
the alternating syntagm (two sequences alternating);
the scene (shots implying temporal continuity);
the episodic sequence (organized discontinuity of shots);
the ordinary sequence (temporal with some compression).

However, Metz’s ‘grande syntagmatique’ has not proved an easy
system to apply to some films. In their study of children’s understanding of television, Hodge and Tripp (1986, 20) divide syntagms
into four kinds, based on syntagms existing in the same time(synchronic), different times (diachronic), same space (syntopic), anddifferent space (diatopic).
••••

synchronic/syntopic (one place, one time: one shot);diachronic/syntopic (same place sequence over time);synchronic/diatopic (different places at same time);diachronic/diatopic (shots related only by theme).

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They add that, while these are all continuous syntagms (single shotsor successive shots), there are also discontinuous syntagms (related
shots separated by others). Beyond the fourfold distinction between
frames, shots, scenes and sequences, the interpretive frameworks offilm theorists differ considerably. In this sense at least, there is no
cinematic ‘language’.
Semioticians have led the quest to identify and describe structural relations underlying texts and cultural practices. Sociologicalcritics note that structural elements need not only to be related to
one another and interpreted, but also to be contextualized in termsof the social systems which give rise to them. A psychologist objects
that ‘the question of whether categories like sacred/profane andhappiness/misery are psychologically real in any meaningful sense
is not posed and the internal logic of structuralism would suggest it
need not be posed’ (Young 1990, 184). It is also true that those who
use structuralist approaches sometimes claim to be analysing the‘latent meaning’ in a text – what it is ‘really’ about; such approaches
understate the subjectivity of the interpreter’s framework. Nor can it
be claimed that oppositions are ‘contained within’ texts rather than
generated by interpretation. None of these criticisms are unanswerable, however, and we would be foolish to forego the insights which
may still be gained from exploring the structural analysis of texts
and social practices.

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4
CHALLENGINGTHE LITERAL

Semiotics represents a challenge to the ‘literal’ because it rejects thepossibility that we can neutrally represent ‘the way things are’. In thischapter we will explore the ways in which semioticians have problematized two key distinctions: that at the level of the signifier between
the literal and the figurative and that at the level of the signified
between denotation and connotation.
RHETORICAL TROPES
A sea-change in academic discourse, which has been visible in many
disciplines, has been dubbed ‘the rhetorical turn’ or ‘the discursive
turn’. The central proposition of this contemporary trend is thatrhetorical forms are deeply and unavoidably involved in the shapingof realities. Form and content are inseparable. Language is not aneutral medium and our choice of words matters. The North
American literary theorist Stanley Fish insists that ‘it is impossible
to mean the same thing in two (or more) different ways’ (Fish 1980,

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32). To say that a glass is ‘half empty’ is not the same as sayingthat it is ‘half full’. In common usage we refer dismissively to ‘heatedrhetoric’, ‘empty rhetoric’ and ‘mere rhetoric’, but all discourse isunavoidably rhetorical.
Terence Hawkes tells us that ‘figurative language is language
which doesn’t mean what it says’ – in contrast to literal language
which is at least intended to be, or taken as, purely denotative(Hawkes 1972, 1). While this is a distinction which goes back toclassical times, it has been problematized by poststructuralist theorists (a topic to which we will return shortly). Somewhat lessproblematically, tropes can be seen as offering us a variety of waysof saying ‘this is (or is like) that’. Tropes may be essential to understanding if we interpret this as a process of rendering the unfamiliar
more familiar. Furthermore, however they are defined, the conventions of figurative language constitute a rhetorical code. Like othercodes, figurative language is part of the reality maintenance systemof a culture or sub-culture. It is a code which relates ostensibly to
how things are represented rather than to what is represented. Yet
such ‘form’ may have ‘content’ of its own. Occasionally in everyday
life our attention is drawn to an unusual metaphor – such as the critical quip that someone is ‘one voucher short of a pop-up toaster’.
However, much of the time – outside of ‘poetic’ contexts – figuresof speech retreat to ‘transparency’. Such transparency tends to anaesthetize us to the way in which the culturally available stock of tropes
acts as an anchor linking us to the dominant ways of thinking within
our society (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Our repeated exposure to,and use of, such figures of speech subtly sustains our tacit agreement with the shared assumptions of our society.
Once we employ a trope, our utterance becomes part of a muchlarger system of associations which is beyond our control. For
instance when we refer metaphorically to ‘putting things into words’
this involves a further implicit metaphor of language as a ‘container’– a particular view of language which has specific implications(Reddy 1979). Yet the use of tropes is unavoidable. We may thinkof figurative language as most obviously a feature of poetry andmore generally of ‘literary’ writing, but there is more metaphor on

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the street corner than in Shakespeare. Roland Barthes declared that‘no sooner is a form seen than it must resemble something: humanity
seems doomed to analogy’ (Barthes 1977b, 44). The ubiquity oftropes in visual as well as verbal forms can be seen as reflecting ourfundamentally relational understanding of reality. Reality is framed
within systems of analogy. Figures of speech enable us to see one
thing in terms of another. A trope such as metaphor can be regarded
as a new sign formed from the signifier of one sign and the signified of another (Figure 4.1) (cf. Jakobson 1966, 417). The signifier
thus stands for a different signified; the new signified replaces theusual one. As I will illustrate, the tropes differ in the nature of thesesubstitutions.
In seventeenth-century England, the scientists of the Royal
Society sought ‘to separate knowledge of nature from the colours of
rhetoric, the devices of the fancy, the delightful deceit of the fables’(Thomas Sprat, 1667: The History of the Royal Society of London
for the Improving of Natural Knowledge). They saw the ‘trick ofmetaphors’ as distorting reality. An attempt to avoid figurative
language became closely allied to the realist ideology of objectivism.
Language and reality, thought and language, and form and content
are regarded by realists as separate, or at least as separable. Realists
favour the use of the ‘clearest’, most ‘transparent’ language for theaccurate and truthful description of facts. However, language isn’t
glass (as the metaphorical references to clarity and transparency
suggest), and it is unavoidably implicated in the construction of theworld as we know it. Banishing metaphor is an impossible task since
it is central to language. Ironically, the writings of the seventeenthcentury critics of rhetoric – such as Sprat, Hobbes and Locke – arethemselves richly metaphorical. Those drawn towards philosophicalsignifiedsignifiedsignifiedsignifiersignifiersignifierF I G U R E 4 . 1 Substitution in tropes

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idealism argue that all language is metaphor or even that reality ispurely a product of metaphors. Such a stance clearly denies any
referential distinction between ‘literal’ and ‘metaphorical’.
Poststructuralists (whose own use of language is typicallyhighly metaphorical) argue that there can be no text which ‘means
what it says’ (which is how literal language is often defined).
Constructionists might be content to insist that metaphors are pervasive and largely unrecognized within a culture or sub-culture and thathighlighting them is a useful key to identifying whose realities suchmetaphors privilege. Identifying figurative tropes in texts and practices can help to highlight underlying thematic frameworks; semiotic
textual analysis sometimes involves the identification of an ‘overarching (or ‘root’) metaphor’ or ‘dominant trope’. For instance, Derrida
shows how philosophers have traditionally referred to the mind andthe intellect in terms of tropes based on the presence or absence oflight (Derrida 1974); everyday language is rich in examples of theassociation of thinking with visual metaphors (bright, brilliant, dull,
enlightening, illuminating, vision, clarity, reflection, etc.).
Michel Foucault adopts a stance of linguistic determinism,
arguing that the dominant tropes within the discourse of a particular
historical period determine what can be known – constituting thebasic episteme of the age (Foucault 1970). ‘Discursive practice’ isreduced to ‘a body of anonymous, historical rules, always determinedby the time and space that have defined a given period, and for agiven social, economic, geographical, or linguistic area, the conditions of operation of the enunciative function’ (Foucault 1974, 117).
Since certain metaphors have become naturalized and we do not tend
to notice the ways in which they can channel our thinking about thesignifieds to which they refer, deliberately using unconventional
tropes can sometimes help to denaturalize taken-for-granted ways oflooking at phenomena.
METAPHOR
Metaphor is so widespread that it is often used as an umbrella term
(another metaphor!) to include other figures of speech (such as
metonyms) which can be technically distinguished from it in its

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narrower usage. Similes can be seen as a form of metaphor in which
the figurative status of the comparison is made explicit through theuse of the word ‘as’ or ‘like’. Much of the time we hardly notice that
we are using metaphors at all and yet one study found that English
speakers produced an average of 3,000 novel metaphors per week
(Pollio et al. 1977). Lakoff and Johnson argue that ‘the essence of
metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing interms of another’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 5). In semiotic terms, a
metaphor involves one signified acting as a signifier referring to a different signified. In literary terms, a metaphor consists of a ‘literal’primary subject (or ‘tenor’) expressed in terms of a ‘figurative’ secondary subject (or ‘vehicle’) (Richards 1932, 96). For instance:‘Experience is a good school, but the fees are high’ (Heinrich Heine).
In this case, the primary subject of experience is expressed in termsof the secondary subject of school. Typically, metaphor expresses anabstraction in terms of a more well-defined model.
The linking of a particular tenor and vehicle is normally unfamiliar: we must make an imaginative leap to recognize theresemblance to which a fresh metaphor alludes. Metaphor is initiallyunconventional because it apparently disregards ‘literal’ or denotative resemblance (though some kind of resemblance must become
apparent if the metaphor is to make any sense at all to its interpreters). The basis in resemblance suggests that metaphor involves
the iconic mode. However, to the extent that such a resemblance is
oblique, we may also think of metaphor as symbolic. More interpretive effort is required in making sense of metaphors than of more
literal signifiers, but this interpretive effort may be experienced as
pleasurable. While metaphors may require an imaginative leap intheir initial use (such as in aesthetic uses in poetry or the visual arts)
many metaphors become so habitually employed that they are nolonger perceived as being metaphors at all.
Metaphors need not be verbal. In film, a pair of consecutive
shots is metaphorical when there is an implied comparison of the two
shots. For instance, a shot of an aeroplane followed by a shot of abird flying would be metaphorical, implying that the aeroplane is (oris like) a bird. So too would a shot of a bird landing accompanied by

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the sounds of an airport control tower and of a braking plane – as inan airline commercial cited by Charles Forceville (Forceville 1996,
203). In most cases the context would cue us as to which was the primary subject. An ad for an airline is more likely to suggest that an
aeroplane is (like) a bird than that a bird is (like) an aeroplane. As
with verbal metaphors, we are left to draw our own conclusions as tothe points of comparison. Advertisers frequently use visual metaphors. Despite the frequently expressed notion that images cannot
assert, metaphorical images often imply that which advertisers would
not express in words.
Visual metaphor can also involve a function of ‘transference’,transferring certain qualities from one sign to another. In relation toadvertising this has been explored by Judith Williamson in her book,
Decoding Advertisements (Williamson 1978). It is of course the roleof advertisers to differentiate similar products from each other, andthey do this by associating a product with a specific set of social
values – in semiotic terms, creating distinct signifieds for it. Indeed,
it has been suggested that ads provide ‘a kind of dictionary constantly
keeping us apprised of new consumer signifieds and signifiers’(McCracken 1987, 122). One example instanced by Williamson takes
the form of a photographic close-up of the head and shoulders of
the glamorous French actress Catherine Deneuve (whose nameappears in small type). Superimposed on the lower right-hand portionof the advertisement is the image of a bottle of perfume labelled
Chanel No. 5. In this advertisement, two key signifiers are juxtaposed. The image of Catherine Deneuve richly signifies French chic,sophistication, elegance, beauty and glamour. The plain image of thebottle simply signifies Chanel No. 5 perfume. This is a rather ‘empty’signifier when we cannot actually smell the perfume (though perfume
ads in magazines have sometimes included a strip of paper impregnated with the scent). At the bottom of the ad, in large letters, thename of the perfume is repeated in its distinctive typographical style,making a link between the two key signifiers. The aim, of course,
is for the viewer to transfer the qualities signified by the actress tothe perfume, thus substituting one signified for another, and creatinga new metaphorical sign which offers us the meaning that Chanel
No. 5 is beauty and elegance (Williamson 1978, 25).

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George Lakoff and Mark Johnson illustrate that underlying
most of our fundamental concepts are several kinds of metaphor:• orientational metaphors primarily relating to spatialorganization (up/down, in/out, front/back, on/off, near/far,deep/shallow and central/peripheral);• ontological metaphors which associate activities, emotions
and ideas with entities and substances (most obviously,
metaphors involving personification);• structural metaphors: overarching metaphors (building on
the other two types) which allow us to structure one concept
in terms of another (e.g. rational argument is war or time
is a resource).
Lakoff and Johnson note that metaphors may vary from culture toculture but argue that they are not arbitrary, being derived initiallyfrom our physical, social and cultural experience (cf. Vico 1744,
129). They argue that metaphors form systematic clusters such asthat ideas (or meanings) are objects, linguistic expressions arecontainers and communication is sending – an example derived fromMichael Reddy’s discussion of ‘the conduit metaphor’ (Reddy 1979).
Metaphors not only cluster in this way but can cohere in the extended
form of cultural myths. Lakoff and Johnson argue that dominant
metaphors tend both to reflect and influence values in a culture or
subculture: for instance, the pervasive Western metaphors that knowledge is power and science subdues nature are involved in themaintenance of the ideology of objectivism (Lakoff and Johnson
1980). This is consistent with the Whorfian perspective that different
languages impose different systems of spatial and temporal relations
on experience through their figures of speech (Whorf 1956).
METONYMY
While metaphor is based on apparent unrelatedness, metonymy is afunction which involves using one signified to stand for another signified which is directly related to it or closely associated with it insome way. Metonyms are based on various indexical relationships
between signifieds, notably the substitution of effect for cause. The

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best definition I have found is that ‘metonymy is the evocation of
the whole by a connection. It consists in using for the name of athing or a relationship, an attribute, a suggested sense, or somethingclosely related, such as effect for cause . . . the imputed relationshipbeing that of contiguity’ (Wilden 1987, 198; my emphasis). It canbe seen as based on substitution by adjuncts (things that are foundtogether) or on functional relationships. Many of these forms notably
make an abstract referent more concrete, although some theorists
also include substitution in the opposite direction (e.g. cause for
effect). Part–whole relationships are sometimes distinguished as a
special kind of metonymy or as a separate trope, as we will see
shortly. Metonymy includes the substitution of:• effect for cause (‘Don’t get hot under the collar!’ for ‘Don’t
get angry!’);• object for user (or associated institution) (‘the Crown’ forthe monarchy, ‘the stage’ for the theatre and ‘the press’ forjournalists);• substance for form (‘plastic’ for ‘credit card’, ‘lead’ for‘bullet’);• place for event: (‘Chernobyl changed attitudes to nuclear
power’);• place for person (‘No. 10’ for the British prime minister);• place for institution (‘Whitehall isn’t saying anything’);• institution for people (‘The government is not backing
down’).
Lakoff and Johnson comment on several types of metonym,
including:• producer for product (‘She owns a Picasso’);• object for user (‘The ham sandwich wants his check [bill]’);• controller for controlled (‘Nixon bombed Hanoi’).
They argue that (as with metaphor) particular kinds of metonymic
substitution may influence our thoughts, attitudes and actions byfocusing on certain aspects of a concept and suppressing other aspects
which are inconsistent with the metonym:

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When we think of a Picasso, we are not just thinking of a workof art alone, in and of itself. We think of it in terms of its relation to the artist, this is, his conception of art, his technique,his role in art history, etc. We act with reverence towards a
Picasso, even a sketch he made as a teenager, because of its
relation to the artist. Similarly, when a waitress says, ‘The ham
sandwich wants his check,’ she is not interested in the person
as a person but only as a customer, which is why the use ofsuch a sentence is dehumanizing. Nixon may not himself have
dropped the bombs on Hanoi, but via the controller for controlledmetonymy we not only say ‘Nixon bombed Hanoi’ but also thinkof him as doing the bombing and hold him responsible for it. . . This is possible because of the nature of the metonymic
relationship.
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 39)

As with metaphors, metonyms may be visual as well as verbal. In
film, which Jakobson regarded as a basically metonymic medium, adepicted object which represents a related but non-depicted object
is a metonym. An ad for pensions in a women’s magazine asked thereader to arrange four images in order of importance: each image
was metonymic, standing for related activities (such as shoppingbags for material goods). Metonymy is common in cigarette advertising in countries where legislation prohibits depictions of thecigarettes themselves or of people using them. The ads for Bensonand Hedges and for Silk Cut cigarettes are good examples of this.
Jakobson argues that whereas a metaphorical term is connectedwith that for which it is substituted on the basis of similarity (andcontrast), metonymy is based on contiguity or proximity (Jakobson
1953, 232; 1956, 91, 95; 1963c, 309). As we have seen, Peirce notedthat contiguity is an indexical feature (Peirce 1931–58, 2.306).
Metonymy can be seen as a textual (or – as in thoughts and dreams– quasi-textual) projection of Peirce’s indexical mode. Metonyms
lack the evidential potential of Peirce’s mode unless the medium isindexical – as in photography and film. However, it is on the basisof perceived indexicality that metonyms may be treated as ‘directly
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of metaphor. Metonyms seem to be more obviously ‘grounded inour experience’ than metaphors since they usually involve direct
associations (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 39). Metonymy does not
require transposition (an imaginative leap) from one domain toanother as metaphor does. This difference can lead metonymy toseem more natural than metaphors – which when still ‘fresh’ arestylistically foregrounded. Metonymic signifiers foreground thesignified while metaphoric signifiers foreground the signifier (Lodge
1977, xiv). Jakobson suggested that the metonymic mode tends tobe foregrounded in prose whereas the metaphoric mode tends to beforegrounded in poetry (Jakobson 1956, 95–6). He regarded ‘socalled realistic literature’ as ‘intimately tied with the metonymic
principle’ (Jakobson 1960, 375; cf. 1956, 92). Such literature represents actions as based on cause and effect and as contiguous in timeand space. While metonymy is associated with realism, metaphor isassociated with romanticism and surrealism (Jakobson 1956, 92).
SYNECDOCHE
The definition of synecdoche varies from theorist to theorist (sometimes markedly). The rhetorician Richard Lanham represents themost common tendency to describe synecdoche as ‘the substitutionof part for whole, genus for species or vice versa’ (Lanham 1969,97). Thus one term is more comprehensive than the other. Some
theorists restrict the directionality of application (e.g. part forwhole but not whole for part). Some limit synecdoche further tocases where one element is physically part of the other. Here aresome examples:• part for whole (‘I’m off to the smoke [London]’; ‘we needto hire some more hands [workers]’; ‘two heads are better
than one’; ‘I’ve got a new set of wheels’, the American
expression ‘get your butt over here!’);• whole for part (e.g. ‘I was stopped by the law’ – where thelaw stands for a police officer, ‘Wales’ for ‘the Welsh
national rugby team’ or ‘the market’ for customers);

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• species for genus (hypernymy) – the use of a member of aclass (hyponym) for the class (superordinate) which includes
it (e.g. a ‘mother’ for ‘motherhood’, ‘bread’ for ‘food’,‘Hoover’ for ‘vacuum-cleaner’);• genus for species (hyponymy) – the use of a superordinate
for a hyponym (e.g. ‘vehicle’ for ‘car’, or ‘machine’ for‘computer’).
In photographic and filmic media a close-up is a simple synecdoche– a part representing the whole (Jakobson 1956, 92). Indeed, the formal frame of any visual image (painting, drawing, photograph, film
or television frame) functions as a synecdoche in that it suggests thatwhat is being offered is a ‘slice-of-life’, and that the world outside
the frame is carrying on in the same manner as the world depictedwithin it. This is perhaps particularly so when the frame cuts acrosssome of the objects depicted within it rather than enclosing them as
wholly discrete entities. Synecdoche invites or expects the viewer to‘fill in the gaps’ and advertisers frequently employ this trope. The
goods displayed in shop windows are synecdochic signifiers of what
one may expect to find for sale within.
Any attempt to represent reality can be seen as involving
synecdoche, since it can only involve selection (and yet such selections serve to guide us in envisaging larger frameworks). Whileindexical relations in general reflect the closest link which a signifier can be seen as having with a signified, the part–whole relationsof synecdoche reflect the most direct link of all. That which is seen
as forming part of a larger whole to which it refers is connected
existentially to what is signified – as an integral part of its being.
Jakobson noted the use of ‘synecdochic details’ by realist authors(ibid.). In ‘factual’ genres a danger lies in what has been called ‘themetonymic fallacy’ (more accurately the ‘synecdochic fallacy’)
whereby the represented part is taken as an accurate reflection of thewhole of that which it is taken as standing for – for instance, a white,
middle-class woman standing for all women (Barthes 1974, 162;
Alcoff and Potter 1993, 14). Framing is of course always highly andunavoidably selective. In fictional genres, realism seeks to encourage

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us to treat that which is missing as ‘going without saying’ rather
than as ‘conspicuous by its absence’. In mainstream films and television dramas, for instance, we are not intended to be aware that thestage-set ‘rooms’ have only three walls.
Some theorists identify synecdoche as a separate trope, somesee it as a special form of metonymy and others subsume its functions entirely within metonymy. Eco cites a classical distinction
whereby metonymy involves ‘a substitution within the framework of
the conceptual content’ while synecdoche involves a substitution‘with other aspects of reality with which a given thing is customarily connected’ (Eco 1976, 280–1). Jakobson noted that bothmetonymy and synecdoche are based on contiguity (Jakobson 1956,
95). Synecdoche can similarly be seen as another textual form ofindexicality (though once again lacking evidential potential unlessthe medium used is indexical). If the distinction is made as outlined
above, metonymy in its narrower sense would then be confined tofunctional connections such as causality. Even if synecdoche is given
a separate status, general usage would suggest that metonymy would
remain an umbrella term for indexical links as well as having anarrower meaning of its own.
IRONY
Irony is the most radical of the four main tropes. As with metaphor,
the signifier of the ironic sign seems to signify one thing but weknow from another signifier that it actually signifies something very
different. Where it means the opposite of what it says (as it usuallydoes) it is based on binary opposition. Irony may thus reflect the
opposite of the thoughts or feelings of the speaker or writer (as when
you say ‘I love it’ when you hate it) or the opposite of the truth
about external reality (as in ‘There’s a real crowd here’ when it’sdeserted). It can also be seen as being based on substitution by
dissimilarity or disjunction. While typically an ironic statement
signifies the opposite of its literal signification, such variations as
understatement and overstatement can also be regarded as ironic. At
some point, exaggeration may slide into irony.

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Unless the ironic sign is a spoken utterance (when a sarcastic
intonation may mark the irony) the marker of its ironic status comesfrom beyond the literal sign. A ‘knowing’ smile is often offered asa cue. In Britain a fashion for ‘air quotes’ (gestural inverted commas)in the 1980s was followed in the 1990s by a fashion for someyoung people to mark spoken irony – after a pause – with the word
‘Not!’, as in ‘he is a real hunk – not!’. However, irony is often moredifficult to identify. All of the tropes involve the non-literal substitution of a new signified for the usual one, and comprehension
requires a distinction between what is said and what is meant. Thus
they are all, in a sense, double signs. Irony has indeed sometimes
been referred to as a form of ‘double-coding’, though this formulation should not be allowed to obscure the role of context as well as
code. Whereas the other tropes involve shifts in what is being referred
to, irony involves a shift in modality. The evaluation of the ironic
sign requires the retrospective assessment of its modality status.
Re-evaluating an apparently literal sign for ironic cues requires reference to perceived intent and to truth status. An ironic statement is
not, of course, the same as a lie since it is not intended to be taken
as ‘true’. Irony thus poses particular difficulties for the literalist
stance of structuralists and formalists that meaning is immanent –that it lies within a text.
Irony is a marked form which foregrounds the signifier.
Adolescents sometimes use it to suggest that they are sophisticatedand not naïve. Limited use is usually intended as a form of humour.
Frequent use may be associated with reflexiveness, detachment or
scepticism. It sometimes marks a cynical stance which assumes thatpeople never mean or do what they say. Sustained use may evenreflect nihilism or relativism (nothing – or everything – is true).
While irony has a long pedigree, its use has become one of the mostcharacteristic features of postmodern texts and aesthetic practices.
Where irony is used in one-to-one communication it is of course
essential that it is understood as being ironic rather than literal.
However, with larger audiences it constitutes a form of ‘narrowcasting’, since not everyone will interpret it as irony. Dramatic irony
is a form whereby the reader or viewer knows something that one
or more of the depicted people do not know. A British ad for the

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Nissan Micra published in a women’s magazine made effective useof irony. The campaign slogan was ‘ask before you borrow it’. In
soft focus we see a man absorbed in eating his food at a table; insharp focus close-up we see a woman facing him, hiding behind herback an open can. As we read the label we realize that she has fed
him dog-food.
MASTER TROPES
Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) is usually credited with being thefirst to identify metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony as thefour basic tropes (to which all others are reducible), although this
distinction can be seen as having its roots in the Rhetorica of Peter
Ramus (1515–72) (Vico 1744, 129–31). This reduction was popularized in the twentieth century by the American rhetorician Kenneth
Burke (1897–1993), who referred to the four ‘master tropes’ (Burke
1969, 503–17). Figure 4.2 shows these tropes as a semiotic square(see Jameson in Greimas 1987, xix). Note that such frameworks
depend on a distinction being made between metonymy and synecdoche, but that such terms are often either defined variously or not
defined at all. In his book Metahistory, White saw the four ‘master

metaphors1

synecdoche
s2

s2
irony

s1
metonymyF I G U R E 4 . 2 The four ‘master tropes’ as a semiotic square
Source: adapted from Jameson in Greimas 1987, xxi

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tropes’ as part of the ‘deep structure’ underlying different historiographical styles (White 1973, ix). Jonathan Culler (following Hans
Kellner) even suggests that they may constitute ‘a system, indeed
the system, by which the mind comes to grasp the world conceptuallyin language’ (Culler 1981, 65).
White argued that ‘the fourfold analysis of figurative language
has the added advantage of resisting the fall into an essentially dualistic conception of styles’. Roman Jakobson adopted two tropes
rather than four as fundamental – metaphor and metonymy. White
felt that Jakobson’s approach, when applied to nineteenth century
literature, produced the reductive dichotomy of ‘a romantic–poetic–
Metaphorical tradition’ and ‘a realistic–prosaic–Metonymical tradition’ (White 1973, 33n.). However, Jakobson’s notion of two basic
axes has proved massively influential. Jakobson argued that metaphor
is a paradigmatic dimension (vertical, based on selection, substitution
and similarity) and metonymy a syntagmatic dimension (horizontal,
based on combination, contexture and contiguity) (Jakobson 1956,
90–6). Many theorists have adopted and adapted Jakobson’s framework, such as Lévi-Strauss and Lacan (Lévi-Strauss 1962; Lacan
1977, 160).
DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
While the distinction between literal and figurative language operates at the level of the signifier, that between denotation andconnotation operates at the level of the signified. We all know thatbeyond its ‘literal’ meaning (its denotation), a particular word may
have connotations: for instance, sexual connotations. ‘Is there any
such thing as a single entendre?’ quipped the comic actor Kenneth
Williams. In semiotics, denotation and connotation are terms
describing the relationship between the signifier and its signified, andan analytic distinction is made between two types of signifieds: adenotative signified and a connotative signified. Meaning includes
both denotation and connotation.
‘Denotation’ tends to be described as the definitional, literal,
obvious or common-sense meaning of a sign. In the case of linguistic
signs, the denotative meaning is what the dictionary attempts to

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provide. For the art historian Erwin Panofsky, the denotation of arepresentational visual image is what all viewers from any culture
and at any time would recognize the image as depicting (Panofsky
1970, 51–3). Even such a definition raises issues – all viewers? One
suspects that this excludes very young children and those regarded
as insane, for instance. But if it really means ‘culturally welladjusted’ then it is already culture specific, which takes us into theterritory of connotation. The term ‘connotation’ is used to refer tothe socio-cultural and ‘personal’ associations (ideological, emotional,etc.) of the sign. These are typically related to the interpreter’sclass, age, gender, ethnicity and so on. Connotation is thus contextdependent. Signs are more ‘polysemic’ – more open to interpretation– in their connotations than their denotations. Denotation is sometimes regarded as a digital code and connotation as an analogue
code (Wilden 1987, 224).
As Roland Barthes noted, Saussure’s model of the sign focusedon denotation at the expense of connotation and it was left to subsequent theorists (notably Barthes himself – drawing on Hjelmslev) tooffer an account of this important dimension of meaning (Barthes
1967a, 89ff.). In ‘The photographic message’ (1961) and ‘The
rhetoric of the image’ (1964), Barthes argued that in photography
connotation can be (analytically) distinguished from denotation. As
John Fiske puts it ‘denotation is what is photographed, connotation
is how it is photographed’ (Fiske 1982, 91). However, in photography, denotation is foregrounded at the expense of connotation. The
photographic signifier seems to be virtually identical with its signified, and the photograph appears to be a ‘natural sign’ produced
without the intervention of a code (Hall 1973, 132). In analysing therealist literary text Barthes came to the conclusion that connotation
produces the illusion of denotation, the illusion of the medium astransparent and of the signifier and the signified as being identical(Barthes 1974, 9). Thus denotation is just another connotation. Fromsuch a perspective, denotation can be seen as no more of a natural
meaning than is connotation but rather as a process of naturalization. Such a process leads to the powerful illusion that denotation isa purely literal and universal meaning which is not at all ideological, and indeed that those connotations which seem most obvious

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to individual interpreters are just as natural. According to an
Althusserian reading, when we first learn denotations, we are also
being positioned within ideology by learning dominant connotations
at the same time (Silverman 1983, 30). Consequently, while theorists may find it analytically useful to distinguish connotation fromdenotation, in practice such meanings cannot be neatly separated.
Most semioticians argue that no sign is purely denotative – lacking
connotation. Valentin Voloshinov insisted that no strict division canbe made between denotation and connotation because ‘referential
meaning is moulded by evaluation . . . meaning is always permeatedwith value judgement’ (Voloshinov 1973, 105). There can be noneutral, literal description which is free of an evaluative element.
For most contemporary semioticians both denotation andconnotation involve the use of codes. Structural semioticians whoemphasize the relative arbitrariness of signifiers and social semioticians who emphasize diversity of interpretation and the importanceof cultural and historical contexts are hardly likely to accept thenotion of a literal meaning. Denotation simply involves a broader
consensus. The denotational meaning of a sign would be broadly
agreed upon by members of the same culture, whereas no inventoryof the connotational meanings generated by any sign could ever becomplete. However, there is a danger here of stressing the individual
subjectivity of connotation: intersubjective responses are shared tosome degree by members of a culture; with any individual example
only a limited range of connotations would make any sense.
Connotations are not purely personal meanings – they are determinedby the codes to which the interpreter has access. Cultural codes
provide a connotational framework since they are ‘organized aroundkey oppositions and equations’, each term being ‘aligned with acluster of symbolic attributes’ (Silverman 1983, 36). Certain connotations would be widely recognized within a culture. Most adults in
Western cultures would know that a car can connote virility or
freedom.
Connotation and denotation are often described in terms oflevels of representation or levels of meaning. Roland Barthes adopted
from Louis Hjelmslev the notion that there are different orders ofsignification (Barthes 1957, 124; 1961; 1967a, 89–94; 1967b, 27ff;

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signifiersignified

SIGN
signifiersignified
SIGN

FIGURE 4.3

Orders of signification

Source: adapted from Barthes 1957, 124

Hjelmslev 1961, 114ff.). The first order of signification is that ofdenotation: at this level there is a sign consisting of a signifier anda signified. Connotation is a second order of signification which uses
the denotative sign (signifier and signified) as its signifier andattaches to it an additional signified (Figure 4.3). In this framework,
connotation is a sign which derives from the signifier of a denotative sign (so denotation leads to a chain of connotations). A signified
on one level can become a signifier on another level. This is themechanism by which signs may seem to signify one thing but areloaded with multiple meanings. Indeed, this framing of theSaussurean model of the sign is analogous to the ‘infinite semiosis’of the Peircean sign in which the interpretant can become the representamen of another sign. However, it can also tend to suggest that
denotation is an underlying and primary meaning – a notion which
many other commentators have challenged. As we have noted,
Barthes himself later gave priority to connotation, noting in 1971
that it was no longer easy to separate the signifier from the signified, the ideological from the literal (Barthes 1977a, 166).
Changing the form of the signifier while keeping the same‘literal’ signified can generate different connotations. The choice ofwords often involves connotations, as in references to ‘strikes’ vs.
‘disputes’, ‘union demands’ vs. ‘management offers’, and so on.
Tropes such as metaphor generate connotations. Subtle changes ofstyle or tone may involve different connotations, such as changing

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from sharp focus to soft focus when taking a photograph or using
different typefaces for exactly the same text. Indeed, the generationof connotations from typography alone demonstrates how importantthe material aspect of written language can be as a signifier in its
own right. One study, for instance, has shown how various typefaces
were rated by some computer users in the USA in terms of how‘youthful and fun’ or how ‘business-like’ each was perceived as
being (Bernard et al. 2001; see Figure 4.4).
Connotation is not a purely paradigmatic dimension, as
Saussure’s characterization of the paradigmatic dimension as ‘associative’ might suggest. While absent signifiers with which a signifier
may be associated are clearly a key factor in generating connotations, so too are syntagmatic associations. The connotations of asignifier relate in part to the other signifiers with which it occurs
within a particular text. However, referring to connotation entirely
in terms of paradigms and syntagms confines us to the language
system, and yet connotation is very much a question of how language
is used. The Saussurean inflection of structuralism limits us to asynchronic perspective and yet both connotations and denotations
are subject not only to socio-cultural variability but also to historical factors: they change over time. Signs referring to disempowered
groups (such as ‘woman’) can be seen as having had far more negative denotations as well as negative connotations than they do now‘Youthful and fun’

FIGURE 4.4‘Business-like’

Some connotations of particular fonts

Source: adapted from diagrams ©2001 Software Usability Research Laboratory, Wichita
State University

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because of their framing within dominant and authoritative codes of
their time – including even supposedly objective scientific codes.
Fiske warns that ‘it is often easy to read connotative values as denotative facts’ (Fiske 1982, 92). Just as dangerously seductive, however,is the tendency to accept denotation as the literal, self-evident truth.
Semiotic analysis can help us to counter such habits of mind.
While the dominant methodologies in semiotic analysis are
qualitative, semiotics is not incompatible with the use of quantitativetechniques. In 1957 the psychologist Charles Osgood, together
with some of his colleagues, published a book entitled The Measurement of Meaning (Osgood et al. 1957). In it these communication
researchers outlined a technique called the semantic differential forthe systematic mapping of connotations (or ‘affective meanings’).
The technique involves a pencil-and-paper test in which people areasked to give their impressionistic responses to a particular object,state or event by indicating specific positions in relation to at leastnine pairs of bipolar adjectives on a scale of one to seven. The aim
is to locate a concept in ‘semantic space’ in three dimensions: evaluation (e.g. good–bad); potency (e.g. strong–weak); and activity (e.g.
active–passive). The method has proved useful in studying attitudes
and emotional reactions. It has been used, for instance, to makecomparisons between different cultural groups. While the technique
has been used fairly widely in social science, it has not often beenused by semioticians, although, as we have seen, binary oppositions
have routinely provided theoretical building-blocks for structuralist
semioticians. However, the semantic differential is not the only way
in which quantitative methods can be used to study connotations:for instance, in a study of the kinds of personal meanings evokedby people’s favourite domestic objects, quantitative data (based on
ranking, correlation and statistical differences between groups)
helped to reveal patterns of signification which qualitative data helped
to explain (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981). The researchers found that among the families studied (in a major city in
the USA in the mid-1970s), a range of objects found in the home signified for their users various aspects of personal and social identity.
For instance, some objects served partly as life-cycle markers, as
reflected in ‘the asymmetrical preference for stereos and photos

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among the youngest and oldest respondents, the curvilinear relationship of preference for TV sets with age or the importance of visual
art and sculpture for the middle generation’ (ibid., 94). Two majoraxes appeared to articulate the relationship between people andobjects: action–contemplation and differentiation–integration (ibid.,
112–13). While the meanings of the same kind of objects varied
for individuals, television and stereos most often signified the self;
photos, the immediate family; and paintings non-family (ibid., 88).
From the specific objects most frequently cited the researchers noteda (stereotypical) tendency for the males to value ‘objects of action’,and for the females to value ‘objects of contemplation’. Women also
cited connotations relating to memories, associations and immediatefamily significantly more often than men did. Such differencesreflected ‘at the level of household objects’, the reproduction of
the traditional gender distinction between instrumental (male) and
expressive (female) roles (ibid., 106).
MYTH
Discourses of gender are among the ‘explanatory’ cultural frameworks which have been interpreted by some cultural semioticians as
myths or mythologies. We usually associate myths with classicalfables about the exploits of gods and heroes, and popular usage ofthe term ‘myth’ suggests that it refers to beliefs which are demonstrably false, but the semiotic use of the term does not necessarily
suggest this. Like metaphors, cultural myths help us to make senseof our experiences within a culture: they express and serve to organize shared ways of conceptualizing something within a culture(Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 185–6).
In the framework of Barthesian cultural studies, myth, likeconnotation, can be seen as a higher order of signification. Louis
Hjelmslev had argued that above the connotative level there was ‘ametasemiotic’ to which belonged geographical, historical, political,
sociological, psychological and religious issues relating to suchconcepts as ‘nation, . . . region, . . . the value forms of styles, personality . . . mood, etc.’ (Hjelmslev 1961, 125). For instance, an image
may denote ‘a child’ in a context which generates the connotation

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of innocence; this forms part of what Roland Barthes would call ahigher level (historically modern and Romantic) ‘myth’ of childhood
which functions ideologically to justify dominant assumptions about
the status of children in society. Barthes did not see the myths ofcontemporary culture as simply a patterned agglomeration of connotations but as ideological narratives, and, following Hjelmslev, hesaw mythical form as a metalanguage (Barthes 1957, 124–6), which
he defined as ‘a system whose plane of content is itself constituted
by a signifying system’ (1967a, 90). Whereas in the case of connotation, the denotative sign becomes the signifier of the connotative
sign, in the case of myth, ‘the language (or the modes of representation which are assimilated to it) . . . which myth gets hold of inorder to build its own system’ becomes the signified of the mythical metalanguage (1957, 124; cf. Hjelmslev 1961, 114, 119–20 and
Lévi-Strauss 1969, 12).
The mythological or ideological order of signification can beseen as reflecting major (culturally variable) concepts underpinningparticular worldviews. For Roland Barthes, myths were the dominant ideologies of our time. Objectivism, for instance, is a pervasive
myth in Western culture. It allies itself with scientific truth, rationality, accuracy, fairness and impartiality and is reflected in the
discourse of science, law, government, journalism, morality, business, economics and scholarship (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 188–9).
Other myths or mythical discourses include those of masculinity andfemininity, freedom, individualism, Englishness, success and so on.
Barthes is probably most famous for his insightful analyses of someof the tacit myths of popular culture, notably in the essays represented in the anthology entitled Mythologies (1957). He addressed
many types of contemporary cultural myths – most famously in his
analysis of a cover photo in the magazine Paris Match depicting ayoung black soldier saluting the (unseen) French flag (Barthes 1957,
125–56) and of the ‘Italianicity’ of an advertisement for Panzani
pasta (1977a). We do not have space to discuss these muchanthologized and explicated examples here but the general thrust of
his analytical approach will be illustrated in the following chapter.
As we have seen, in the context of cultures other than our own
Lévi-Strauss saw myths as systems of binary alignments mediating

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between nature and culture. Semioticians in the Saussurean tradition
treat this relationship as relatively arbitrary (Lévi-Strauss 1972, 90,
95). Barthes argued that mythical signification always emerges as ‘inpart motivated, and unavoidably contains some analogy’ (leading it
to be experienced as natural) and only ‘the worn-out state of a myth
can be recognized by the arbitrariness of its signification’ (Barthes
1957, 136). For him (as for Lévi-Strauss), myths serve the ideological function of naturalization (Barthes 1964, 45–6). Their function
is to naturalize the cultural – in other words, to make dominantcultural and historical values, attitudes and beliefs seem entirely
natural, normal, self-evident, timeless, obvious common sense – andthus objective and true reflections of ‘the way things are’. Barthes
saw myth as serving the ideological interests of the bourgeoisie.
‘Bourgeois ideology . . . turns culture into nature,’ he declares(Barthes 1974, 206). Myths can function to hide the ideological function of signs. The power of such myths is that they ‘go without
saying’ and so appear not to need to be deciphered, interpreted ordemystified. The similarity to Lévi-Strauss is clear here: ‘I . . . claim
to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate inmen’s minds without their being aware of the fact’ (Lévi-Strauss
1969, 12). Barthesian semiotics demonstrates that deconstructing
tropes, connotations and myths can be revealing but that they cannot
be reduced to the ‘literal’. Barthes excelled at this kind of analysis
but the task of ‘denaturalizing’ the cultural assumptions embodiedin such forms is problematic when the semiotician is also a productof the same culture, since membership of a culture involves taking
for granted many of its dominant ideas. Barthes is a hard act tofollow, but those who do try to analyse their own cultures in thisway must also seek to be explicitly reflexive about their ‘own’ values.
Rhetoric and connotation generate complex signs, and myths
are complex sign-systems which generate further ideological signs.
Rather than characterizing myths simply as a cluster of tropes andconnotations, Barthes argued that they function in a more integrated
fashion both in their content (ideology) and in their form – asmetalinguistic semiotic systems or codes, of which specific culturalconnotations and tropes can be seen as fragments (Barthes 1957,
119–20, 145–6). It is to codes that we now turn our attention.

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5
CODES

The concept of the ‘code’ is central in structuralist semiotics. While
Saussure dealt only with the overall code of language (langue), he
did of course stress that signs are not meaningful in isolation, but
only when they are interpreted in relation to each other. It was anotherlinguistic structuralist, Roman Jakobson, who emphasized that the
production and interpretation of texts depends upon the existenceof codes or conventions for communication (Jakobson 1960 and1971c). Influenced by communication theorists, he substituted thedistinction of code from message for the Saussurean distinction of
langue from parole (Jakobson 1990, 15). Since the meaning of asign depends on the code within which it is situated, codes provide
a framework within which signs make sense. Indeed, we cannot grant
something the status of a sign if it does not function within acode. Codes organize signs into meaningful systems which correlatesignifiers and signifieds through the structural forms of syntagms
and paradigms. If the relationship between a signifier and its signified is relatively arbitrary, then it is clear that interpreting the148

SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS

conventional meaning of signs requires familiarity with appropriate
sets of conventions.
The conventions of codes represent a social dimension in semiotics: a code is a set of practices familiar to users of the medium
operating within a broad cultural framework. Indeed, as Stuart Hallputs it, ‘there is no intelligible discourse without the operation ofa code’ (Hall 1973, 131). Society itself depends on the existenceof such signifying systems. When studying cultural practices, semioticians treat as signs any objects or actions which have meaning tomembers of the cultural group, seeking to identify the rules orconventions of the codes which underlie the production of meanings
within that culture. Understanding such codes, their relationships andthe contexts in which they are appropriate, is part of what it means
to be a member of a particular culture. Codes are not simply ‘conventions’ of communication but rather procedural systems of related
conventions which operate in certain domains.
Structuralists characteristically envisage such codes as in somerespects analogous to verbal language. Typical in this respect is thisdeclaration by the anthropologist Edmund Leach:
All the various non-verbal dimensions of culture, such as styles
in cooking, village lay-out, architecture, furniture, food, cooking,music, physical gesture, postural attitudes and so on are organised in patterned sets so as to incorporate coded information
in a manner analogous to the sounds and words and sentencesof a natural language . . . It is just as meaningful to talk about
the grammatical rules which govern the wearing of clothes as
it is to talk about the grammatical rules which govern speechutterances.
(Leach 1976, 10)

TYPES OF CODES
Semioticians seek to identify codes and the tacit rules and constraints
which underlie the production and interpretation of meaning withineach code. They have found it convenient to divide codes themselves

CODES

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into groups. Different theorists favour different taxonomies, andwhile structuralists often follow the ‘principle of parsimony’ –seeking to find the smallest number of groups deemed necessary –‘necessity’ is defined by purposes. No taxonomy is innocently neutraland devoid of ideological assumptions. One might start from a fundamental divide between analogue and digital codes, from a divisionaccording to sensory channels, from a distinction between verbal andnon-verbal, and so on. Many semioticians take human language as
their starting point. The primary and most pervasive code in any
society is its dominant natural language, within which (as with othercodes) there are many ‘sub-codes’. A fundamental sub-division of
language into spoken and written forms – at least insofar as it relates
to whether the text is detached from its maker at the point of reception – is often regarded as representing a broad division into different
codes rather than merely sub-codes. One theorist’s code is another’s
sub-code and the value of the distinction needs to be demonstrated.
Stylistic and personal codes (or idiolects) are often described as subcodes (e.g. Eco 1976, 263, 272). The various kinds of codes overlap,
and the semiotic analysis of any text or practice involves considering several codes and the relationships between them. A range oftypologies of codes can be found in the literature of semiotics. I
refer here only to those which are most widely mentioned in thecontext of media, communication and cultural studies (this particulartripartite framework is my own).
SOCIAL CODES• verbal language (phonological, syntactical, lexical, prosodic
and paralinguistic subcodes);• bodily codes (bodily contact, proximity, physical orientation,
appearance, facial expression, gaze, head-nods, gestures andposture);• commodity codes (fashions, clothing, cars);• behavioural codes (protocols, rituals, role-playing, games).

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICSTEXTUAL CODES• scientific codes, including mathematics;• aesthetic codes within the various expressive arts (poetry,drama, painting, sculpture, music, etc.) including classicism,
romanticism, realism;• genre, rhetorical and stylistic codes: exposition, argument,
description and narration and so on;• mass media codes including photographic, televisual, filmic,
radio, newspaper and magazine codes, both technical andconventional (including format).
INTERPRETIVE CODES• perceptual codes: e.g. of visual perception (Hall 1973, 132;
Nichols 1981, 11ff.; Eco 1982) (note that this code does
not assume intentional communication);• ideological codes: more broadly, these include codes for‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ texts – dominant (or ‘hegemonic’), negotiated or oppositional (Hall 1980; Morley1980). More specifically, we may list the ‘-isms’, such asindividualism, liberalism, feminism, racism, materialism,
capitalism, progressivism, conservatism, socialism, objectivism and populism; (note, however, that all codes can beseen as ideological).
These three types of codes correspond broadly to three key kinds ofknowledge required by interpreters of a text, namely knowledge of:
1. the world (social knowledge);
2. the medium and the genre (textual knowledge);
3. the relationship between (1) and (2) (modality judgements).
The ‘tightness’ of semiotic codes themselves varies from the rulebound closure of logical codes (such as computer codes) to the interpretive looseness of poetic codes. Some theorists question whether
some of the looser systems constitute codes at all (e.g. Guiraud 1975,
24, 41, 43–4, 65; Corner 1980).

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PERCEPTUAL CODES
Some theorists argue that even our perception of the everyday world
around us involves codes. Fredric Jameson declares that ‘all perceptual systems are already languages in their own right’ (Jameson 1972,152). As Derrida would put it, perception is always already representation. ‘Perception depends on coding the world into iconic signs
that can re-present it within our mind. The force of the apparent
identity is enormous, however. We think that it is the world itself we
see in our “mind’s eye”, rather than a coded picture of it’ (Nichols
1981, 11–12). According to the Gestalt psychologists there arecertain universal features in human visual perception which in semiotic terms can be seen as constituting a perceptual code. We owe
the concept of ‘figure’ and ‘ground’ in perception to this group of
psychologists. Confronted by a visual image, we seem to need toseparate a dominant shape (a ‘figure’ with a definite contour) fromwhat our current concerns relegate to ‘background’ (or ‘ground’).
An illustration of this is the famous ambiguous figure which initiallyseems to be either a white vase on a black background or two humanfaces in silhouette facing each other against a white background.
Images such as this are ambiguous concerning figure and ground.
In such cases context influences perception, leading us to favour one
interpretation over the other (‘perceptual set’). When we have identified a figure, the contours seem to belong to it, and it appears to bein front of the ground.
In addition to introducing the terms ‘figure’ and ‘ground’, theGestalt psychologists outlined what seemed to be several fundamental and universal principles (sometimes even called ‘laws’) ofperceptual organization, including:• proximity – features which are close together are associated;• similarity – features which look similar are associated;• good continuity – contours based on smooth continuity are
preferred to abrupt changes of direction;• closure – interpretations which produce ‘closed’ rather than‘open’ figures are favoured;• smallness – smaller areas tend to be seen as figures against
a larger background;

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against asymmetrical backgrounds;• surroundedness – areas which can be seen as surroundedby others tend to be perceived as figures.
All of these principles of perceptual organization serve the overarching principle of prägnanz, which is that the simplest and moststable interpretations are favoured.
What the Gestalt principles of perceptual organization suggest
is that we may be predisposed towards interpreting ambiguous
images in one way rather than another by universal principles. We
may accept such a proposition at the same time as accepting thatsuch predispositions may also be generated by other factors.
Similarly, we may accept the Gestalt principles while at the sametime regarding other aspects of perception as being learned andculturally variable rather than innate. The Gestalt principles can beseen as reinforcing the notion that the world is not simply and objectively ‘out there’ but is constructed in the process of perception. As
Bill Nichols comments, ‘a useful habit formed by our brains mustnot be mistaken for an essential attribute of reality. Just as we must
learn to read an image, we must learn to read the physical world.
Once we have developed this skill (which we do very early in life),
it is very easy to mistake it for an automatic or unlearned process,just as we may mistake our particular way of reading, or seeing, fora natural, ahistorical and noncultural given’ (Nichols 1981, 12).
We are rarely aware of our own habitual ways of seeing theworld. We are routinely anaesthetized to a psychological mechanism
called ‘perceptual constancy’ which stabilizes the relative shifts inthe apparent shapes and sizes of people and objects in the world
around us as we change our visual viewpoints in relation to them.
Without mechanisms such as categorization and perceptual constancy
the world would be no more than what William James called a ‘great
blooming and buzzing confusion’ (James 1890, 488). Perceptual
constancy ensures that ‘the variability of the everyday world becomestranslated by reference to less variable codes. The environment
becomes a text to be read like any other text’ (Nichols 1981, 26).

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SOCIAL CODES
Constructionist theorists argue that linguistic codes play a key rolein the construction and maintenance of social realities. We learn not
the world but the codes into which it has been structured. The
Whorfian hypothesis, or Sapir–Whorf theory, is named after theAmerican linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. In its
most extreme version the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis can be described
as relating two associated principles: linguistic determinism andlinguistic relativism. Applying these two principles, the Whorfian
thesis is that people who speak languages with very different phonological, grammatical and semantic distinctions perceive and think
about the world quite differently, their worldviews being shaped ordetermined by their language (Sapir 1958, 69; Whorf 1956, 213–14).
The extreme determinist form of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis isrejected by most contemporary linguists. Critics note that we cannot
make inferences about differences in worldview solely on the basisof differences in linguistic structure. While few linguists would
accept the Whorfian hypothesis in its ‘strong’, extreme or deterministic form, many now accept a ‘weak’, more moderate, or limited
Whorfianism, namely that the ways in which we see the world may
be influenced by the kind of language we use.
Within a culture, social differentiation is overdetermined by amultitude of social codes. We communicate our social identities
through the work we do, the way we talk, the clothes we wear, ourhairstyles, our eating habits, our domestic environments and possessions, our use of leisure time, our modes of travelling and so on.
Language use acts as a key marker of social identity. A controversial distinction regarding British linguistic usage was introduced in
the 1960s by the sociologist Basil Bernstein between so-called‘restricted code’ and ‘elaborated code’ (Bernstein 1971). Restrictedcode was used in informal situations and was characterized by areliance on situational context, a lack of stylistic variety, an emphasison the speaker’s membership of the group, simple syntax and thefrequent use of gestures and tag questions (such as ‘Isn’t it?’).
Elaborated code was used in formal situations and was characterized by less dependence on context, wide stylistic range (including

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the passive voice), more adjectives, relatively complex syntax andthe use of the pronoun ‘I’. Bernstein’s argument was that middleclass children had access to both of these codes while working-classchildren had access only to restricted codes. Such clear-cut distinctions and correlations with social class are now widely challenged
by linguists (Crystal 1987, 40). However, we still routinely use suchlinguistic cues as a basis for making inferences about people’s social
backgrounds.
Social differentiation is observable not only from linguisticcodes, but from a host of non-verbal codes. A survey of non-verbal
codes is not manageable here, and the interested reader should consult some of the classic texts and specialist guides to the literature(see Going Further pp. 238–9, this volume). In the context of thepresent text a few examples must suffice to illustrate the importanceof non-verbal codes. Non-verbal codes which regulate a ‘sensory
regime’ are of particular interest. Within particular cultural contexts
there are, for instance, largely inexplicit ‘codes of looking’ which
regulate how people may look at other people (including taboos oncertain kinds of looking). Such codes tend to retreat to transparency
when the cultural context is one’s own. ‘Children are instructed to“look at me”, not to stare at strangers, and not to look at certain partsof the body . . . People have to look in order to be polite, but not tolook at the wrong people or in the wrong place, e.g. at deformed
people’ (Argyle 1988, 158). In Luo in Kenya one should not look at
one’s mother-in-law; in Nigeria one should not look at a high-status
person; among some South American Indians during conversation
one should not look at the other person; in Japan one should look at
the neck, not the face; and so on (Argyle 1983, 95).
The duration of the gaze is also culturally variable: in ‘contact
cultures’ such as those of the Arabs, Latin Americans and southern
Europeans, people look more than the British or white Americans,while black Americans look less (Argyle 1988, 158). In contact cultures too little gaze is seen as insincere, dishonest or impolite, while
in non-contact cultures too much gaze (‘staring’) is seen as threatening, disrespectful and insulting (Argyle 1983, 95 and 1988, 165).
Within the bounds of the cultural conventions, people who avoid
one’s gaze may be seen as nervous, tense, evasive and lacking in

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confidence, while people who look a lot may tend to be seen as
friendly and self-confident (Argyle 1983, 93). Such codes may sometimes be deliberately violated. In the USA in the 1960s, bigoted white
Americans employed a sustained ‘hate stare’ directed against blacks,
which was designed to depersonalize the victims (Goffman 1969a).
Codes of looking are particularly important in relation togender differentiation. One woman reported to a male friend: ‘Oneof the things I really envy about men is the right to look.’ She pointed
out that in public places, ‘men could look freely at women, but
women could only glance back surreptitiously’ (Dyer 1992, 103).
We learn to read the world in terms of the codes and conventions which are dominant within the specific socio-cultural contexts
and roles within which we are socialized. In the process of adopting
a way of seeing, we also adopt an ‘identity’. The most important
constancy in our understanding of reality is our sense of who we areas an individual. Our sense of self as a constancy is a social construction which is overdetermined by a host of interacting codes within
our culture (Berger and Luckmann 1967; Burr 1995). ‘Roles, conventions, attitudes, language – to varying degrees these are internalized
in order to be repeated, and through the constancies of repetition a
consistent locus gradually emerges: the self. Although never fully
determined by these internalizations, the self would be entirely undetermined without them’ (Nichols 1981, 30). When we first encounterthe notion that the self is a social construction we are likely to findit counter-intuitive. We usually take for granted our status asautonomous individuals with unique ‘personalities’. We will return
later to the notion of our positioning as subjects. For the moment,
we will note simply that ‘society depends upon the fact that its
members grant its founding fictions, myths or codes a taken-forgranted status’ (ibid.). Culturally variable perceptual codes are
typically inexplicit, and we are not normally conscious of the roles
which they play. To users of the dominant, most widespread codes,
meanings generated within such codes tend to appear obvious andnatural. Stuart Hall comments:
Certain codes may . . . be so widely distributed in a specificlanguage community or culture, and be learned at so early an

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age, that they appear not to be constructed – the effect of anarticulation between sign and referent – but to be ‘naturally’given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘nearuniversality’ in this sense: though evidence remains that evenapparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture-specific. However,this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, thatthe codes have been profoundly naturalized.
(Hall 1973, 132)

Learning these codes involves adopting the values, assumptions andworldviews which are built into them without normally being awareof their intervention in the construction of reality. A startling exampleof this relates to colour codes. When I show my own students a
picture of two teddy bears, one clothed in powder blue and the otherin pale pink, there is seldom any hesitation in suggesting that thissignifies respectively male and female. There follows an almost
tangible sense of shock when I confront them with this passage:
Pink or blue? Which is intended for boys and which for girls?
This question comes from one of our readers this month, andthe discussion may be of interest to others. There has been agreat diversity of opinion on this subject, but the generally
accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason
is that pink being a more decided and stronger color, is moresuitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate anddainty is prettier for the girl.

Widely misattributed to the Ladies’ Home Journal, this is actuallyfrom a Chicago-based trade magazine called The Infants’ Department: A Monthly Magazine of Merchandising Helps for the Infants’
Wear Buyer (vol. 1, no. 10, June 1918, p. 161). Nor is this an isolated
source for the same sentiments in the early decades of the twentiethcentury: for instance, a boy’s sailor suit dating from 1908 in theSmithsonian Institution has pink trimmings (object #234865.10 in
the National Museum of American History; cf. Paoletti and Kregloh1989). Only in more recent times has pink acquired such a powerfully marked status as ‘feminine’ (Taft 1997). The profound senseCODES

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of amazement or even disbelief generated by encountering such‘counter-intuitive’ gendering of colours serves to alert us to a realization that some of the codes which seem most natural may berather more arbitrary than we had assumed. Reading the justification in the passage for pink being deemed more suitable for boys
than for girls may seem initially to be an amusing rationalization,
but the realization quickly dawns that our own rationale for the
opposite case is hardly immune from the same judgement. Suchrevelatory moments powerfully suggest the denaturalizing potentialof semiotics.
TEXTUAL CODES
Every text is a system of signs organized according to codes and subcodes which reflect certain values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions andpractices. Codes transcend single texts, linking them together in aninterpretive framework which is used by their producers and interpreters. In creating texts we select and combine signs in relation to
the codes with which we are familiar. Codes help to simplify phenomena in order to make it easier to communicate experiences. In
reading texts, we interpret signs with reference to what seem to beappropriate codes. This helps to limit their possible meanings.
Usually the appropriate codes are obvious, overdetermined by allsorts of contextual cues. The medium employed clearly influences the
choice of codes. In this sense we routinely ‘judge a book by its cover’.
We can typically identify a text as a poem simply by the way in which
it is set out on the page. The use of what is sometimes called ‘scholarly apparatus’ (such as introductions, acknowledgements, section
headings, tables, diagrams, notes, references, bibliographies, appendices and indexes) – is what makes academic texts immediately identifiable as such to readers. Such cueing is part of the metalingual
function of signs. With familiar codes we are rarely conscious of ouracts of interpretation, but occasionally a text requires us to work a little harder – for instance, by pinning down the most appropriate signified for a key signifier (as in jokes based on word play) – before we
can identify the relevant codes for making sense of the text as a whole.
Textual codes do not determine the meanings of texts but dominant

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codes do tend to constrain them. Social conventions ensure that signs
cannot mean whatever an individual wants them to mean. The use ofcodes helps to guide us towards what Stuart Hall calls ‘a preferred
reading’ and away from what Umberto Eco calls ‘aberrant decoding’,
though media texts do vary in the extent to which they are open tointerpretation (Hall 1980, 134).
One of the most fundamental kinds of textual code relates togenre. Traditional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notionthat they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes
or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which areshared by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them. Thismode of defining a genre is deeply problematic. For instance, genres
overlap and texts often exhibit the conventions of more than one
genre. It is seldom hard to find texts which are exceptions to any
given definition of a particular genre. Furthermore, a Saussurean
focus on synchronic analysis ignores the way in which genres are
involved in a constant process of change.
An overview of genre taxonomies in various media is beyond
the scope of the current text, but it is appropriate here to allude toa few key cross-media genre distinctions. The organization of public
libraries suggests that one of the most fundamental contemporary
genre distinctions is between fiction and non-fiction – a categorization which highlights the importance of modality judgements. Evensuch an apparently basic distinction is revealed to be far fromstraightforward as soon as one tries to apply it to the books on one’s
own shelves or to an evening’s television viewing. Another binary
distinction is based on the kinds of language used: poetry and prose– the ‘norm’ being the latter, as Molière’s Monsieur Jourdain
famously discovered: ‘Good Heavens! For more than forty years I
have been speaking prose without knowing it!’ Even here there are
grey areas, with literary prose often being regarded as ‘poetic’. Thisis related to the issue of how librarians, critics and academics decide
what is ‘literature’ as opposed to mere ‘fiction’. As with the typology
of codes in general, no genre taxonomy can be ideologically neutral.
Traditional rhetoric distinguishes between four kinds of discourse:
exposition, argument, description and narration (Brooks and Warren
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often referred to as different genres (e.g. Fairclough 1995a, 88).
However, texts frequently involve any combination of these forms andthey are perhaps best thought of as ‘modes’. More widely describedas genres are the four ‘modes of emplotment’ which Hayden White
adopted from Northrop Frye in his study of historiography: romance,
tragedy, comedy and satire (White 1973). Useful as such interpretive
frameworks can be, however, no taxonomy of textual genres adequately represents the diversity of texts.
Despite such theoretical problems, various interpretive communities (at particular periods in time) do operate on the basis of anegotiated (if somewhat loose and fluid) consensus concerning what
they regard as the primary genres relevant to their purposes. While
there is far more to a genre code than that which may seem to relate
to specifically textual features it can still be useful to consider the
distinctive properties attributed to a genre by its users. For instance,
if we take the case of film, the textual features typically listed bytheorists include:• narrative – similar (sometimes formulaic) plots and structures, predictable situations, sequences, episodes, obstacles,
conflicts and resolutions;• characterization – similar types of characters (sometimes
stereotypes), roles, personal qualities, motivations, goals,
behaviour;• basic themes, topics, subject-matter (social, cultural, psychological, professional, political, sexual, moral) and values;• setting – geographical and historical;• iconography (echoing the narrative, characterization, themes
and setting) – a familiar stock of images or motifs, the connotations of which have become fixed; primarily but not necessarily visual, including décor, costume and objects, certain‘typecast’ performers (some of whom may have become‘icons’), familiar patterns of dialogue, characteristic music
and sounds, and appropriate physical topography; and• filmic techniques – stylistic or formal conventions of camerawork, lighting, sound-recording, use of colour, editing,etc. (viewers are often less conscious of such conventions
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Some film genres tend to be defined primarily by their subject-matter(e.g. detective films), some by their setting (e.g. the western) andothers by their narrative form (e.g. the musical). Less easy to place
in one of the traditional categories are mood and tone (which are
key features of film noir). In addition to textual features, different
genres (in any medium) also involve different purposes, pleasures,audiences, modes of involvement, styles of interpretation and
text–reader relationships (an issue to which we will return shortly).
CODES OF REALISM
All representations are systems of signs: they signify rather thanrepresent, and they do so with primary reference to codes rather thanto reality. Adopting such a stance need not, of course, entail a denialof the existence of an external reality but it does involve the recognition that textual codes which are ‘realistic’ are nonetheless (tosome degree) conventional. ‘Realism is not reality,’ as ChristianMetz put it (Metz 1968/1974, 21). From the Renaissance until thenineteenth century, Western art was dominated by a mimetic or representational purpose which still prevails in popular culture. Such art
denies its status as a signifying system, seeking to represent a world
which is assumed to exist before, and independently of, the act ofrepresentation. Realism involves an instrumental view of the medium
as a neutral means of representing reality. The signified is foregrounded at the expense of the signifier. Realist representational
practices tend to mask the processes involved in producing texts, as
if they were slices of life ‘untouched by human hand’. As Catherine
Belsey notes, ‘realism is plausible not because it reflects the world,but because it is constructed out of what is (discursively) familiar’(Belsey 1980, 47). Ironically, the ‘naturalness’ of realist texts comes
not from their reflection of reality but from their uses of codes which
are derived from other texts. The familiarity of particular semiotic
practices renders their mediation invisible. Our recognition of thefamiliar in realist texts repeatedly confirms the ‘objectivity’ of ourhabitual ways of seeing.
However, the codes of the various realisms are not always
initially familiar. In the context of painting, Ernst Gombrich has

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illustrated (for instance, in relation to John Constable) how aesthetic
codes which now seem ‘almost photographic’ to many viewers wereregarded at the time of their emergence as strange and radical(Gombrich 1977). Eco adds that early viewers of Impressionist art
could not recognize the subjects represented and declared that reallife was not like this (Eco 1976, 254; Gombrich 1982, 279). Most
people had not previously noticed coloured shadows in nature(Gombrich 1982, 27, 30, 34). Even photography involves a translation from three dimensions into two, and anthropologists have often
reported the initial difficulties experienced by people in primal tribes
in making sense of photographs and films (Deregowski 1980), while
historians note that even in recent times the first instant snapshots
confounded Western viewers because they were not accustomed toarrested images of transient movements and needed to go through aprocess of cultural habituation or training (Gombrich 1982, 100,
273). Photography involved a new ‘way of seeing’ (to use John
Berger’s phrase) which had to be learned before it could become
transparent. What human beings see does not resemble a sequenceof rectangular frames, and camerawork and editing conventions are
not direct replications of the way in which we see the everyday world.
When we look at things around us in everyday life we gain a senseof depth from our binocular vision, by rotating our head or by moving
in relation to what we are looking at. To get a clearer view we canadjust the focus of our eyes. But for making sense of depth when
we look at a photograph none of this helps. We have to decode thecues. Semioticians argue that, although exposure over time leads‘visual language’ to seem natural, we need to learn how to ‘read’even visual and audio-visual texts (though see Messaris 1982 and1994 for a critique of this stance).
In the cinema, ‘the gestural codes and the bodily and facial
expressions of actors in silent films belonged to conventions which
connoted realism when they were made and watched’ (Bignell 1997,193), whereas now such codes stand out as unrealistic. When the pioneering American film-maker D. W. Griffith initially proposed the useof close-ups, his producers warned him that the audience would be
disconcerted since the rest of the actor was missing (Rosenblum andKaren 1979, 37–8). What count as realistic modes of representation

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are both culturally and historically variable. To most contemporary
Western audiences the conventions of American cinema seem more
realistic than the conventions of modern Indian cinema, for instance,
because the latter are so much less familiar. Even within a culture,over historical time particular codes become increasingly less familiar, and as we look back at texts produced centuries ago we are struckby the strangeness of their codes – their maintenance systems having
long since been superseded. In his influential book, Languages of Art,
the North American philosopher Nelson Goodman (1906–98)
insisted that ‘realism is relative, determined by the system of representation standard for a given culture or person at a given time’(Goodman 1968, 37).
As noted earlier, Peirce referred to signs in (unedited) photographic media as being indexical as well as iconic – meaning thatthe signifiers did not simply resemble their signifieds but weremechanical recordings and reproductions of them (within the limitations of the medium). John Berger also argued that photographs
are automatic ‘records of things seen’ and that ‘photography has no
language of its own’ (Berger 1968, 179, 181). In ‘The photographic
message’ (1961), Roland Barthes famously declared that ‘the photographic image . . . is a message without a code’ (Barthes 1961, 17).
Since this phrase is frequently misunderstood, it may be worth clarifying its context with reference to this essay together with anotherpublished three years later – ‘The rhetoric of the image’ (Barthes
1964). Barthes was referring to the ‘absolutely analogical, which is
to say, continuous’ character of the medium (Barthes 1961, 20). ‘Is
it possible’, he asks, ‘to conceive of an analogical code (as opposed
to a digital one)?’ (Barthes 1964, 32). The relation between the signifier and the thing signified is not arbitrary as in language (ibid., 35).
He grants that photography involves both mechanical reduction (flattening, perspective, proportion and colour) and human intervention(choice of subject, framing, composition, optical point of view,
distance, angle, lighting, focus, speed, exposure, printing and ‘trick
effects’). However, photography does not involve rule-governedtransformation as codes can (Barthes 1961, 17, 20–5; Barthes 1964,
36, 43, 44). ‘In the photograph – at least at the level of the literalmessage – the relationship of signifieds to signifiers is not one of

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“transformation” but of “recording”.’ Alluding to the indexical natureof the medium, he notes that the image is ‘captured mechanically’and that this reinforces the myth of its ‘objectivity’ (Barthes 1964,
44). Unlike a drawing or a painting, a photograph reproduces ‘everything’: it ‘cannot intervene within the object (except by trick effects)’(ibid., 43). ‘In order to move from the reality to the photograph it
is in no way necessary to divide up this reality into units and toconstitute these units as signs, substantially different from the object
they communicate; there is no necessity to set up . . . a code, between
the object and its image’ (Barthes 1961, 17). In consequence, henoted, photographs cannot be reduced to words.
However, ‘every sign supposes a code’ and at a level higher
than the ‘literal’ level of denotation, a connotative code can be identified. Barthes noted that at the ‘level of production’, ‘the press
photograph is an object that has been worked on, chosen, composed,
constructed, treated according to professional or ideological norms’
and, at the ‘level of reception’, the photograph ‘is not only perceived,
received, it is read, connected by the public that consumes it to a
traditional stock of signs’ (Barthes 1961, 19). Reading a photographinvolved relating it to a ‘rhetoric’ (ibid., 18, 19). In addition to thephotographic techniques already noted, he refers for instance to thesignifying functions of: postures, expressions and gestures; the associations evoked by depicted objects and settings; sequences ofphotographs, e.g. in magazines (which he refers to as ‘syntax’); andrelationships with accompanying text (ibid., 21–5). He added that‘thanks to the code of connotation the reading of the photograph is. . . always historical; it depends on the reader’s “knowledge” just as
though it were a matter of a real language, intelligible only if one
has learned the signs’ (ibid., 28).
Clearly, therefore, it would be a misinterpretation of Barthes’
declaration that ‘the photographic image . . . is a message without acode’ to suggest that he meant that no codes are involved in producing or ‘reading’ photographs. His main point was that it did not (atleast yet) seem possible to reduce the photographic image itself toelementary ‘signifying units’. Far from suggesting that photographs
are purely denotative, he declared that the ‘purely “denotative” statusof the photograph . . . has every chance of being mythical (these are

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the characteristics that commonsense attributes to the photograph)’.
At the level of the analogue image itself, while the connotative code
was implicit and could only be inferred, he was convinced that it was
nonetheless ‘active’ (Barthes 1961, 19). Citing Bruner and Piaget, henotes the possibility that ‘there is no perception without immediate
categorization’ (ibid., 28). Reading a photograph also depends closelyon the reader’s culture, knowledge of the world, and ethical andideological stances (ibid., 29). Barthes adds that ‘the viewer receives
at one and the same time the perceptual message and the cultural
message’ (Barthes 1964, 36).
In Writing Degree Zero, Roland Barthes sought to demonstratethat the classical textual codes of French writing (from the midseventeenth century until the mid-nineteenth century) had been used
to suggest that such codes were natural, neutral and transparent
conduits for an innocent and objective reflection of reality (i.e. theoperation of the codes was masked). Barthes argues that while generating the illusion of a ‘zero-degree’ of style, these codes served the
purpose of fabricating reality in accord with the bourgeois view ofthe world and covertly propagating bourgeois values as self-evident(Barthes 1953; Hawkes 1977, 107–8). In ‘The rhetoric of the image’
Barthes developed this line of argument in relation to the mediumof photography, arguing that because it appears to record rather thanto transform or signify, it serves an ideological function. Photography‘seems to found in nature the signs of culture . . . masking theconstructed meaning under the appearance of the given meaning’(Barthes 1964, 45–6).
Most semioticians emphasize that photography involves visual
codes, and that film and television involve both visual and auralcodes. John Tagg argues that ‘the camera is never neutral. The representations it produces are highly coded’ (Tagg 1988, 63–4; cf. 187).
Cinematic and televisual codes include: genre; camerawork (shotsize, focus, lens movement, camera movement, angle, lens choice,composition); editing (cuts and fades, cutting rate and rhythm);manipulation of time (compression, flashbacks, flashforwards, slow
motion); lighting; colour; sound (soundtrack, music); graphics; andnarrative style. Christian Metz added authorial style, and distinguished codes from sub-codes, where a sub-code was a particularCODES

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choice from within a code (e.g. western within genre, or naturalistic
or expressionist lighting subcodes within the lighting code). The
syntagmatic dimension was a relation of combination between
different codes and sub-codes; the paradigmatic dimension was thatof the film-maker’s choice of particular sub-codes within a code.
Since, as Metz noted, ‘a film is not “cinema” from one end to another’(Metz 1971, 63), film and television involve many codes which are
not specific to these media.
While some photographic and filmic codes are relatively arbitrary, many of the codes employed in realistic photographic images
or films simulate many of the perceptual cues used in encountering
the physical world (Nichols 1981, 35; cf. Messaris 1982 and 1994).
This is a key reason for their perceived realism. The depiction ofreality even in iconic signs involves variable codes which have tobe learned, yet which, with experience, come to be taken for granted
as transparent and obvious. Eco argues that it is misleading to regard
such signs as less conventional than other kinds of signs (Eco 1976,
190ff.): even photography and film involve conventional codes. Paul
Messaris, however, stresses that the formal conventions of representational visual codes (including paintings and drawings) are notarbitrary (Messaris 1994), and Ernst Gombrich offers a critique ofwhat he sees as the ‘extreme conventionalism’ of Nelson Goodman’s
stance (Gombrich 1982, 278–97), stressing that ‘the so-called
conventions of the visual image [vary] according to the relative easeor difficulty with which they can be learned’ (Gombrich 1982, 283)
– a notion familiar from the Peircean ranking of signifier–signified
relationships in terms of relative conventionality.
INVISIBLE EDITING
Semioticians often refer to ‘reading’ film or television – a notion
which may seem strange since the meaning of filmic images appears
not to need decoding at all. When we encounter a shot in which
someone is looking offscreen we usually interpret the next shot as
what he or she is looking at. Consider the following example offeredby Ralph Rosenblum, a major professional film editor. In an initialshot, ‘a man awakens suddenly in the middle of the night, bolts up

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in bed, stares ahead intensely, and twitches his nose’. If we then cut
to ‘a room where two people are desperately fighting a billowing
blaze, the viewers realize that through clairvoyance, a warning dream,or the smell of smoke, the man in bed has become aware of danger’.
Alternatively, if we cut from the first shot to ‘a distraught wife
defending her decision to commit her husband to a mental institution, they will understand that the man in bed is her husband andthat the dramatic tension will surround the couple’. If it’s a Hitchcock
movie ‘the juxtaposition of the man and the wife will immediately
raise questions in the viewers’ minds about foul play on the part of
the woman’. This form of editing may alert us not only to a link
between the two consecutive shots but in some cases to a genre. If
we cut to an image of clouds drifting before the full moon, we knowthat we can expect a ‘wolf-man’ adventure (Rosenblum and Karen
1979, 2).
Such interpretations are not ‘self-evident’: they are a feature ofa filmic editing code. Having internalized such codes at a very young
age we then cease to be conscious of their existence. Once we know
the code, decoding it is almost automatic and the code retreats toinvisibility. The convention just described is known as an eyeline
match and it is part of the dominant editing code in film and television narrative which is referred to as ‘the continuity system’ or as‘invisible editing’ (Reisz and Millar 1972; Bordwell et al. 1988,
Chapter 16; Bordwell and Thompson 1993, 261ff.). While minor elements within the code have been modified over time, most of the mainelements are still much the same now as when they were developed
many decades ago. This code was originally developed in Hollywood
feature films but most narrative films and television dramas now routinely employ it. Editing supports rather than dominates the narrative:
the story and the behaviour of its characters are the centre of attention. While nowadays there may be cuts every few seconds, these areintended to be unobtrusive. The technique gives the impression thatthe edits are always required and are motivated by the events in thereality that the camera is recording rather than the result of a desire
to tell a story in a particular way. The seamlessness convinces us of
its realism, but the code consists of an integrated system of technicalconventions. These conventions serve to assist viewers in transform-

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ing the two-dimensional screen into a plausible three-dimensional
world in which they can become absorbed.
A major cinematic convention is the use of the establishing
shot: soon after a cut to a new scene we are given a long shot of it,allowing us to survey the overall space – followed by closer ‘cut-in’shots focusing on details of the scene. Re-establishing shots are used
when needed, as in the case of the entry of a new character. Anotherkey convention involved in helping the viewer to make sense of thespatial organization of a scene is the so-called 180° rule. Successive
shots are not shown from both sides of the ‘axis of action’ since thiswould produce apparent changes of direction on screen. For instance,a character moving right to left across the screen in one shot is notshown moving left to right in the next shot. This helps to establish
where the viewer is in relation to the action. In separate shots of
speakers in a dialogue, one speaker always looks left while the otherlooks right. Even in telephone conversations the characters areoriented as if facing each other.
In point-of-view (POV) shots, the camera is placed (usually
briefly) in the spatial position of a character to provide a subjective
point of view. This is often in the form of alternating shots between
two characters – a technique known as shot/reverse-shot. Once the‘axis of action’ has been established, the alternation of shots withreverse-shots allows the viewer to glance back and forth at the participants in a dialogue (matched shots are used in which the shot-sizeand framing of the subject is similar). In such sequences, some ofthese shots are reaction shots. All of the techniques described so far
reflect the goal of ensuring that the same characters are always inthe same parts of the screen.
Because this code foregrounds the narrative, it employs what
are called motivated cuts: changes of view or scene occur only when
the action requires it and the viewer expects it. When cuts from one
distance and/or angle to another are made, they are normally matcheson action: cuts are usually made when the subject is moving, so thatviewers are sufficiently distracted by the action to be unaware of thecut. There is a studious avoidance of jump-cuts: the so-called 30°
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differ in camera angle by at least 30° (otherwise it will feel to theviewer like an apparently pointless shift in position).
This cinematic editing code has become so familiar to us that
we no longer consciously notice its conventions until they are broken.
Indeed, it seems so natural that some will feel that it closely reflects
phenomenal reality and thus find it hard to accept it as a code at all.
Do we not mentally ‘cut’ from one image to another all of the timein everyday visual perception? This case seems strongest when allthat is involved is a shift corresponding to a turn of our head or a
refocusing of our eyes (Reisz and Millar 1972, 213–16). But ofcourse many cuts would require us to change our viewing position.
A common response to this – at least if we limit ourselves tomoderate changes of angle or distance and ignore changes of scene– is to say that the editing technique represents a reasonable analogy
with the normal mental processes involved in everyday perception.
A cut to close-up can thus be seen to reflect as well as direct a
purposive shift in attention. Of course, when the shot shifts so radically that it would be a physical impossibility to imitate this in
everyday life, then the argument by perceptual analogy breaks down.
And cuts reflect such shifts more often than not; only fleetingly does
film editing closely reflect the perceptual experience of ‘being there’
in person. But of course a gripping narrative will already have led
to our ‘suspension of disbelief’. We thus routinely and unconsciously
grant the film-maker the same ‘dramatic licence’ with which we arefamiliar not only from the majority of films that we watch but also
from analogous codes employed in other media – such as theatre,
the novel or the comic-strip.
For an argument questioning the interpretive importance of acinematic editing code and emphasizing real-life analogies, see thelively and interesting book by Paul Messaris entitled Visual Literacy(Messaris 1994, 71ff.). However, his main focus of attack is on the
stance that the cinematic editing code is totally arbitrary – a position which few would defend. Clearly these techniques were designed
where possible to be analogous to familiar codes so that they would
quickly become invisible to viewers once they were habituated tothem. Messaris argues that context is more important than code; itCODES

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is likely that where the viewer is in doubt about the meaning of a
specific cut, interpretation may be aided by applying knowledge
either from other textual codes (such as the logic of the narrative)
or from relevant social codes (such as behavioural expectations inanalogous situations in everyday life). The interpretation of film
draws on knowledge of multiple codes. Adopting a semiotic approachto cinematic editing is not simply to acknowledge the importance of
conventions and conventionality but to highlight the process of naturalization involved in the ‘editing out’ of what ‘goes without saying’.
The emphasis given to visual codes by most theorists is perhaps
partly due to their use of printed media for their commentaries –
media which are inherently biased towards the visual, and may also
derive from a Western tendency to privilege the visual over otherchannels. We need to remind ourselves that it is not only the visual
image which is mediated, constructed and codified in the various
media – in film, television and radio, this also applies to sound. Filmand television are not simply visual media but audio-visual media.
Even where the mediated character of the visual is acknowledged,
there is a tendency for sound to be regarded as largely unmediated.
But codes are involved in the choice and positioning of microphones,
the use of particular equipment for recording, editing and reproduction, the use of diegetic sound (ostensibly emanating from theaction in the story) versus non-diegetic sound, direct versus postsynchronous (dubbed) recording, simulated sounds (such as thehighly conventionalized signifier for a punch) and so on (Altman
1992; Stam 2000, 212–23). In the dominant Hollywood tradition,
conventional sound codes included features such as:
•
•
•
•
•
•

diegesis: sounds should be relevant to the story;
hierarchy: dialogue should override background sound;seamlessness: no gaps or abrupt changes in sound;integration: no sounds without images or vice versa;
readability: all sounds should be identifiable;
motivation: unusual sounds should be what characters aresupposed to be hearing.
(Stam 2000, 216–17)

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Sound can also assist in making visual editing ‘invisible’: within thesame scene a ‘sound-bridge’ (carrying the same unbroken soundsequence) is used across a cut from one shot to another, as if there
had been no cut at all.
BROADCAST AND NARROWCAST CODES
Some codes are more widespread and accessible than others. Those
which are widely distributed and which are learned at an early age
may seem natural rather than constructed (Hall 1973, 132). John
Fiske distinguishes between broadcast codes, which are shared bymember of a mass audience, and narrowcast codes which are aimed
at a more limited audience; pop music is a broadcast code; ballet isa narrowcast code (Fiske 1982, 78ff.). Broadcast codes are learned
through experience; narrowcast codes often involve more deliberatelearning (Fiske 1989, 315). Following the controversial sociolinguistic theories of Basil Bernstein, what Fiske refers to as broadcast
codes are described by some media theorists as ‘restricted codes’,with Fiske’s narrowcast codes being described as ‘elaborated codes’(Bernstein 1971). ‘Restricted’ codes are described as structurally
simpler and more repetitive (‘overcoded’), having what information
theorists call a high degree of redundancy. In such codes several
elements serve to emphasize and reinforce preferred meanings.
Umberto Eco describes as ‘closed’ those texts (such as many mass
media texts) which show a strong tendency to encourage a particular interpretation (Eco 1981). In contrast, literary writing – inparticular poetry – has a minimum of redundancy (Lotman 1976a).
The distinction between ‘restricted’ and ‘elaborated’ codes serves tostress the difference between an élite (‘highbrows’) and the majority(‘lowbrows’). Art for the élite is held to be more ‘original’ and unpredictable. Fiske suggests that narrowcast (elaborated) codes have thepotential to be more subtle; broadcast (restricted) codes can lead tocliché. Terry Eagleton argues that ‘literary texts are “code-productive” and “code-transgressive” ’ rather than merely ‘code-confirming’(Eagleton 1983, 125). Insofar as such positions suggest that broadcast codes restrict expressive possibilities this argument has affinities
with Whorfianism. The dangers of élitism inherent in such stances

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make it particularly important that the evidence is closely examinedin the context of the particular code under study.
INTERACTION OF TEXTUAL CODES
Any text uses not one code, but many. Theorists vary in their classification of such codes. In his book S/Z, Roland Barthes itemized
five codes employed in literary texts: hermeneutic (narrative turningpoints); proairetic (basic narrative actions); cultural (prior social
knowledge); semic (medium-related codes) and symbolic (themes)(Barthes 1973). Yuri Lotman argued that a poem is a ‘system ofsystems’ – lexical, syntactical, metrical, morphological, phonological, and so on – and that the relations between such systems generate
powerful literary effects. Each code sets up expectations which othercodes violate (Lotman 1976a). The same signifier may play its partin several different codes. The meaning of literary texts may thus beoverdetermined by several codes. Just as signs need to be analysedin their relation to other signs, so codes need to be analysed in relation to other codes. Becoming aware of the interplay of such codes
requires a potentially recursive process of rereading. Nor can suchreadings be confined to the internal structure of a text, since thecodes utilized within it extend beyond any specific text – an issueof ‘intertextuality’ to which we will return.
CODIFICATIONThe synchronic perspective of Saussurean semioticians tends to givethe impression that codes are static. But codes have origins and they
do evolve, and studying their evolution is a legitimate semiotic
endeavour. Guiraud argues that there is a gradual process of ‘codification’ whereby systems of implicit interpretation acquire the statusof codes (Guiraud 1975, 41). Codes are dynamic systems whichchange over time and are thus historically as well as socioculturally
situated. Codification is a process whereby conventions are established. For instance, Metz notes how in Hollywood cinema the white
hat became codified as the signifier of a ‘good’ cowboy; eventually
this convention became over-used and was abandoned (Metz 1968).

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In the commercial application of semiotics to market research(where consumer trends are of course a key concern) a distinction
has been made between three kinds of consumer codes: dominantcodes (the prevailing codes of the present day); residual codes (codes
in decline) and emergent codes (Alexander 2000). In structuralist
accounts, codes tend to be presented as if they evolve autonomously,
but socially oriented semioticians emphasize human agency: as Ecoputs it, ‘in exchanging messages and texts . . . people contribute to
the changing of codes’ (Eco 1976, 152; my emphasis). He adds that
there is ‘a dialectic between codes and messages, whereby the codes
control the emission of messages, but new messages can restructure
the codes’ (ibid., 161). For those in marketing, this comes as no
surprise.
In historical perspective, many of the codes of a new medium
evolve from those of related existing media (for instance, many
televisual techniques owe their origins to their use in film and photography). New conventions are also developed to match the technicalpotential of the medium and the uses to which it is put. Some codes
are unique to (or at least characteristic of) a specific medium or toclosely related media (e.g. ‘fade to black’ in film and television);others are shared by (or similar in) several media (e.g. scene breaks);and some are drawn from cultural practices which are not tied to a
medium (e.g. body language) (Monaco 1981, 146ff.). Some are more
specific to particular genres within a medium. Some are more broadly
linked either to the domain of science (‘logical codes’, suppressing
connotation and diversity of interpretation) or to that of the arts(‘aesthetic codes’, celebrating connotation and diversity of interpretation), though such differences are differences of degree rather thanof kind.
Whatever the nature of any ‘embedded’ ideology, it has been
claimed that as a consequence of their internalization of the codesof the medium, ‘those born in the age of radio perceive the world
differently from those born into the age of television’ (Gumpert
and Cathcart 1985). Critics have objected to the degree of technological determinism which is sometimes involved in such stances,
but this is not to suggest that our use of such tools and techniques
is without influence on our habits of mind. If this is so, the subtle

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phenomenology of new media is worthy of closer attention than is
typically accorded to it. Whatever the medium, learning to notice
the operation of codes when representations and meanings seem
natural, obvious and transparent is clearly not an easy task. Understanding what semioticians have observed about the operation ofcodes can help us to denaturalize such codes by making their implicit
conventions explicit and amenable to analysis. Semiotics offers us
some conceptual crowbars with which to deconstruct the codesat work in particular texts and practices, providing that we can findsome gaps or fissures which offer us the chance to exert someleverage.
Codes cannot account for everything in human culture andcommunication: social behaviour and textual practices cannot simply
be reduced to the operation of semiotic codes. They are notautonomous determinants of human action – historical changes insocial and textual patterns attest to the importance of human agency
and textual ‘transgression’. Even in terms of structure and style, few
texts (especially those of enduring importance) can be wholly
mapped onto existing generic codes. Unless semioticians wish to
restrict themselves to trivial codes of limited scope they must take
into account the possibility that at least some of the most significant
codes in human meaning-making may be quite loosely and transitorily defined. Certainly many social codes have no clearly definableboundaries and the study of human culture requires explorers whoare prepared to venture into the shifting sands of border zones aswell as beyond them into codically unmapped (and sometimes codically unmappable) territory. However, recognizing the limitations of
the concept of code does not mean that it has no utility, that there
are no recognizable codes, that there is no value in seeking to identify patterns in textual and social practices or even that codes neverappear to exhibit some degree of ‘relative autonomy’. Nor, as we
will see in the next chapter, does endorsement of the concept necessarily require meaning to be related purely to codes – even in
structuralist models of human communication.

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6
TEXTUAL
INTERACTIONSIn this chapter we will consider semiotic approaches to the interactions between makers, texts and users. First, we will explore theissue of the encoding and decoding of texts and the ways in which
readers are ‘positioned’ in this process. Then we will consider intertextuality – or the interactions between texts.
MODELS OF COMMUNICATION
In 1972, Pioneer 10, a ‘deep-space probe’, was launched into interstellar space by NASA; attached to the craft (and to the later Pioneer11) was a plaque bearing the image shown in Figure 6.1. A press
release noted the possibility that during its long journey the spacecraft might be intercepted by ‘intelligent scientifically educatedbeings’. One of the designers wrote that the plaque was intended to‘convey, in what is hoped is easily understood scientific language,
some information on the locale, epoch, and nature of the buildersof the spacecraft’ (Sagan 1977, 235). Ernst Gombrich wrote an

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICSF I G U R E 6 . 1 Pictorial plaque on Pioneer 10 spacecraft (1972)
Source: produced by the Pioneer Project at NASA Ames Research Center and obtained
from NASA’s National Space Science Data Center

insightful commentary on this endeavour (Gombrich 1972, 55–6).
He noted that alien beings ‘could not possibly get the message’. The
most obvious reason is that on the sensory level they would haveto be tuned to the same narrow range of the electromagnetic spectrum as we are, whereas even on Earth other creatures do not sharethe same sensory apparatus. However, his main point was rather
less obvious: ‘reading an image, like the reception of any othermessage, is dependent on prior knowledge of possibilities; we canonly recognize what we know’. No one could make sense of thismessage without access to relevant social and textual codes. ‘It is
this information alone that enables us to separate the code from themessage.’TEXTUAL INTERACTIONS

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For us, the human figures are immediately identifiable as suchwithin the overall configuration of lines. We are so familiar with arange of visual conventions used to depict human beings that we arerarely conscious of the intervention of codes – after all, we routinely
decode far more schematic images indicating ‘male’ or ‘female’ on
toilet doors. Our knowledge of representational codes helps us tobreak the whole picture into separate parts: we know which bits seemto ‘belong together’ even if we don’t know exactly what they all
represent. This is not purely due to the apparently global invarianceof the gestalt theorists’ perceptual code (e.g. good continuity andclosure – which enable us, for instance, to fill in the gaps in thelarge but backgrounded outline of Pioneer itself), but because we
can distinguish several cohesive sets of representational conventions
with different degrees of modality (even when they are superimposed). Gombrich notes that in relation to the human figures werecognize which lines are contours and which are conventionalmodelling. He adds: ‘Our “scientifically educated” fellow creaturesin space might be forgiven if they saw the figures as wire constructs
with loose bits and pieces hovering weightlessly in between. Even
if they deciphered this aspect of the code, what would they make of
the woman’s right arm that tapers off like a flamingo’s neck andbeak?’ (Gombrich 1972). This latter point will give most readerspause for thought because it draws our attention to the familiar –and therefore normally invisible – convention that this represents theocclusion of one shape by another (a convention not adopted, forinstance, in ancient Egyptian art).
As for social codes, although the man’s raised right hand ispresumably intended to signify a greeting this is a nonverbal code
which would be alien to those living on large parts of our own planet.
It can only be interpreted according to the preferred reading because
we have social knowledge of the source of the craft and can infer
the likely intentions of its makers: without this knowledge we mightassume (from other contexts) that it signified ‘stop’ (e.g. traffic
police); ‘go’ (as a signal for a train to depart), ‘goodbye’ or even a
dictator acknowledging his followers (Adolf Hitler). Returning to
textual codes, relatively few of us have access to the scientific codes
which would enable us to interpret the large starburst-like pattern as

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICS‘the 14 pulsars of the Milky Way’ – it could easily represent an
explosion. In case the alien beings would like to track us down to
discuss this further, there is a helpful route-map at the bottom of thepicture, but since it adopts spatial conventions analogous to those of
the London Underground map we probably won’t be hearing fromthem soon, unless that is, they realize that the key to decoding it is
the image at the top, which to most of us looks like dumb-bells or
eye-glasses, whereas it is apparently intended to represent twohydrogen atoms engaged in ‘hyperfine transition’. However, as
Gombrich points out, even if they cracked this code, ‘The trajectory.
. . is endowed with a directional arrowhead; it seems to have escaped
the designers that this is a conventional symbol unknown to a racethat never had the equivalent of bows and arrows.’ The message, one
fears, seems likely to be ‘lost in translation’.
Gombrich’s observations on making sense of the Pioneer
plaque capture very well the processes of ‘decoding’ outlined bysemioticians in the structuralist tradition. Paired with the term‘encoding’ this sometimes has the unfortunate consequence ofmaking the processes of constructing and interpreting texts (visual,verbal or otherwise) sound too programmatic. The Pioneer plaqueexample shows that reading (or viewing, or listening) requires reference to relevant codes (relevance itself requiring hypothesis-testing).
We need ‘prior knowledge’ of such codes in order ‘to separate thecode from the message’. Although with practice the process of
decoding can become transparent (so that it can seem strange to saythat pictures require ‘reading’), the process is clearly a cognitively
active one. What is ‘meant’ is invariably more than what is ‘said’(Smith 1988; Olson 1994), so inference is required to ‘go beyond
the information given’ (in the famous phrase of the American
psychologist Jerome Bruner). While psychologists refer to the generation of inferences by invoking familiar social and textual ‘scripts’,semioticians refer to accessing social and textual codes (and sometimes to the modality judgements needed to compare these codes).
In contrast to the importance accorded to the active process of‘decoding’ in this example, everyday references to communication
are based on a ‘transmission’ model in which a sender transmits amessage to a receiver – a formula which reduces meaning to explicit

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‘content’ which resides within the text and is delivered like a parcel(Reddy 1979). This model is implicit, for instance, in the Pioneerplaque designer’s reference to the intention to ‘convey . . .
information’. Transmission is also the basis of Claude Shannon and
Warren Weaver’s well-known model of communication, which makes
no allowance for the importance of social codes or contexts – thoughironically, to criticize that particular model for this reason would
be to ignore the context of telephone engineering for which it wasdeveloped (Shannon and Weaver 1949).
Figure 6.2 shows Saussure’s model of oral communication.
While (for its time) it is innovatingly labelled as a ‘speech circuit’ andincludes directional arrows indicating the involvement of both participants (thus at least implying ‘feedback’), it too was nevertheless alinear transmission model (albeit a ‘two-track’ one). Furthermore,
the speaker’s role was ‘active’ and the listener’s role was ‘passive’(Saussure 1983, 13). In this respect a richer model had appeared in

auditionC

phonation

SKey
C: concept
S: sound image

phonation
F I G U R E 6 . 2 Saussure’s speech circuit
Source: Based on Saussure 1967, 27, 28

CS

audition

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print more than three centuries earlier. Michel de Montaigne wrote in
1580: ‘Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears; the lastof which ought to prepare himself to receive it, according to its motion
and rebound. Like tennis players, he that receives the ball, shifts andprepares, according as he sees him move who strikes the stroke, andaccording to the stroke it self’ (Essays, trans. Charles Cotton, 1685:‘Of experience’ III, 13). The anticipation involved is clearly ‘active’:
you could never return a serve if you simply stood still waiting for theball. Saussure’s ‘speech circuit’ was based on the notion that comprehension on the part of the listener is a kind of mirror of the speaker’s
initial process of expressing a thought (ibid., 11–13; Harris 1987,
22–5, 204–18). The shortcomings of this isomorphism would perhaps
have been clearer if Saussure had been attempting to account for abroader range of forms of communication than speech alone. A
dyslexic student once asked me, ‘Why is it so important to read so fast
when the writer spent so long writing it?’ The answer, of course, isthat a significant part of the power of the written word lies in this asymmetry (for the shortcomings of the mirror model for the medium offilm, see Larry Gross’s critique in Worth 1981, 9–11). Given theprominence of the concept of the code in Saussurean-inspired semiotics, it is also surprising that in Saussure’s model there is only thebriefest of allusions to the speaker’s use of ‘the code provided by thelanguage’, together with the implicit assumption that a fixed code isshared – a very monolithic conception (Saussure 1983, 14; Harris
1987, 216, 230).
In 1960 another structuralist linguist – Roman Jakobson(drawing on work by Bühler dating from the 1930s) – proposed amodel of interpersonal verbal communication which moved beyond
the basic transmission model of communication (see Figure 6.3;
cf. Eco 1976, 141). Using the somewhat programmatic language
mentioned earlier, Jakobson outlines what he regards as the six‘constitutive factors . . . in any act of verbal communication’ thus:
The addresser sends a message to the addressee. To be operative
the message requires a context referred to (‘referent’ in another,somewhat ambivalent, nomenclature), seizable by theaddressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized, aTEXTUAL INTERACTIONS

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context
addresser

messageaddressee

contactcode
F I G U R E 6 . 3 Jakobson’s model of communication
Source: Jakobson 1960, 353

code fully, or at least partially, common to the addresser andaddressee (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder ofthe message); and finally, a contact, a physical channel andpsychological connection between the addresser and theaddressee, enabling both of them to stay in communication.
(Jakobson 1960, 353)

Jakobson established the principle already noted that we cannot makesense of signs without relating them to relevant codes. In response
to Bertrand Russell’s point that ‘no one can understand the word
“cheese” unless he has a nonlinguistic acquaintance with cheese’,Jakobson replied that (likewise) ‘the meaning of the word “cheese”
cannot be inferred from a nonlinguistic acquaintance with cheddar
or with camembert without the assistance of the verbal code’(Jakobson 1958, 261). He noted that ‘the efficiency of a speech event
demands the use of a common code by its participants’ (Jakobson
1956, 72). However, his model of linguistic codes was not monolithic. He argued that whereas Saussure had posited ‘the delusive
fiction’ of ‘the uniformity of the code’, ‘as a rule, everyone belongs
simultaneously to several speech communities of different radius andcapacity; any overall code is multiform and comprises a hierarchyof diverse subcodes freely chosen by the speaker with regard to thevariable functions of the message, to its addressee, and to the relation between the interlocutors’ (Jakobson 1971d, 719). It should
already be apparent that although Jakobson was greatly influenced
by Peirce, he did not owe his emphasis on encoding and decoding

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to him. In Peirce ‘there is no reflection at all, to speak of, on thesystem to which any individual sign belongs or on the process that
produces it . . . His interest is neither in the construction of themessage nor in the larger code from which its components are drawn’(Bruss 1978, 93). The Peircean model does not incorporate a codeat all. Peirce’s influence is nevertheless evident in another key aspectof Jakobson’s model of communication.
All codes are social in the sense that their conventions haveno existence apart from their application in the social world, but as
we have seen Saussure declined his own challenge to study ‘the roleof signs as part of social life’ and proceeded to exclude social life
from his monolithic linguistic code. Jakobson’s reference to ‘speechcommunities’ is one indicator that he did not share Saussure’s desire
to exclude reference to the social world. However, his model does
not account for acts of communication purely in terms of encoding
and decoding. Crucially, it highlighted the importance not only ofsystemic codes but also of the contexts involved. Jakobson notedthat ‘there are two references which serve to interpret the sign – oneto the code, and the other to the context’ (Jakobson 1956, 75; cf.
1963b, 114), and insisted that ‘it is not enough to know the code inorder to grasp the message . . . you need to know the context’(Jakobson 1953, 233). We have already seen in Chapter 4 that theidentification of irony requires reference to contextual factors in theform of perceived intent and truth status. Like ‘meaning’, ‘context’
can be a slippery term and as a linguist Jakobson was initially waryof trespassing too far beyond the notion of linguistic contexts into
the more philosophical territory of referentiality. For instance, henoted that ‘truth values . . . as far as they are . . . “extralinguistic
entities,” obviously exceed the bounds of . . . linguistics in general’.
Nevertheless, unlike Saussure, it was clear that he would not seek
to exclude from his concerns ‘the question of relations between theword and the world’ (Jakobson 1960, 351). ‘Speech events’ takeplace in the social world, and Jakobson was a linguist who emphasized the social functions of language. He quickly recognized theimportance of both ‘the place occupied by the given messages within
the context of surrounding messages . . . and . . . the relation of thegiven message to the universe of discourse’ (Jakobson 1968, 697).

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The philosophical concept of a universe of discourse (found also in
Peirce) refers to a frame of reference shared by participants in an
act of communication. ‘Linguistics is likely to explore all possible
problems of relation between discourse and the “universe of
discourse”: what of this universe is verbalized by a given discourseand how it is verbalized’ (Jakobson 1960, 351). Later he ventured
further, noting that ‘the sometimes equivalent term “context” means
not only the verbalized context but also the partly or nonverbalized
context’ (Jakobson 1973, 319). By 1972 he felt able to issue aunequivocal declaration on this issue:
Fourteen years ago [1958], Quine [the American philosopher]and I agreed diplomatically that the signified (signatum)
belonged to linguistics and the referent (designatum) to logic.
Now I think that the referent also belongs to linguistics . . . This
does not mean to linguistics only, but it has a linguistic aspect,
namely, what we call contextual meaning. The general meaning
belongs to semantics; the contextual meaning, given by thewhole context, by the universe of discourse, is also a linguistic
fact.
(Jakobson 1973, 320)

Elsewhere, he was even more explicit – adding that contextual
meaning included situational meanings (Jakobson 1972, 44). In
definitively including context as well as code, Jakobson’s model
moves beyond the original Saussurean framework, which ‘bracketed’
any referential context outside the sign-system itself. It also supports
not only the symbolic mode featured in both the Saussurean and
the Peircean models but also the referential character of Peirce’s
iconic and indexical modes. However problematic Jakobson’s modelof the sign may be regarded as being, his model of communication
constitutes a conceptual bridge between the two major semiotic traditions. While the determination of meaning in the Saussurean model
depends upon the system of relations within a code and in thePeircean model upon a referential context, only the Jakobsonianmodel provides for both.

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Type

Oriented
towards

Function

Examplereferential

context

impartinginformation

It’s raining.

expressive

addresser

expressing
feelings orattitudes

It’s bloody
pissing down
again!

conativeaddressee

influencing
behaviour

Wait here till it
stops raining!

phaticcontact

establishingor maintaining
socialrelationships

Nasty weather
again, isn’t it?

metalingualcode

referring to
the nature of
the interaction(e.g. genre)

This is theweather forecast.

poeticmessageforegrounding
textualfeatures

It droppeth as
the gentle rainfrom heaven.

TA B L E 6 . 4 Jakobson’s six functions of language

Jakobson, a functionalist as well as a structuralist, proposed that eachof the six factors in his model of verbal communication determinesa different function of language (ibid.; see Table 6.4; cf. Lévi-Strauss
1969, 29–30 on music and Ashwin 1989 on graphic design). Unlike
the basic transmission model, Jakobson’s model thus avoids the
reduction of language to purely informational communication.
Though one of the potential functions is referential (or informational), this function is not always foregrounded. Jakobson argued

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that in any given situation several functions may operate in a ‘hierarchical order’, but that a dominant function influences the generalcharacter of the ‘message’. For instance, the poetic function (whichis intended to refer to any creative use of language rather than simply
to poetry) highlights ‘the palpability of signs’, undermining any
sense of a natural or transparent connection between a signifier anda referent (Jakobson 1960, 356). In Jakobson’s model, messages andmeanings cannot be isolated from such constitutive factors. He addedthat ‘the question of presence and hierarchy of those basic functions
which we observe in language . . . must be applied also to the othersemiotic systems . . . A parallel investigation of verbal, musical,
pictorial, choreographic, theatrical, and cinematographic arts belongs
to the most imperative and fruitful duties of semiotic science’(Jakobson 1970, 458).
As we have seen, in contrast to the earlier structuralist
model, Jakobson allocated a role for a situational context and stressed
the importance of parole – the contingency of ‘speech events’.
However, his embedded functions are systemic representations of‘frozen’ human purposes and he did not address the dynamic, shifting
purposes of those involved in particular acts of communication or
the social frameworks within which communication occurs. His
theoretical frameworks opened up new pathways but he left to sociolinguists and socio-semiotic researchers the task of investigating
specific, socially situated acts of communication: this, in practice,
was beyond the scope of even the most radical of the original
structural linguists.
While these earlier models had focused on interpersonalcommunication, in an essay entitled ‘Encoding/decoding’ (Hall 1980,
originally published as ‘Encoding and decoding in television
discourse’ in 1973), the British sociologist Stuart Hall proposed amodel of mass communication which highlighted the importance ofsignifying practices within relevant codes. A televisual text emergedas ‘meaningful’ discourse from processes of encoding and decoding.
Each of these processes involved ‘meaning structures’ which consisted of ‘frameworks of knowledge’, ‘relations of production’ and‘technical infrastructure’. Despite the apparent symmetry, Hall
rejected textual determinism, noting that ‘decodings do not follow

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inevitably from encodings’ (Hall 1980, 136). Hall thus gave a significant role to the ‘decoder’ as well as to the ‘encoder’ and presented
communication as a socially contingent practice. Mass media codes
offer their readers social identities which some may adopt as theirown. But readers do not necessarily accept such codes. Where those
involved in communicating do not share common codes and social
positions, decodings are likely to be different from the encoder’sintended meaning. Umberto Eco uses the term ‘aberrant decoding’
to refer to a text which has been decoded by means of a different
code from that used to encode it (Eco 1965). We will return shortly
to how Hall incorporated into his model a series of alternative‘reading positions’ for decoders.
This necessarily brief review of key structuralist models ofcommunication has shown that while systemic codes (and theprocesses of encoding and decoding) are a central feature, postSaussurean semiotics also came to recognize the importance ofcontexts (including social contexts) in the determination of meanings. Implicit in such models (for instance in the reference ofJakobson’s functions to the roles and modes of relation of the‘addresser’ and the ‘addressee’) there are also implications for theconstruction of social identities. In the structuralist tradition, throughthe processes of human communication, the structures of language
and texts came to be seen as involved in ‘positioning the subject’.
THE POSITIONING OF THE SUBJECT‘A sign . . . addresses somebody,’ Charles Peirce declared (Peirce
1931–58, 2.228). Signs ‘address’ us within particular codes. A genre
is a semiotic code within which we are ‘positioned’ as ‘ideal readers’through the use of particular ‘modes of address’. Modes of address
can be defined as the ways in which relations between addresser andaddressee are constructed in a text. In order to communicate, aproducer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended
audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the
text (advertisements offer particularly clear examples of this).
Rather than a specifically semiotic concept, ‘the positioning of
the subject’ is a structuralist notion – although it is absent from early

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structuralist discourse (Hall 1996, 46); Saussure did not discuss it.
It is a concept which has been widely adopted by semioticians andso it needs to be explored in this context. The term ‘subject’ needssome initial explanation. In ‘theories of subjectivity’ a distinction ismade between ‘the subject’ and ‘the individual’. While the individual
is an actual person, the subject is a set of roles constructed by dominant cultural and ideological values (e.g. in terms of class, age,gender and ethnicity). Ideology turns individuals into subjects.
Subjects are not actual people but exist only in relation to interpretive practices and are constructed through the use of signs. The
psychoanalytical theorist Jacques Lacan undermined the humanist
notion of a unified and consistent subject. The individual can occupy
multiple subject positions, some of them contradictory, and ‘identity’ can be seen as the interaction of subject-positions.
According to theorists of textual positioning, understanding themeaning of a text involves taking on an appropriate ideological identity. In order to make sense of the signs in a text the reader is obliged
to adopt a ‘subject-position’ in relation to it. For instance, to understand an advertisement we would have to adopt the identity of aconsumer who desired the advertised product. Some theorists argue
that this position already exists within the structure and codes of the
text. ‘Narratives or images always imply or construct a position or
positions from which they are to be read or viewed’ (Johnson 1996,
101). What Colin MacCabe famously called the ‘classic realist text’is orchestrated to effect closure: contradictions are suppressed andthe reader is encouraged to adopt a position from which everything
seems ‘obvious’ (MacCabe 1974). This stance assumes both that atext is homogeneous and that it has only one meaning – that which
was intended by its makers – whereas contemporary theorists contend
that there may be several alternative (even contradictory) subjectpositions from which a text may make sense. While these may
sometimes be anticipated by the author, they are not necessarily built
into the text itself. Not every reader is the ‘ideal reader’ envisagedby the producer(s) of the text. The phrase, ‘the positioning of thesubject’ implies a ‘necessary “subjection” to the text’ (Johnson 1996,
101) and is thus problematic since there is always some freedomof interpretation. We may for instance choose to regard a poorly

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translated set of instructions for assembling flat-pack furniture as atext constructed purely for our amusement.
The notion that the human subject is ‘constituted’ (constructed)
by pre-given structures (such as texts) is a general feature of structuralism. It constitutes a radical opposition to the liberal humanist(or ‘bourgeois’) stance which presents society as ‘consisting of “free”
individuals whose social determination results from their pre-given
essences like “talented”, “efficient”, “lazy”, “profligate”, etc.’(Coward and Ellis 1977, 2). The French neo-Marxist philosopher
Louis Althusser (1918–90) was the first ideological theorist to giveprominence to the notion of the subject. For him, ideology was asystem of representations of reality offering individuals certain
subject positions which they could occupy. He famously declaredthat ‘what is represented in ideology is . . . not the system of real
relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of these individuals to the real relations in which they
live’ (Althusser 1971, 155). Individuals are transformed into subjects
through the ideological mechanism which he called interpellation(Althusser 1971, 174).
The Althusserian concept of interpellation is used by Marxist
media theorists to explain the political function of mass media texts.
According to this view, the subject (viewer, listener, reader) is constituted by the text, and the power of the mass media resides in theirability to position the subject in such a way that their representations are taken to be reflections of everyday reality. Such structuralist
framings of positioning reflect a stance of textual determinism which
has been challenged by contemporary social semioticians who tend
to emphasize the ‘polysemic’ nature of texts (their plurality of meanings) together with the diversity of their use and interpretation bydifferent audiences (‘multiaccentuality’). However, a distinction may
be appropriate here between message and code. While resistance atthe level of the message is always possible, resistance at the levelof the code is generally much more difficult when the code is adominant one. The familiarity of the codes in realist texts (especiallyphotographic and filmic texts) leads us to routinely ‘suspend ourdisbelief’ in the form (even if not necessarily in the manifest

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content). Recognition of the familiar (in the guise of the natural)
repeatedly confirms our conventional ways of seeing and thus reinforces our sense of self while at the same time invisibly contributing
to its construction. ‘When we say “I see (what the image means)”
this act simultaneously installs us in a place of knowledge and slips
us into place as subject to this meaning . . . All the viewer need do
is fall into place as subject’ (Nichols 1981, 38). Falling into place
in a realist text is a pleasurable experience which few would wish
to disrupt with reflective analysis (which would throw the securityof our sense of self into question). Thus we freely submit to theideological processes which construct our sense of ourselves as freethinking individuals.
A primary textual code involved in the construction of thesubject is that of genre. Genres are ostensibly neutral, functioning
to make form (the conventions of the genre) more transparent tothose familiar with the genre, foregrounding the distinctive content
of individual texts. Certainly genre provides an important frame ofreference which helps readers to identify, select and interpret texts(as well as helping writers to compose economically within themedium). However, a genre can also be seen as embodying certain
values and ideological assumptions and as seeking to establish aparticular worldview. Changes in genre conventions may both reflectand help to shape the dominant ideological climate of the time. Some
Marxist commentators see genre as an instrument of social control
which reproduces the dominant ideology. Within this perspective, thegenre is seen as positioning the audience in order to naturalize thereassuringly conservative ideologies which are typically embeddedin the text. Certainly, genres are far from being ideologically neutral.
Different genres produce different positionings of the subject which
are reflected in their modes of address. Tony Thwaites and hiscolleagues in Australia note that in many television crime dramas in
the tradition of The Saint, Hart to Hart, and Murder, She Wrote,
Genteel or well-to-do private investigators work for thewealthy, solving crimes committed by characters whose social
traits and behaviour patterns often type them as members of

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SEMIOTICS: THE BASICSa ‘criminal class’ . . . The villains receive their just rewards not
so much because they break the law, but because they are
entirely distinct from the law-abiding bourgeoisie. This TV genre
thus reproduces a hegemonic ideology about the individual ina class society.
(Thwaites et al. 1994, 158)

Thus, over and above the specific content of the individual text,
generic frameworks can be seen as involved in the construction of
their readers.
Film and television add a narrative dimension to the positioningof the subject, incorporating dominant narrative devices specific tofilmic media. Film theorists refer to the use of ‘suture’ (surgicalstitching) – the ‘invisible editing’ of shot relationships which seeks
to foreground the narrative and mask the ideological processes whichshape the subjectivity of viewers. Some Lacanian theorists argue thatin the context of conventional narrative (with its possibilities of identification and opposition), the unique character of the cinema (e.g.
watching a large bright screen in the dark) offers us the seductive
sense of a ‘return’ to the pre-linguistic ‘mirror-phase’ of the ‘imaginary’ in which the self was constructed (Nichols 1981, 300).
MODES OF ADDRESS
The modes of address employed by texts are influenced primarily by
three interrelated factors:• textual context: the conventions of the genre and of a
specific syntagmatic structure;• social context (e.g. the presence or absence of the producerof the text, the scale and social composition of the audience, institutional and economic factors); and• technological constraints (features of the medium employed).
Modes of address differ in their directness, their formality and theirnarrative point of view. The various narrative points of view in literature are as follows:

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• third-person narration• omniscient narrator• intrusive (e.g. Dickens)• self-effacing (e.g. Flaubert)• selective point of view of character(s) presented
by self-effacing narrator (e.g. Henry James)• first-person narration: narrated directly by a character (e.g.
Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye)In television and film drama the camera typically offers the viewer
a relatively detached perspective on a scene which is independent of
any single character in the narrative. This can be seen as resemblingthe ‘third-person’ narrative style of an omniscient and self-effacing
narrator – which of course does not necessarily entail such a narrator‘revealing all’ to the viewer (indeed, in genres such as the ‘whodunit’and the thriller the positioning of the subject is most obvious in relation to what information is withheld and when it is released). Camera
treatment is called ‘subjective’ when the camera shows us events as
if from a particular participant’s visual point of view (encouraging
viewers to identify with that person’s way of seeing events or evento feel like an eye-witness to the events themselves). This first-personstyle in filmic media is rarely sustained, however (or we would neversee that character). The point of view is selective when we are mainly
concerned with a single character but the camerawork is not subjective. Voice-overs are sometimes used for first-person narration by acharacter in a drama; they are also common as a third-person narrative mode in genres such as documentary. Where first-personcommentary shifts from person to person within a text, this produces‘polyvocality’ (multiple voices) – contrasting strongly with the interpretive omniscience of ‘univocal’ narrative which offers a single
reading of an event. Where the agency of a narrator is backgrounded,
events or facts deceptively seem to ‘speak for themselves’.
Modes of address also differ in their directness. In linguisticcodes, this is related to whether ‘you’ are explicitly addressed, which
in literary modes is quite rare. In Laurence Sterne’s highly ‘unconventional’ novel Tristram Shandy (1760), one chapter begins thus:‘How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last

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chapter?’ (vol. 1, ch. 20). Realist fiction avoids such alienatory strategies. In representational visual codes directness is related to whether
or not a depicted person appears to look directly at the viewer (inthe case of television, film and photography, via the camera lens).
A direct gaze simulates interaction with each individual viewer(an impossibility, of course, outside one-to-one communicative
media, but a feature of ‘cam-to-cam’ communication on the internet
or in video-conferences). In film and television, directness of address
is reflected in linguistic codes as well as camerawork. Films and(especially) television programmes within the documentary genre
frequently employ a disembodied voice-over which directly addresses
the audience, as do television commercials. On television, directnessof address is also a matter of the extent to which participants lookdirectly into the camera lens. In this way too, commercials frequently
include direct address. As for programmes, in a book entitled The
Grammar of Television, an industry professional warned: ‘Never let
a performer look straight into the lens of a camera unless it is necessary to give the impression that he is speaking directly to the viewer
personally’ (Davis 1960, 54). In television programmes, a directmode of address is largely confined to newsreaders, weather forecasters, presenters and interviewers – which is why it seems so
strange on the rare occasions when we notice an interviewee glancing
at the camera lens. In short, people from outside the televisionindustry are seldom allowed to talk to us directly on television. The
head of state or the leader of a political party are among the few
outsiders allowed to look directly at the viewer, and then typically
only within special genres such as a party political broadcast or an‘address to the nation’. Direct address reflects the power of theaddresser and the use of this signifier typically signifies ‘authority’.
Direct address is rare in the cinema, and when it is used it tends tobe for comic effect. Indirect address is the principal mode employedin conventional narrative, masking authorial agency in the interestsof foregrounding the story. Conventional film and television drama,of course, depends on the illusion that the participants do not know
they are being watched.
Additionally, the mode of address varies in its formality orsocial distance. Following Edward T. Hall’s distinctions, we may

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distinguish between ‘intimate’, ‘personal’, ‘social’ and ‘public’ (or‘impersonal’) modes of address (Hall 1966; Kress and van Leeuwen
1996, 130–5). In relation to language, formality is quite closely tied
to explicitness, so that intimate language tends to be minimally
explicit and maximally dependent on non-verbal cues, while publiclanguage tends to reverse these features (especially in print). In usage
related also to directness of address, social distance can also established through the use of loaded quasi-synonyms to reflect ideological distinctions of ‘us’ from ‘them’, as in ‘I am a patriot; you are anationalist; they are xenophobes.’
In visual representation, social distance is related in part toapparent proximity. In camerawork, degrees of formality are reflectedin shot sizes – close-ups signifying intimate or personal modes,
medium shots a social mode and long shots an impersonal mode
(Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 130–5; cf. Tuchman 1978, 116–20).
In visual media, the represented physical distance between theobserved and the observer often reflects attempts to encourage feelings of emotional involvement or critical detachment in the viewer.
The cultural variability of the degree of formality signified bydifferent zones of proximity was highlighted in relation to face-toface interaction in Edward T. Hall’s influential book – The Hidden
Dimension (Hall 1966). Proximity is not the only marker of social
distance in the visual media: angles of view are also significant. Highangles (looking down on a depicted person from above) are widelyinterpreted as making that person look small and insignificant, andlow angles (looking up at them from below) are said to make themlook powerful and superior (Messaris 1997, 34–5 and 1994, 158;
Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 146).
Note that while the significations such as those listed in relation to photographic and filmic modes of address may represent thecurrently dominant, conventional or ‘default’ linkages of signifiers
and signifieds, no programmatic decoding based on a ‘dictionary’of one-to-one correspondences is possible – in analogue codes inparticular there is a sliding relationship between signifiers and signifieds which may be anchored in various ways by the codes of theparticular textual systems in which they are employed (Nichols 1981,
108).

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Textual codes construct possible reading positions for theaddresser and addressee. Building upon Jakobson’s model Thwaites
et al. define ‘the functions of address’ in terms of the constructionof such subjects and of relationships between them.
• expressive function: the construction of an addresser (authorial persona);• conative function: the construction of an addressee (ideal
reader);• phatic function: the construction of a relationship between
these two.
(Thwaites et al. 1994, 14–15)
A textual code can be defined as a set of ways of reading which its
producers and readers share. Not everyone has access to the relevant codes for reading (or writing) a text. The phatic function
excludes as well as includes certain readers. Those who share thecode are members of the same ‘interpretive community’ (Fish 1980,
167ff., 335–6, 338). Familiarity with particular codes is related tosocial position, in terms of such factors as class, ethnicity, nationality, education, occupation, political affiliation, age, gender andsexuality.
READING POSITIONS
Stuart Hall stressed the role of social positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by different social groups. In a model
deriving from Frank Parkin’s ‘meaning systems’, Hall suggested
three hypothetical interpretive codes or positions for the reader of atext (Parkin 1972; Hall 1973 and 1980, 136–8; Morley 1980, 20–1,
134–7 and 1983, 109–10):• dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) reading: the reader fully shares
the text’s code and accepts and reproduces the preferred
reading (a reading which may not have been the result of
any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) – insuch a stance the code seems natural and transparent;

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• negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text’s codeand broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes
resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own
position, experiences and interests (local and personal
conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule)– this position involves contradictions;• oppositional (‘counter-hegemonic’) reading: the reader,whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional
relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred
reading but does not share the text’s code and rejects thisreading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference(radical, feminist, etc.) (e.g. when watching a television
broadcast produced on behalf of a political party theynormally vote against).
This framework is based on the assumption that the latent meaningof the text is encoded in the dominant code. This is a stance whichtends to reify the medium and to downplay conflicting tendencies
within texts. Also, some critics have raised the question of how a‘preferred reading’ can be established. Poststructuralist social semioticians would urge us not to seek such a reading within the formand structure of the text. Just as a reductive reading of Hall’s model
could lead to the reification of a medium or genre, it could also
encourage the essentializing of readers (e.g. as ‘the resistant reader’)whereas reading positions are multiple, dynamic and contradictory.
Despite the various criticisms, Hall’s model has been very influential, particularly among British theorists.
The British sociologist David Morley employed this model inhis studies of how different social groups interpreted a television
programme (Morley 1980). Morley demonstrated differential accessto the textual codes of a programme in the ‘news magazine’ genre(Morley 1980). He insisted that he did not take a social determinist
position in which individual ‘decodings’ of a text are reduced toa direct consequence of social class position. ‘It is always a question of how social position, as it is articulated through particular
discourses, produces specific kinds of readings or decodings. These
readings can then be seen to be patterned by the way in which the

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structure of access to different discourses is determined by social
position’ (Morley 1983, 113; cf. Morley 1992, 89–90). Different
interpretive communities have access to different textual and interpretive codes (which offer them the potential to understand andsometimes also to produce texts which employ them). Morley addedthat any individual or group might operate different decoding strategies in relation to different topics and different contexts. A person
might make ‘oppositional’ readings of the same material in one
context and ‘dominant’ readings in other contexts (Morley 1981, 9
and 1992, 135). He noted that in interpreting viewers’ readings ofmass media texts attention should be paid not only to the issue ofagreement (acceptance/rejection) but to comprehension, relevanceand enjoyment (Morley 1981, 10 and 1992, 126–7, 136). There isthus considerable scope for variety in the ways in which individuals
engage with such codes.
The interpretation of signs by their users can be seen froma semiotic perspective as having three levels, loosely related toC. W. Morris’s framework for branches of semiotics (Morris 1938/
1970, 6–7).
1. syntactic: recognition of the sign (in relation to other signs);
2. semantic: comprehension of the intended meaning of thesign;
3. pragmatic: interpretation of the sign in terms of relevance,
agreement, etc.
The most basic task of interpretation involves the identification ofwhat a sign represents (denotation) and may require some degree offamiliarity with the medium and the representational codes involved.
This is particularly obvious in the case of language, but may also
apply in the case of visual media such as photographs and films.
Some would not grant this low-level process the label of ‘interpretation’ at all, limiting this term to such processes as the extractionof a ‘moral’ from a narrative text. However, some theorists take thestance that comprehension and interpretation are inseparable (e.g.
Mick and Politi 1989, 85).
Semiotics has not been widely applied to the practice of decoding. While social semiotics stakes a claim to the study of situatedTEXTUAL INTERACTIONS

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semiotic practices, research in this area is dominated by ethnographic
and phenomenological methodologies and is seldom closely allied
to semiotic perspectives (though there is no necessary incompatibility). A notable exception is the research of David Glen Mick in
the field of advertising (Mick and Politi 1989, McQuarrie and Mick
1992, Mick and Buhl 1992).
Having explored some of the theoretical issues concerning theinteractions between makers, texts and users we turn now to theories of intertextuality – which concern interactions between texts.
INTERTEXTUALITY
Although Saussure stressed the importance of the relationship ofsigns to each other, one of the weaknesses of structuralist textual
analysis is the tendency to treat individual texts as discrete, closedoff entities and to focus exclusively on internal structures. Even
where texts are studied as a ‘corpus’ (a unified collection), the overall
generic structures tend themselves to be treated as strictly bounded.
The structuralist’s first analytical task is often described as being todelimit the boundaries of the system (what is to be included andwhat excluded), which is logistically understandable but ontologically problematic. Even remaining within the structuralist paradigm,
we may note that codes transcend structures. The semiotic notion of‘intertextuality’ introduced by the literary theorist Julia Kristeva isassociated primarily with poststructuralist theorists. Kristeva referred
to texts in terms of two axes: a horizontal axis connecting the author
and reader of a text, and a vertical axis, which connects the text toother texts (Kristeva 1980, 69). Uniting these two axes are sharedcodes: every text and every reading depends on prior codes. Kristeva
declared that ‘every text is from the outset under the jurisdiction ofother discourses which impose a universe on it’ (Kristeva 1974,
388–9; translation by Culler 1981, 105). She argued that rather thanconfining our attention to the structure of a text we should study its‘structuration’ (how the structure came into being). This involved
siting it ‘within the totality of previous or synchronic texts’ of which
it was a ‘transformation’ (Kristeva 1970, 67–9; translation by Coward
and Ellis 1977, 52).

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Intertextuality refers to far more than the ‘influences’ of writers on each other. For structuralists, language has powers which not
only exceed individual control but also determine subjectivity.
Structuralists sought to counter what they saw as a deep-rooted bias
in literary and aesthetic thought which emphasized the uniqueness ofboth texts and authors. The ideology of individualism (with its associated concepts of authorial ‘originality’, ‘creativity’ and ‘expressiveness’) is a post-Renaissance legacy which reached its peak in
Romanticism but which still dominates popular discourse. ‘Authorship’ was a historical invention. Concepts such as ‘authorship’ and‘plagiarism’ did not exist in the Middle Ages. Saussure emphasizedthat language is a system which pre-exists the individual speaker. For
structuralists and poststructuralists alike we are (to use the stock
Althusserian formulation) ‘always already’ positioned by semiotic
systems – and most clearly by language. Contemporary theorists havereferred to the subject as being spoken by language. Barthes declaresthat ‘it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is . . . toreach the point where only language acts, “performs”, and not “me” ’(Barthes 1977a, 143). When writers write they are also written. To
communicate we must utilize existing concepts and conventions.
Consequently, while our intention to communicate and what we
intend to communicate are both important to us as individuals, meaning cannot be reduced to authorial ‘intention’. To define meaning interms of authorial intention is the so-called ‘intentional fallacy’ identified by W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley of the ‘new critical’ tendency in literary criticism (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1954). We may,for instance, communicate things without being aware of doing so.
As Michel de Montaigne wrote in 1580, ‘the work, by its own force
and fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes out-strip him,beyond his invention and knowledge’ (Essays, trans. Charles Cotton,
1685: ‘Of the art of conferring’ III, 8). Furthermore, in conforming
to any of the conventions of our medium, we act as a medium for
perpetuating such conventions.
PROBLEMATIZING AUTHORSHIP
Theorists of intertextuality problematize the status of ‘authorship’,treating the writer of a text as the orchestrator of what Roland Barthes

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refers to as the ‘already-written’ rather than as its originator (Barthes
1973, 21). ‘A text is . . . a multidimensional space in which a variety
of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is atissue of quotations . . . The writer can only imitate a gesture that isalways anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings,
to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to reston any one of them’ (Barthes 1977a, 146). In his book S/Z, Barthes
deconstructed Balzac’s short story Sarrasine, seeking to ‘deoriginate’ the text – to demonstrate that it reflects many voices, not justthat of Balzac (Barthes 1973). It would be pure idealism to regard
Balzac as ‘expressing himself’ in language since we do not precede
language but are produced by it. For Barthes, writing did not involvean instrumental process of recording pre-formed thoughts and feelings (working from signified to signifier) but was a matter of working
with the signifiers and letting the signifieds take care of themselves(Chandler 1995, 60ff.).
One of the founding texts of semiotics, the Course in General
Linguistics, itself problematizes the status of authorship. While thetext published in French by Payot in Paris bears the name of
Ferdinand de Saussure as its author, it was in fact not the work ofSaussure at all. Saussure died in 1913 without leaving any detailed
outline of his theories on general linguistics or on what he called
semiology. The Course was first published posthumously in 1916
and was assembled by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye (‘withthe collaboration of Albert Riedlinger’) on the basis of the notes
which had been taken by at least seven students, together with a few
personal notes which had been written by Saussure himself. The
students’ notes referred to three separate courses on general linguistics which Saussure had taught at the University of Geneva over theperiod of 1906–11. Saussure thus neither wrote nor read the bookwhich bears his name, although we continually imply that he did byattaching his name to it. It is hardly surprising that various contradictions and inconsistencies and a lack of cohesion in the text haveoften been noted. Indeed, some commentators have suggested that
the Course does not always offer ‘a faithful reflection’ of Saussure’s
ideas – a hardly unproblematic notion (Saussure 1983, xii). On topof all this, English readers have two competing translations of the

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Course (Saussure 1974; Saussure 1983). Each translation is, ofcourse, a re-authoring. No neutral translation is possible, sincelanguages involve different value systems – as is noted in the Course
itself. Nor can specialist translators be expected to be entirely disinterested. Furthermore, anyone who treats the Course as a founding
text in semiotics does so by effectively ‘rewriting’ it, since its treatment of semiology is fragmentary. Finally, we are hardly short ofcommentaries to bring both this foundational text and us as readers
into line with the interpreter’s own theories (e.g. Harris 1987;
Thibault 1997).
READING AS REWRITINGThis rather extreme but important example thus serves to highlightthat every reading is always a rewriting. It is by no means an isolated
example. The first critique of the ideas outlined in the Course
was in a book entitled Marxism and the Philosophy of Language
which was published in Russian in 1929 under the name Valentin
Voloshinov, but it has subsequently been claimed that this book had
in fact been written by Mikhail Bakhtin, and the authorship of thistext is still contested (Morris 1994, 1). Readers, in any case, constructauthors. They perform a kind of amateur archaeology, reconstructing
them from textual shards while at the same time feeling able to say
about anyone whose writings they have read, ‘I know her (or him).’
The reader’s ‘Roland Barthes’ (for example) never existed. If one
had total access to everything he had ever written throughout his life
it would be marked by contradiction. The best we can do to reducesuch contradictions is to construct yet more authors, such as ‘theearly Barthes’ and ‘the later Barthes’. Barthes died in 1981, butevery invocation of his name creates another Barthes.
In 1968 Barthes announced ‘the death of the author’ and ‘thebirth of the reader’, declaring that ‘a text’s unity lies not in its origin
but in its destination’ (Barthes 1977a, 148). The framing of texts byother texts has implications not only for their writers but also for
their readers. Fredric Jameson argued that ‘texts come before us as
the always-already-read; we apprehend them through the sedimented
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through the sedimented reading habits and categories developed bythose inherited interpretive traditions’ (cited in Rodowick 1994, 286,
where it was, with delicious irony in this context, cited from Tony
Bennett). A famous text has a history of readings. ‘All literary works. . . are “rewritten”, if only unconsciously, by the societies which
read them’ (Eagleton 1983, 12). No one today – even for the firsttime – can read a famous novel or poem, look at a famous painting,drawing or sculpture, listen to a famous piece of music or watch afamous play or film without being conscious of the contexts in which
the text had been reproduced, drawn upon, alluded to, parodied andso on. Such contexts constitute a primary frame which the reader
cannot avoid drawing upon in interpreting the text.
NO TEXT IS AN ISLAND
The concept of intertextuality reminds us that each text exists inrelation to others. In fact, texts owe more to other texts than to theirown makers. Michel Foucault declared that:
The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, thefirst lines and the last full stop, beyond its internal configurationand its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node
within a network . . . The book is not simply the object that one
holds in one’s hands . . . Its unity is variable and relative.
(Foucault 1974, 23)

Texts are framed by others in many ways. Most obvious are formal
frames: a television programme, for instance, may be part of a series
and part of a genre (such as soap or sitcom). Our understanding of
any individual text relates to such framings. Texts provide contexts
within which other texts may be created and interpreted. The art
historian Ernst Gombrich goes further, arguing that all art, however
naturalistic, is ‘a manipulation of vocabulary’ rather than a reflectionof the world (Gombrich 1982, 70, 78, 100). Texts draw upon multiple codes from wider contexts – both textual and social. The assignment of a text to a genre provides the interpreter of the text with a

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key intertextual framework. Genre theory is an important field in its
own right, and genre theorists do not necessarily embrace semiotics.
Within semiotics genres can be seen as sign-systems or codes – conventionalized but dynamic structures. Each example of a genre utilizes conventions which link it to other members of that genre. Such
conventions are at their most obvious in ‘spoof’ versions of the genre.
But intertextuality is also reflected in the fluidity of genre boundaries
and in the blurring of genres and their functions which is reflected insuch recent coinages as ‘advertorials’, ‘infomercials’, ‘edutainment’,‘docudrama’ and ‘faction’ (a blend of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’).
The debts of a text to other texts are seldom acknowledged(other than in the scholarly apparatus of academic writing). This
serves to further the mythology of authorial ‘originality’. However,some texts allude directly to each other – as in ‘remakes’ of films,
extra-diegetic references to the media in the animated cartoon The
Simpsons, and many amusing contemporary TV ads. This is a particularly self-conscious form of intertextuality: it credits its audience
with the necessary experience to make sense of such allusions andoffers them the pleasure of recognition. By alluding to other texts
and other media this practice reminds us that we are in a mediatedreality, so it can also be seen as an alienatory mode which runs
counter to the dominant realist tradition which focuses on persuading
the audience to believe in the ongoing reality of the narrative. It
appeals to the pleasures of critical detachment rather than ofemotional involvement.
In order to make sense of many contemporary advertisements
one needs to be familiar with others in the same series. Expectations
are established by reference to one’s previous experience in looking
at related advertisements. Modern visual advertisements make extensive use of intertextuality in this way. Sometimes there is no directreference to the product at all. Instant identification of the appropriate interpretive code serves to identify the interpreter of theadvertisement as a member of an exclusive club, with each act ofinterpretation serving to renew one’s membership.
Links also cross the boundaries of formal frames, for instance,
in sharing topics with treatments within other genres (the themeof war is found in a range of genres such as action-adventure film,

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documentary, news, current affairs). Some genres are shared byseveral media: the genres of soap, game show and phone-in are foundon both television and radio; the genre of the news report is foundon TV, radio and in newspapers; the advertisement appears in all
mass media forms. Texts in the genre of the trailer are directly tiedto specific texts within or outside the same medium. The genre of
the programme listing exists within the medium of print (listings
magazines, newspapers) to support the media of TV, radio and film.
TV soaps generate substantial coverage in popular newspapers,
magazines and books; the ‘magazine’ format was adopted by TV
and radio. And so on.
The notion of intertextuality problematizes the idea of a text
having boundaries and questions the dichotomy of ‘inside’ and‘outside’: where does a text ‘begin’ and ‘end’? What is ‘text’ andwhat is ‘context’? The medium of television highlights this issue: itis productive to think of television in terms of a concept which
Raymond Williams called ‘flow’ rather than as a series of discrete
texts (Williams 1974, 86, 93). Much the same applies to the World
Wide Web, where hypertext links on a page can link it directly tomany others. However, texts in any medium can be thought of insimilar terms. The boundaries of texts are permeable. Each text exists
within a vast ‘society of texts’ in various genres and media: no text
is an island entire of itself. A useful semiotic technique is comparison and contrast between differing treatments of similar themes (orsimilar treatments of different themes), within or between different
genres or media.
INTRATEXTUALITY
While the term intertextuality would normally be used to refer toallusions to other texts, a related kind of allusion is what might becalled ‘intratextuality’ – involving internal relations within the text.
Within a single code (e.g. a photographic code) these would be
simply syntagmatic relationships (e.g. the relationship of the imageof one person to another within the same photograph). However, atext may involve several codes: a newspaper photograph, for instance,
may have a caption (indeed, such an example serves to remind us

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that what we may choose to regard as a discrete ‘text’ for analysis
lacks clear-cut boundaries: the notion of intertextuality emphasizes
that texts have contexts).
Roland Barthes introduced the concept of anchorage (Barthes
1964, 38ff.). Linguistic elements can serve to ‘anchor’ (or constrain)
the preferred readings of an image: ‘to fix the floating chain of signifieds’ (ibid., 39). Barthes employed this concept primarily in relation
to advertisements, but it applies of course to other genres such as captioned photographs, maps, narrated television and film documentaries,
and cartoons and comics (‘comic books’ to North Americans) with
their speech and thought ‘balloons’. Barthes argued that the principal
function of anchorage was ideological (ibid., 40). This is perhaps mostobvious when photographs are used in contexts such as newspapers.
Photograph captions typically present themselves as neutral labels forwhat self-evidently exists in the depicted world while actually serving to define the terms of reference and point of view from which it
is to be seen. For instance, ‘It is a very common practice for the captions to news photographs to tell us, in words, exactly how the subject’s expression ought to be read’ (Hall 1981, 229). You may checkyour daily newspaper to verify this claim. Such textual anchorages
can have a more subversive function, however. For instance, in the
1970s, the photographer Victor Burgin exhibited posters in the formof images appropriated from print advertisements together with his
own printed text which ran counter to the intended meaning of theoriginal ads.
Barthes used the term relay to describe text–image relationships which were ‘complementary’, instancing cartoons, comic strips
and narrative film (Barthes 1964, 41). He did not coin a term for‘the paradoxical case where the image is constructed according to
the text’ (ibid., 40). Even if it were true in the 1950s and early 1960s
that the verbal text was primary in the relation between texts andimages, in contemporary society visual images have acquired far
more importance in contexts such as advertising, so that what hecalled ‘relay’ is far more common. There are also many instanceswhere the ‘illustrative use’ of an image provides anchorage for
ambiguous text – as in assembly instructions for flat-pack furniture (note that when we talk about ‘illustrating’ and ‘captioning’ weTEXTUAL INTERACTIONS

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logocentrically imply the primacy of verbal text over images). Awareness of the importance of intertextuality should lead us to examine
the functions of those images and written or spoken text used inclose association within a text, not only in terms of their respective
codes, but also in terms of their overall rhetorical orchestration.
In media such as film, television and the World Wide Web,
multiple codes are involved. As the film theorist Christian Metz put
it, codes ‘are not . . . added to one another, or juxtaposed in just any
manner; they are organized, articulated in terms of one another inaccordance with a certain order, they contract unilateral hierarchies. . . Thus a veritable system of intercodical relations is generated
which is itself, in some sort, another code’ (Metz 1971, 242). Theinteraction of film and soundtrack in chart music videos offers agood example of the dynamic nature of their modes of relationshipand patterns of relative dominance. The codes involved in suchtextual systems clearly cannot be considered in isolation: the dynamic
patterns of dominance between them contribute to the generation of
meaning. Nor need they be assumed to be always in complete accord
with each other – indeed, the interplay of codes may be particularly
revealing of incoherences, ambiguities, contradictions and omissions
which may offer the interpreter scope for deconstructing the text.
BRICOLAGE
Claude Lévi-Strauss’s notion of the bricoleur who creates improvized
structures by appropriating pre-existing materials which are ready tohand is now fairly well known within cultural studies (Lévi-Strauss
1962, 16–33, 35–6, 150n.; cf. Lévi-Strauss 1964). Lévi-Strauss saw‘mythical thought’ as ‘a kind of bricolage’ (Lévi-Strauss 1962/1974,
17): ‘it builds ideological castles out of the debris of what was oncea social discourse’ (ibid., 21n.). The bricoleur works with signs,
constructing new arrangements by adopting existing signifieds as
signifiers and ‘speaking’ ‘through the medium of things’ – by the
choices made from ‘limited possibilities’ (ibid., 20, 21). ‘The first
aspect of bricolage is . . . to construct a system of paradigms withthe fragments of syntagmatic chains’, leading in turn to newsyntagms (ibid., 150n.). ‘Authorship’ could be seen in similar terms.

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Lévi-Strauss certainly saw artistic creation as in part a dialogue withthe materials (ibid., 18, 27, 29). Logically (following Quintilian), thepractice of bricolage can be seen as operating through several key
transformations: addition, deletion, substitution and transposition.
Elsewhere, I have explored bricolage in relation to the constructionof personal home pages on the web (Chandler 2006).
TYPES AND DEGREES OF INTERTEXTUALITY
Gérard Genette proposed the term ‘transtextuality’ as a more
inclusive term than ‘intertextuality’ (Genette 1997). He listed fivesubtypes:
1. intertextuality: quotation, plagiarism, allusion;
2. paratextuality: the relation between a text and its ‘paratext’– that which surrounds the main body of the text – such as
titles, headings, prefaces, epigraphs, dedications, acknowledgements, footnotes, illustrations, dustjackets, etc.;
3. architextuality: designation of a text as part of a genre or
genres (Genette refers to designation by the text itself, but
this could also be applied to its framing by readers);
4. metatextuality: explicit or implicit critical commentary of
one text on another text (metatextuality can be hard to
distinguish from the following category);
5. hypotextuality (Genette’s term was hypertextuality): therelation between a text and a preceding ‘hypotext’ – a text
or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends (including parody, spoof, sequel,translation).
To such a list, computer-based hypertextuality should be added: text
which can take the reader directly to other texts (regardless of authorship or location). This kind of intertextuality disrupts the conventional ‘linearity’ of texts. Reading such texts is seldom a question offollowing standard sequences predetermined by their authors.
It may be useful to consider the issue of ‘degrees of intertextuality’. Would the ‘most intertextual’ text be an indistinguishable
copy of another text, or would that have gone beyond what it means

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to be intertextual? Would the ‘most intratextual’ text be one whichapproached the impossible goal of referring only to itself? Even ifno specific text is referred to, texts are written within genres anduse language in ways which their authors have seldom invented.
Intertextuality does not seem to be simply a continuum on a single
dimension and there does not seem to be a consensus about what
dimensions we should be looking for. Intertextuality is not a featureof the text alone but of the ‘contract’ which reading it forges between
its author(s) and reader(s). Since the dominant mode of producing
texts seems to involve masking their debts, reflexivity seems to be
an important issue – we need to consider how marked the intertextuality is. Some defining features of intertextuality might include thefollowing:• reflexivity: how reflexive (or self-conscious) the use ofintertextuality seems to be (if reflexivity is important towhat it means to be intertextual, then presumably an indistinguishable copy goes beyond being intertextual);• alteration: the alteration of sources (more noticeable alteration presumably making it more reflexively intertextual);• explicitness: the specificity and explicitness of reference(s)to other text(s) (e.g. direct quotation, attributed quotation)(is assuming recognition more reflexively intertextual?);• criticality to comprehension: how important it would be forthe reader to recognize the intertextuality involved;• scale of adoption: the overall scale of allusion/incorporation
within the text; and• structural unboundedness: to what extent the text is presented (or understood) as part of or tied to a larger structure(e.g. as part of a genre, of a series, of a serial, of a magazine,of an exhibition, etc.) – factors which are often not under thecontrol of the author of the text.
Useful as the concept can be, it is important to remember that intertextuality is not purely a relation between texts. Nor does Kristeva’s
horizontal axis – that connecting the author and reader of a text –adequately represent the frequently neglected dimension of intertextuality. As the Peircean model suggests, the meaning of a sign is in

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its interpretation. Long before Barthes announced the death of theauthor, Plato (in the Phaedrus) had foreseen (with regret) that once
the text left the author, the reader was in control. Socrates observed:
The fact is, Phaedrus, that writing involves a similar disadvantage to painting. The productions of painting look like living
beings, but if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn
silence. The same holds true of written words; you might
suppose that they understand what they are saying, but if you
ask them what they mean by anything they simply return thesame answer over and over again. Besides, once a thing iscommitted to writing it circulates equally among those who
understand the subject and those who have no business with
it; a writing cannot distinguish between suitable and unsuitable
readers.
(Plato 1973, 97)

Ultimately readers, not authors, are the determinants of the meaningof texts and the relations between them – textual interactions do noteven exist without readers (‘suitable’ or otherwise). This is not to suggest that texts may mean whatever their readers want them to mean orrelate to whatever readers decide they relate to. Nor is it only textual
support that the reader must seek for a sustainable reading. Meanings
and meaningful textual relations are socially negotiated; readings don’t
last without interpretive communities. Similarly, the intergenericblending and blurring that characterizes the evolution of genres
depends not on texts but on shifting expectations within interpretive
communities. Genre codes are a key intertextual framework, but wenoted in the previous chapter the frequent absence of text–reader relations in the classification of generic features. Intertextuality is notabout purely textual features. Although assumptions about ‘model’
readers may be discerned in textual cues, text–reader relations cannot
be determined by them. Readers do not necessarily adopt the anticipated ‘reading positions’, even if they have access to the relevant
codes. Nor should we neglect the pleasures of recognition (alluded toearlier) that have made intelligent television programmes such as The
Simpsons so popular and amusing.

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Confounding the realist agenda that ‘art imitates life,’ intertextuality suggests that art imitates art. Oscar Wilde (typically) took
this notion further, declaring provocatively that ‘life imitates art’.
Texts are instrumental not only in the construction of other texts but
in the construction of experiences. Our behaviour is not determinedby texts, but much of what we know about the world is derived fromwhat we have read in books, newspapers and magazines, from what
we have seen in the cinema and on television and from what wehave heard on the radio. Life is thus lived through texts and framedby texts to a greater extent than we are normally aware of. As thesociologist Scott Lash observes, ‘We are living in a society in which
our perception is directed almost as often to representations as it is
to “reality” ’ (Lash 1990, 24). Intertextuality blurs the boundaries not
only between texts but between texts and the world of lived experience. Those who radically privilege code over context may argue
that we know no pre-textual experience; the world as we know it ismerely its current representation. On the other hand, members of aninterpretive community whose everyday behaviour is guided by sucha relativistic stance might have difficulty in communicating with eachother, still less with ‘unsuitable readers’ such as visitors from otherplanets.

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7
PROSPECT AND
RETROSPECTThe definition, scope and methodologies of semiotics vary from theorist to theorist, so it is important for newcomers to be clear about
whose version of semiotics they are dealing with. There are manysemioticians whose work has not been discussed in this brief introduction to the subject, and other theorists – notably Derrida andFoucault – have been included because they address semiotic issues
even though they are not semioticians. The Appendix lists some ‘key
figures and schools’ but this little book cannot perform the functions of the encyclopedias of semiotics (Sebeok 1994b, Bouissac
1998) or of Nöth’s magisterial handbook (Nöth 1990). Even in thesethree great reference works, the only dedicated entries appearing inall of them are for Barthes, Hjelmslev, Jakobson, Peirce and Saussure.
Those included in both Bouissac’s one-volume encyclopedia andNöth’s handbook who are noticeable by their absence from Sebeok’s
three-volume work are: Algirdas Greimas, Julia Kristeva andUmberto Eco (though Eco was a contributor). My own account ofsemiotics is partial in both senses; the biases of which I am conscious

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were outlined in the Preface – the critical reader will no doubt discernothers. Regarding semiotics as unavoidably ideological alienates
those semioticians who see it as a purely objective science, but thehistory of its exposition reveals that semiotics is clearly a ‘site ofstruggle’.
STRUCTURALIST SEMIOTICS
Semiotics has become closely identified with structuralist approaches
but it is not tied to any particular theory or methodology. The current
review has focused primarily on the European tradition deriving fromSaussure (although we have also taken account of the impact of thePeircean approach within this tradition). As we have seen, even theEuropean tradition has been far from monolithic: there have beenvarious inflections of both structuralist and poststructuralist semiotics. Whatever the limitations of some of its manifestations, thelegacy of structuralism is a toolkit of analytical methods and concepts
which have not all outlived their usefulness. Particular tools havesubsequently been applied, adapted, replaced or discarded. Somehave even been used ‘to dismantle the master’s house.’ Saussure’s
framework was thus dismantled not only by deconstructionists such
as Jacques Derrida but also by the structuralist linguist Roman
Jakobson. Yet even from the ruins of the crumbling creation whichbears Saussure’s name, valuable concepts have still been salvaged.
Jakobson commented: ‘Saussure’s Course is the work of a genius,
and even its errors and contradictions are suggestive’ (Jakobson
1984b, 85).
Saussure’s provocative stance on the radical arbitrariness ofsigns has long been demonstrated to be unsustainable. It was anotherstructuralist linguist and semiotician who argued that the radical arbitrariness of the sign advocated by Saussure (in contrast to thevariability of arbitrariness in the Peircean model) was an ‘illusory’‘dogma’ (Jakobson 1963a, 19; 1966, 419). Even language incorporates iconic and indexical modes (Jakobson 1966, 420). As we haveseen, Saussure did in fact allude to ‘relative arbitrariness’. However,this potentiality was little more than a footnote in his exposition of

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the ‘first principle’ of the sign, and as we have seen it was throughthe influence of Peirce that this concept gained widespread acceptance. Nevertheless, the enduring value of Saussure’s emphasis onarbitrariness lies in alerting us to the conventional character of manysigns which we experience as natural. All signs, texts and codes need
to be read. When we interpret television or photography as ‘a window
on the world’ we treat the signified as unmediated or transparent.
Saussurean-inspired semiotics demonstrates that the transparency ofthe medium is illusory.
Saussure’s emphasis on arbitrariness was based on his adoption of language as his model for semiotic systems – even Jakobson
acknowledged ‘the predominantly symbolic character of language’(Jakobson 1966, 420). Subsequent structuralists sought to apply
verbal language as a model to media which are non-verbal or not
solely or primarily verbal. Such attempts at a unifying approach wereseen by critics as failing to allow for the diversity of media, though
Jakobson rejected this criticism: ‘I have looked forward to the development of semiotics, which helps to delineate the specificity oflanguage among all the various systems of signs, as well as theinvariants binding language to related sign systems’ (Jakobson 1981,
65; cf. 1960, 351 and 1970, 455). Despite the Jakobsonian stance,a key example of the problem identified by critics is that analogicalimages (such as in traditional painting and photography) cannot be
unproblematically reduced to discrete and meaningfully recombinable units in the way that verbal language can. Yet some semioticians
have insisted that a ‘grammar’ can nevertheless be discerned at somelevel of analysis in visual and audio-visual media. While we may
acknowledge the role of conventions in painting, in the case of anindexical medium such as photography, common sense suggests that
we are dealing with ‘a message without a code’. Thus, semiotic references to ‘reading’ photographs, films and television lead some todispute that we need to learn the formal codes of such media, andto argue that the resemblance of their images to observable reality
is not merely a matter of cultural convention: ‘to a substantial degree
the formal conventions encountered in still or motion pictures shouldmake a good deal of sense even to a first-time viewer’ (Messaris
1994, 7). Semioticians in the Saussurean tradition insist that such

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stances underestimate the intervention of codes (even if their familiarity renders them transparent): relative arbitrariness should not beequated with an absence of conventions. The indexical character ofthe medium of film does not mean that a documentary film lacks
formal codes or guarantee its ‘reflection of reality’ (Nichols 1991).
While the concept of codes that need to be read can shed lighton familiar phenomena, critics have objected to the way in whichsome semioticians have treated almost anything as a code, whileleaving the details of some of these codes inexplicit. It has beenargued that we draw on both social and textual codes in making
sense even of representational pictures, as indeed we do, but we also
draw more broadly on both social and textual knowledge. Not all ofsuch knowledge is reducible to codes. In ‘bracketing the referent’
Saussure excluded social context. We cannot identify which codes
to invoke in making sense of any act of communication without
knowing the context (or alternatively, being there). The single word
‘coffee’, spoken with the rising inflection we associate with a question, can be interpreted in a host of ways depending largely on thecontext in which it is spoken (just try stopping yourself thinking of
some!). It is indeed only in social contexts that codes can be learned
and applied. However, as we have seen, excluding context is notnecessarily a defining feature of structuralist approaches. Roman
Jakobson showed that the context counts at least as much as thecode in interpreting signs. Such a stance challenges the reductive
transmission model of communication.
There are no ideologically neutral sign-systems: signs function
to persuade as well as to refer. Valentin Voloshinov declared that‘whenever a sign is present, ideology is present too’ (Voloshinov
1973, 10). Sign-systems help to naturalize and reinforce particular
framings of ‘the way things are’, although the operation of ideology
in signifying practices is typically masked. Consequently, on theseprinciples semiotic analysis always involves ideological analysis.
Victor Shklovsky of the Moscow school argued in 1916 that the key
function of art was estrangement, defamiliarization or ‘making
strange’ (ostranenie) (Hawkes 1977, 62–7). Many cultural semioticians have seen their primary task as denaturalizing dominant codes;
denaturalization was at the heart of Roland Barthes’ analytical

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approach. Semiotic denaturalization has the potential to show
ideology at work and to demonstrate that ‘reality’ can be challenged.
In this respect, although Saussure excluded the social and therefore
the political, his concept of arbitrariness can be seen as having
inspired Barthes and his more socially oriented followers.
As we have seen, the Saussurean legacy was a focus on synchronic rather than diachronic analysis. Synchronic analysis studies
a phenomenon as if it were frozen at one moment in time; diachronic
analysis focuses on change over time. The synchronic approach
underplays the dynamic nature of sign systems (for instance, television conventions change fairly rapidly compared to conventions for
written English). It can also underplay dynamic changes in the cultural myths which signification both alludes to and helps to shape.
Structuralist semiotics in a purely Saussurean mode ignores process
and historicity – unlike historical theories like Marxism. However,once again we should beware of reducing even structuralist semiotics
to its Saussurean form. As we have already noted, even other structuralists such as Jakobson rejected the Saussurean splitting of synchronic from diachronic analysis while Lévi-Strauss’s approach did
at least allow for structural transformation.
Semiotics is invaluable if we wish to look beyond the manifest content of texts. Structuralist semioticians seek to look behindor beneath the surface of the observed in order to discover underlying organizational relations. The more obvious the structuralorganization of a text or code may seem to be, the more difficult it
may be to see beyond such surface features, but searching for what
is hidden beneath the obvious can lead to fruitful insights. The quest
for underlying structures has, however, led some critics to argue thatthe focus on underlying structures which characterizes the structuralformalism of theorists such as Propp, Greimas and Lévi-Strauss tends
to over-emphasize the similarities between texts and to deny their
distinctive features (e.g. Coward and Ellis 1977, 5). This is particularly vexatious for literary critics, for whom issues of stylistic
difference are a central concern. Some semiotic analysis has been
criticized as nothing more than an abstract and ‘arid formalism’. In
Saussurean semiotics the focus was on langue rather than parole,on formal systems rather than on social practices. Lévi-Strauss is

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explicit about his lack of interest in specific content – for him, structure is the content (e.g. Lévi-Strauss 1962, 75–6; cf. Caws 1968,203). Jakobson’s challenge to Saussure’s emphasis on parole demonstrates that structuralism should not be equated with the Saussurean
model in this respect. Nevertheless, structuralist studies have tended
to be purely textual analyses (including Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss1970), and critics complain that the social dimension (such as how
people interpret texts) tends to be dismissed as (or reduced to) ‘justanother text’. Semiotics can appear to suggest that meaning is purely
explicable in terms of determining textual structures. Such a stanceis subject to the same criticisms as linguistic determinism. In giving
priority to the determining power of the system it can be seen as
fundamentally conservative.
However, as an antidote to dominant myths of individualism,
it is instructive to be reminded that individuals are not unconstrainedin their construction of meanings. Common sense suggests that ‘I’
am a unique individual with a stable, unified identity and ideas of
my own. Semiotics can help us to realize that such notions are createdand maintained by our engagement with sign-systems: our sense ofidentity is established through signs. We derive a sense of self fromdrawing upon conventional, pre-existing repertoires of signs andcodes which we did not ourselves create. As the sociologist Stuart
Hall puts it, our ‘systems of signs . . . speak us as much as we speakin and through them’ (Hall 1977, 328). We are thus the subjects ofour sign-systems rather than being simply instrumental ‘users’ whoare fully in control of them. While we are not determined by semiotic processes we are shaped by them far more than we realize.
In this context it is perhaps hardly surprising that structuralist
semiotic analysis downplays the affective domain. Connotation wasa primary concern of Barthes, but even he did not undertake research
into the diversity of connotative meanings – though the study of
connotations ought to include the sensitive exploration of highly variable and subjective emotional nuances. Socially oriented semiotics
should alert us to how the same text may generate different meanings for different readers. However, although admirable studies doexist which have investigated the personal meanings of signs (e.g.
Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981, Chalfen 1987 – bothPROSPECT AND RETROSPECT

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of which include some explicit references to semiotics), research
into this aspect of signification has not characterized ‘mainstream’
semiotic studies.
Purely structuralist approaches have not addressed processes oftextual production or audience interpretation. They have downplayedor even ignored the contingencies of particular practices, institutionalframeworks and cultural, social, economic and political contexts. Even
Roland Barthes, who argued that texts are codified to encourage areading which favours the interests of the dominant class, did notinvestigate the social context of interpretation (though his ideologicalanalysis will be discussed in relation to poststructuralist semiotics). It
cannot be assumed that preferred readings will go unchallenged (Hall1980; Morley 1980). The failure of structuralist semiotics to relate
texts to social relations has been attributed to its functionalism (Slater
1983, 259). Sociologists insist that we must consider not only how
signs signify (structurally) but also why (socially): structures are notcauses. The creation and interpretation of texts must be related tosocial factors outside the structures of texts.
POSTSTRUCTURALIST SEMIOTICS
Many contemporary theorists have rejected a purely structuralist
semiotics, though as we have seen, structuralism has taken a variety
of forms, and not all of them are subject to the same catalogue ofcriticisms. However, even those who choose to reject structuralist
priorities need not abandon every tool employed by structuralists,
and whether they do or not, they need not reject semiotics wholesale. Influential as it has been, structuralist analysis is but one
approach to semiotics. Many of the criticisms of semiotics are
directed at a form of semiotics to which few contemporary semioticians adhere. It is only fair to note that much of the criticism of
semiotics has taken the form of self-criticism by those within thefield. The theoretical literature of semiotics reflects a constant attemptby many semioticians to grapple with the implications of new theories for their framing of the semiotic enterprise. Poststructuralism
evolved from the structuralist tradition in the late 1960s, problematizing many of its assumptions. Seeking to account for the role of

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social change and the role of the subject, poststructuralist semiotics
has sometimes adopted Marxist and/or psychoanalytical inflections.
Another inflection derives from Foucault – emphasizing power
relations in discursive practices. Such shifts of direction are notan abandonment of semiotics but of the limitations of purely
structuralist semiotics.
Theorists such as Roland Barthes used semiotics for the ‘revelatory’ political purpose of ‘demystifying’ society. However, thesemiotic ‘decoding’ and denaturalization of textual and social codes
tends to suggest that there is a literal truth or pre-given objective
reality underlying the coded version, which can be revealed by theskilled analyst’s banishing of ‘distortions’ (Watney 1982, 173–4).
This strategy is itself ideological. Poststructuralist theorists haveargued that the structuralist enterprise is impossible – we cannot
stand outside our sign-systems. While we may be able to bypass one
set of conventions we may never escape the framing of experienceby convention. The notion of ‘codes within codes’ spells doom fora structuralist quest for a fundamental and universal underlying structure but it does not represent the demise of the semiotic enterpriseconceived more broadly. More socially oriented semioticians accept
that there can be no ‘exhaustive’ semiotic analyses because every
analysis is located in its own particular social and historical circumstances. In his widely cited essays on the history of photographic
practices, John Tagg comments that he is ‘not concerned with
exposing the manipulation of a pristine “truth”, or with unmasking
some conspiracy, but rather with the analysis of the specific “political economy” within which the “mode of production” of “truth” isoperative’ (Tagg 1988, 174–5).
Whereas both common sense and positivist realism involve an
insistence that reality is independent of the signs that refer to it,socially oriented semioticians tend to adopt constructionist stances,emphasizing the role of sign-systems in the construction of reality.
They usually refer only to ‘social reality’ (rather than physical reality)
as constructed. Some argue that there is nothing natural about ourvalues: they are social constructions which are peculiar to our location in space and time. Assertions which seem to us to be obvious,
natural, universal, given, permanent and incontrovertible may be

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generated by the ways in which sign-systems operate in our discourse
communities. Although Saussure’s principle of arbitrariness can beseen as an influence on this perspective, the social constructionist
stance is not an idealist denial of external physical reality but rather
an insistence that although things may exist independently of signs
we know them only through the mediation of signs and see only
what our socially generated sign-systems allow us to see. Social
semioticians have also emphasized the materiality of signs – a dimension ignored by Saussure.
As noted in Chapter two, the emphasis on the mediation ofreality (and on representational convention in the form of codes) is
criticized by realists as relativism (or conventionalism). Such philosophical critics often fear an extreme relativism in which every
representation of reality is regarded as being as good as any other.
There are understandable objections to any apparent sidelining ofreferential concerns such as truth, facts, accuracy, objectivity, bias
and distortion. This is a legitimate basis for concern in relation to
Saussurean semiotics because of its bracketing of reality. However,socially oriented semioticians are very much aware that representations are far from equal. If signs do not merely reflect (social) reality
but are involved in its construction then those who control the signsystems control the construction of reality. Dominant social groups
seek to limit the meanings of signs to those which suit their interests and to naturalize such meanings. For Roland Barthes, various
codes contributed to reproducing bourgeois ideology, making it seem
natural, proper and inevitable. One need not be a Marxist to appreciate that it can be liberating to become aware of whose view ofreality is being privileged in the process. What we are led to accept
as ‘common sense’ involves incoherences, ambiguities, inconsistencies, contradictions, omissions, gaps and silences which offer
leverage points for potential social change. The role of ideology is
to suppress these in the interests of dominant groups. Consequently,
reality construction occurs on ‘sites of struggle’.
Since the second half of the 1980s ‘social semiotics’ has been
adopted as a label by members and associates of the Sydney semiotics circle, much-influenced by Michael Halliday’s Language as
Social Semiotic (1978). Halliday (b. 1925) is a British linguist who

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retired from a chair in Sydney in 1987 and whose functionalist
approach to language stresses the contextual importance of social
roles. Members of the original Sydney group include Gunther Kress,
Theo van Leeuwen, Paul J. Thibault, Terry Threadgold and Anne
Cranny-Francis; other associates include Robert Hodge, Jay Lemke
and Ron and Suzie Scollon. Members of the group established thejournal Social Semiotics in 1991. The Sydney school version of‘social semiotics’ is not a ‘branch’ of semiotics in the same senseas ‘visual semiotics’: it is a ‘brand’ of semiotics positioned in opposition to ‘traditional semiotics’. While the terminology of this school
is often distinctive, many of its concepts derive from structuralism(and others from Peirce). There is, of course, nothing new about
semiotics having a social dimension (albeit widely neglected): theroots of social semiotics can be traced to the early theorists. It istrue that neither Saussure nor Peirce studied the social use of signs.
However, Saussure did have a vision of semiotics as ‘a science which
studies the role of signs as part of social life’ (even if he did not
pursue it himself). As for Peirce, he emphasized that signs do notexist without interpreters (even if he did not allow for the social
dimension of codes). Furthermore, as we have seen, it was the structuralist Jakobson (stressing both code and context) who had already
upturned the Saussurean priorities along some of the lines outlinedby Hodge and Kress (1988). The Sydney school has adopted andadapted some of its analytical concepts partly from (primarily Jakobsonian) structuralism (with a Hallidayan twist) while (like Jakobson)
defining itself largely in opposition to Saussure’s analytical priorities. The key difference in this respect is that this Australian school
has set itself the task of investigating actual meaning-making practices (theoretically prioritized but not pursued by Jakobson). A key
concern of socially oriented semioticians is with what they call
‘specific signifying practices’ or ‘situated social semiosis’ (Jensen
1995, 57).
Published research into such practices has been rare until
recently outside of specialized academic journals, though studies by
Hodge and Tripp (1986) and by the Scollons (2003) are commendable examples of book-length treatments explicitly within this schoolof thought. The influence of socially oriented semioticians such as

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those associated with the Sydney circle will hopefully stimulate many
more. Not the least of the values of such stances is the potential toattract back to semiotics some of those who were alienated by structuralist excesses and who had reductively defined semiotics according
to these. The Sydney school has nailed its colours to the mast in
reprioritizing the social (Hodge and Kress 1988, van Leeuwen 2005).
The extent to which socially oriented semiotics has so far met theconcerns of sociologists is debatable. However, ‘social semiotics’ isstill under construction and the Australian strategy is not the only
game in town – socio-semiotics is not limited to those adopting it.
Semiotics transcends its various schools.
METHODOLOGIES
Certainly there is room for challenging ‘traditional semiotics’.
Semiotics has not become widely institutionalized as a formal academic discipline and it has not (yet) achieved the status of (social)‘science’ which Saussure anticipated. There is little sense of a unified
enterprise building on cumulative research findings. Sometimes
semioticians present their analyses as if they were purely objective
accounts rather than subjective interpretations. Few semioticiansseem to feel much need to provide empirical evidence for particularinterpretations, and much semiotic analysis is loosely impressionistic and highly unsystematic (or alternatively, generates elaboratetaxonomies with little evident practical application). Some seem tochoose examples which illustrate the points they wish to make rather
than applying semiotic analysis to an extensive random sample.
Semiotic analysis requires a highly skilled analyst if it is not to leave
readers feeling that it merely buries the obvious in obscurity. In somecases, it seems little more than an excuse for interpreters to display
the appearance of mastery through the use of jargon which excludes
most people from participation. In practice, semiotic analysis invariably consists of individual readings. We are seldom presented withthe commentaries of several analysts on the same text, to say nothingof evidence of any kind of consensus among different semioticians.
Few semioticians make their analytical strategy sufficiently explicit
for others to apply it either to the examples used or to others. Many

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make no allowance for alternative readings, assuming either that theirown interpretations reflect a general consensus or a meaning which
resides within the text. Semioticians who reject the investigation ofother people’s interpretations privilege what has been called the ‘élite
interpreter’ – though socially oriented semioticians would insist thatthe exploration of people’s interpretive practices is fundamental tosemiotics.
Semioticians do not always make explicit the limitations of
their techniques, and semiotics is sometimes uncritically presented asa general-purpose tool. A semiotic approach suits some purposes better than others and makes certain kinds of questions easier to ask thanothers. Signs in various media are not alike – different types may need
to be studied in different ways. The empirical testing of semiotic
claims requires a variety of methods. Structuralist semiotic analysis
is just one of many techniques which may be used to explore signpractices. In relation to textual analysis, other approaches include critical discourse analysis (e.g. Fairclough 1995b) and content analysis.
Whereas semiotics is now closely associated with cultural studies,content analysis is well established within the mainstream traditionof social science research. Content analysis involves a quantitative
approach to the analysis of the manifest content of texts, while semiotics seeks to analyse texts as structured wholes and investigateslatent, connotative meanings. Semioticians have often rejected quantitative approaches: just because an item occurs frequently in a text
or cultural practice does not make it significant. The structuralist
semiotician is more concerned with the relation of elements to eachother while a social semiotician would also emphasize the importanceof the significance which readers attach to the signs within a text.
Whereas content analysis focuses on explicit content and tends tosuggest that this represents a single, fixed meaning, semiotic studies
focus on the system of rules governing the discourse involved in
texts and practices, stressing the role of semiotic context in shaping meaning. However, some researchers have combined semiotic
analysis and content analysis (e.g. Glasgow University Media Group
1980; Leiss et al. 1990; McQuarrie and Mick 1992). Semiotics is
not incompatible with quantitative methods – for instance, a highly
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owners made effective use of both qualitative and quantitative data
(Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981).
Rejecting content analysis, Bob Hodge and David Tripp’sclassic empirical study of Children and Television (1986) linked
semiotics with both psychology and social and political theory,
employing structural analysis, interviews and a developmental
perspective. Semiotic investigations need to range beyond textual
analysis, which does not shed light on how people in particular social
contexts actually interpret signs – an issue which may require ethnographic and phenomenological approaches (McQuarrie and Mick
1992).
AN ECOLOGICAL AND MULTIMODAL APPROACH
The primary value of semiotics is its central concern for the investigation of meaning-making and representation which conventional
academic disciplines have tended to treat as peripheral. Specific semiotic modalities are addressed by such specialists as linguists, art
historians, musicologists and anthropologists, but we must turn tosemioticians if our investigations are to span a range of modalities.
Semiotic analysis has been applied to a vast range of modes andmedia – including gesture, posture, dress, writing, speech, photography, the mass media and the internet. Since this involves ‘invading’
the territory of different academic disciplines, it is understandable
that semiotics has often been criticized as imperialistic. Aldous
Huxley once wryly noted, ‘our universities possess no chair ofsynthesis’ (Huxley 1941, 276). Semiotics has an important synthesizing function, seeking to study meaning-making and representationin cultural artifacts and practices of whatever kind on the basis of
unified principles, at its best counteracting cultural chauvinism andbringing some coherence to communication theory and cultural
studies. While semiotic analysis has been widely applied to theliterary, artistic and musical canon, it has also been applied to a wide
variety of popular cultural phenomena. It has thus helped to stimulate the serious study of popular culture.
While all verbal language is communication, most communication is non-verbal. In an increasingly visual age, an important

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contribution of semiotics from Roland Barthes onwards has been aconcern with imagistic as well as linguistic signs, particularly in thecontext of advertising, photography and audio-visual media.
Semiotics may encourage us not to dismiss a particular medium asof less worth than another: literary and film critics often regard television as of less worth than ‘literary’ fiction or ‘artistic’ film. Toélitist critics, of course, this would be a weakness of semiotics.
Potentially, semiotics could help us to avoid the routine privilegingof one semiotic mode over another, such as the spoken over the
written or the verbal over the non-verbal. We need to realize theaffordances and constraints of different semiotic modes – visual,verbal, gestural and so on. We live within an ecology of signs thatboth reflects and gives shape to our experience (Csikszentmihalyi
and Rochberg-Halton 1981, 16–17). We must identify and recognize
the importance of new ‘literacies’ in this ever-changing semiotic
ecology. Thinking in ‘ecological’ terms about the interaction ofdifferent semiotic structures and languages led the Tartu school
cultural semiotician Yuri Lotman to coin the term ‘semiosphere’ torefer to ‘the whole semiotic space of the culture in question’ (Lotman
1990, 124–5). This conception of a semiosphere may once again
connote semiotic imperialism, but it also offers a more unified anddynamic vision of semiosis than the study of a specific medium as
if each existed in a vacuum.
Human experience is inherently multisensory, and every representation of experience is subject to the constraints and affordancesof the medium involved. Every medium is constrained by the channels that it utilizes. For instance, even in the very flexible mediumof language ‘words fail us’ in attempting to represent some experiences, and we have no way at all of representing smell or touch withconventional media. Different media and genres provide different
frameworks for representing experience, facilitating some forms ofexpression and inhibiting others. The differences between media led
Émile Benveniste to argue that the ‘first principle’ of semiotic
systems is that they are not ‘synonymous’: ‘we are not able to say“the same thing” ’ in systems based on different units (Benveniste
1969, 235). There is a growing theoretical interest in ‘multimodality’(e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen 2001 and Finnegan 2002). This is ‘thePROSPECT AND RETROSPECT

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combination of different semiotic modes – for example, language
and music – in a communicative artefact or event’ (van Leeuwen
2005, 281). It was foreshadowed in structuralist studies of what Metz
called ‘intercodical relations’ (Metz 1971, 242), including Barthes’
exploration of relations such as anchorage between images andwords.
In the educational framing of such relations, images are still
the marked category, as also are makers as opposed to users. At
present, ‘with regard to images, most people in most societies aremostly confined to the role of spectator of other people’s productions’ (Messaris 1994, 121). Most people feel unable to draw, paintor use graphics software, and even among those who own cameras
and camcorders not everyone knows how to make effective use ofthem. This is a legacy of an educational system which still focuses
almost exclusively on the acquisition of one kind of symbolic literacy(that of verbal language) at the expense of other semiotic modes.
This institutional bias disempowers people not only by excluding
many from engaging in those representational practices which are
not purely linguistic but by handicapping them as critical readers ofthe majority of texts to which they are routinely exposed throughout
their lives. A working understanding of key concepts in semiotics –including their practical application – can be seen as essential foreveryone who wants to understand the complex and dynamic communication ecologies within which we live. As Peirce put it, ‘theuniverse . . . is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusivelyof signs’ (Peirce 1931–58, 5.449n.). There is no escape from signs.
Those who cannot understand them and the systems of which they
are a part are in the greatest danger of being manipulated by those
who can. In short, semiotics cannot be left to semioticians.

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APPENDIXKEY FIGURESAND SCHOOL

Note Those who are not generally regarded as semioticians aremarked with asterisk.
Barthes, Roland (1915–80) French semiotician and cultural theorist famous for his ideologically inflected analysis of images,
literary texts and the ‘myths’ of popular culture. Hjelmslev
influenced his ideas on connotation; Lévi-Strauss influenced
his conception of myth. Barthes evolved from a structuralist
to a poststructuralist – in S/Z (1970) he abandoned his former
structural narratology and focused on intertextuality, eventually treating himself as ‘an effect of language’ (Barthes 1977b,
79).
Bateson, Gregory* (1904–80) American anthropologist andphilosopher (born in England), whose ideas on ‘the ecology ofmind’, metacommunication and codes have implications forsemiotics and communication theory.
Bogatyrev, Petr See Moscow school.

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Brøndal, Viggo See Copenhagen school.
Burke, Kenneth* (1897–1993) American rhetorician who identified metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony as the four
‘master tropes’.
Cassirer, Ernst* (1874–1945) German philosopher who moved to
the USA in 1941. He is best known for The Philosophy ofSymbolic Forms (4 vols), which explores the symbolic forms
underlying human thought, language and culture. He saw
symbolism as distinctively human. His ideas were a key influence on the emergence of semiotics as a subject of study.
Copenhagen school Structuralist and formalist group of linguists
founded by Danish linguists Hjelmslev and Viggo Brøndal
(1887–1953). Jakobson was associated with this group from
1939–49. Influenced by Saussure, its most distinctive contribution was a concern with ‘glossematics’. It is a formalist
approach in that it considers semiotic systems without regard
for their social context.
Derrida, Jacques* (b. 1930) French poststructuralist literary
philosopher and linguist who established the critical techniqueof deconstruction (applying it, for instance, to Saussure’s
Course), emphasizing the instability of the relationshipbetween the signifier and the signified and the way in which
the dominant ideology seeks to promote the illusion of a transcendental signified.
Eco, Umberto (b. 1932) Italian semiotician and novelist. In his
Theory of Semiotics (1976) he sought ‘to combine the structuralist perspective of Hjelmslev with the cognitive–
interpretative semiotics of Peirce’ (Eco 1999, 251). He introduced terms such as: ‘unlimited semiosis’ (the Peircean notionof successive interpretants), ‘closed texts’ and ‘aberrant
decoding’. Hjelmslev’s influence is evident in relation to denotation/connotation and expression/content.
Eikhenbaum, Boris See Moscow school.
Foucault, Michel* (1926–84) French historian of ideas and poststructuralist theorist who emphasized power relations andsought to identify the dominant discourses of specific historicalAPPENDIX

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and socio-cultural contexts – the episteme of the age which
determines what can be known.
Gombrich, Ernst* (1909–2001) Viennese-born art historian who
emigrated to Britain. Intrigued by the psychology of pictorial
representation, he initially rejected the idea of a natural likeness and emphasized the role of codes and conventions in art.
However, he later criticized the theoretical stance of ‘extreme
conventionalism’ (e.g. Goodman).
Goodman, Nelson* (1906–98) An explicitly nominalist American
philosopher who rejected the principle of similarity in pictorial representation and argued that ‘[pictorial] realism isrelative’.
Greimas, Algirdas (1917–92) Lithuanian-born semiotician who (inthe early 1960s) established the Paris school of semiotics towhich Barthes initially belonged. This school, influenced by
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty(1908–61), defined semiotics as a ‘theory of signification’.
Greimas focused on textual analysis and his narratology was
influenced by the work of Vladimir Propp (1895–1970) and
Lévi-Strauss (notably in relation to binary oppositions andstructural transformation). His contributions to semiotic
methodology include the semiotic square and the seme as thebasic unit of meaning.
Havránek, Bohuslav See Prague school.
Hjelmslev, Louis (1899–1966) Hjelmslev was a structuralist andformalist linguist who established the Copenhagen school.
While Hjelmslev did accord a privileged status to language,his ‘glossematics’ included both linguistics and ‘non-linguistic
languages’. He adopted Saussure’s dyadic model of the sign,
though he renamed the signifier as ‘expression’ and thesignified as ‘content’ and stratified the sign into intersecting
planes: content-form, expression-form, content-substance andexpression-substance. Hjelmslev was a major influence on
the structuralism of Greimas and on Eco. To a lesser extent
he was also an influence on Barthes (notably in relation toconnotation and metalanguage) and on Metz.

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Jakobson, Roman (1896–1982) Russian stucturalist and functionalist linguist. Jakobson was involved in the establishment ofboth the Moscow school (in 1915) and the Prague school (in1926) and he was also associated with the Copenhagen schoolfrom 1939–49. He coined the term ‘structuralism’. His versionof structuralism was partly a reaction against Saussure’s analytical priorities but from the early 1950s onward he was alsomuch influenced by Peircean concepts. His key contributions
included: binary oppositions; markedness; the axes of selection–combination, metaphor–metonymy, and similarity–contiguity; the code–message distinction; and semiotic functions.
Jakobson influenced the structuralism of Lévi-Strauss and theearly Lacan.
Karcevski, Sergei See Prague school.
Korzybski, Alfred* (1879–1950) The founder of ‘general semantics’, who declared that ‘the map is not the territory’ and that‘the word is not the thing’.
Kristeva, Julia (b. 1941) Feminist poststructuralist linguist, psychoanalyst and cultural theorist whose semanalysis combines semiotics (both Saussurean and Peircean) and psychoanalysis(Freud, Lacan and Melanie Klein). Signification for her consists of a dialectic between ‘the symbolic’ (the ‘translinguistic’or ‘nonlinguistic’ structure or grammar enabling signification)and ‘the semiotic’ (le sémiotique, not to be confused with lasémiotique or semiotics) – the organization of bodily drives
which motivates communication. She also introduced the concept of intertextuality.
Lacan, Jacques* (1901–81) French psychoanalytical theorist whosought to undermine the concept of a unified human subject.
He reworked Saussurean concepts in Freudian terms. He
adopted Saussure’s principle of arbitrariness, his differential
relational system and his non-referential view of language.
However, he gave primacy to the signifier rather than the signified, referring to ‘the incessant sliding of the signified under
the signifier’. His early structuralism evolved into a poststructuralist stance. Other influences on his work were Lévi-Strauss
and Jakobson (metaphor and metonymy). He is best known

APPENDIX

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for ‘the mirror stage’ and the realms of the Imaginary, theSymbolic and the Real.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude (b. 1908) French anthropologist, widely
regarded as the principal structuralist theorist. He was strongly
influenced by Jakobson (particularly in relation to binary
oppositions) and the functionalist Prague school. He draws
upon Saussurean concepts such as signifier and signified,langue and parole, and syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes aswell as Jakobson’s metaphoric and metonymic modes. His
analytical concepts included the alignment of homologous
oppositions, structural transformation, bricolage, ‘mythemes’,
and the idea of myth as a kind of language performing thefunction of naturalization (a concept taken up by Barthes).
Lotman, Yuri (1922–93) was a semiotician who worked in Tartu
University, Estonia and founded the Tartu school. Lotman
worked within the tradition of formalist structuralist semiotics
but broadened his semiotic enterprise by establishing ‘cultural
semiotics’, his goal being to develop a unified semiotic theoryof culture.
Mathesius, Vilem See Prague school.
Metz, Christian (1931–93) was a French linguist and structuralist
semiotician influenced in particular by Hjelmslev and Lacan.
Metz focused on film semiotics, in particular in relation tocinematic codes. The concepts he is associated with include
the grande syntagmatique, ‘the imaginary signifier’, intercodical relations and spectator positioning.
Morris, Charles William (1901–79) Morris, an American semiotician who worked within the Peircean model, definedsemiotics as ‘the science of signs’ (Morris 1938, 1–2). Unlike
Peirce, he included within semiotics the study of communication by animals and other organisms. He was a behaviourist
who sought to develop a biological approach. His contributions include the division of semiotics into syntactics (latercalled syntax), semantics and pragmatics and the term ‘sign
vehicle’ (for the signifier or representamen).
Moscow school The Moscow linguistics circle was co-founded in
1915 by the Russian linguists Jakobson and Petr Bogatyrev

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APPENDIX(1893–1971). Together with the Petrograd Society for the Studyof Poetic Language – which included Victor Shklovsky(1893–1984), Yuri Tynyanov (1894–1943) and Boris Eikhenbaum (1886–1959) – the Moscow school was the origin of
Russian formalism. The primary focus of the formalists wason form, structure, technique or medium rather than on content. Formalism evolved into structuralism in the late 1920s
and 1930s.
Moscow–Tartu school See Tartu school.
Mukarovsky, Jan See Prague school.
Paris school School of structuralist semiotic thinking established in
the early 1960s by Greimas. Barthes was involved until 1970.
Strongly influenced by Hjelmslev, it seeks to identify basic
structures of signification. Greimas focused primarily on thesemantic analysis of textual structures but the Paris school has
expanded its rigorous (critics say arid) structural analysis tocultural phenomena such as gestural language, legal discourseand social science. It is formalist in treating semiotic systems
as autonomous rather than exploring the importance of social
context.
Peirce, Charles Sanders (pronounced ‘purse’) (1839–1914)
American philosopher whose ‘semeiotic’ (or ‘semiotic’) wasthe ‘formal doctrine of signs’ (closely related to logic). Founderof the American semiotic tradition.
poststructuralism While poststructuralism is often interpreted
simply as ‘anti-structuralism’, the label refers to a school ofthought which developed after, out of, and in relation to structuralism. Poststructuralism built on and adapted structuralist
notions in addition to problematizing many of them. Bothschools of thought are built on the assumption that we are thesubjects of language rather than being simply instrumental
users of it, and poststructuralist thinkers have developed further
the notion of ‘the constitution of the subject’. Poststructuralist
semiotics involves a rejection of structuralist hopes for semiotics as a systematic science which could reveal somefundamental ‘deep structures’ underlying forms in an external

APPENDIX

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world. Poststructuralist theorists include Derrida, Foucault,
the later Lacan, Kristeva and the later Barthes.
Prague school This influential structuralist and functionalist group of
linguists/semioticians was established in 1926 in Prague by
Czech and Russian linguists. Principal members of this group
included: Vilem Mathesius (1882–1946), Bohuslav Havránek(1893–1978), Sergei Karcevski (1884–1955), Jan Mukarovsky(1891–1975), Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890–1938) and Jakobson.
It was functionalist in analysing semiotic systems in relation tosocial functions such as communication rather than treatingthem purely as autonomous forms (in contrast to Saussure andHjelmslev). While they are known for their identification of the‘distinctive features’ of language, these theorists also exploredculture and aesthetics.
Propp, Vladimir* (1895–1970) Russian narrative theorist best
known for his influential book, The Morphology of the Folktale(1928).
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857–1913) Swiss-born founder ofmodern linguistics. Founder of the structuralist tradition ofsemiology who envisaged it as ‘a science which studies therole of signs as part of social life’.
Sebeok, Thomas (1920–2001) was an American linguist, anthropologist and semiotician who worked within the Peircean
semiotic tradition of ‘the doctrine of signs’, rejecting the
linguistic tradition of Saussure as ‘the minor tradition’. He wasinitially influenced by Jakobson and Morris. He had a particular interest in animal communication, for which he introduced
the term zoosemiotics.
Shklovsky,Victor See Moscow school.
structuralism The primary concern of the structuralists is with relational systems or structures which are seen as ‘languages’.
Structuralists search for ‘deep structures’ underlying the surface
features of phenomena (such as language, society, thought andbehaviour). Their analysis of texts and cultural practices seeks
to delineate underlying codes and rules by comparing those perceived as belonging to the same system (e.g. a genre) and identifying invariant constituent units. The structuralists include:

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Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Hjelmslev and the Copenhagenschool, Jakobson and the Prague and Moscow schools,
Greimas and the Paris school, Metz, Lotman, the early
Barthes and the early Lacan.
Tartu school What is sometimes called the Moscow–Tartu school
was founded in the 1960s by Lotman.
Trubetzkoy, Nikolai See Prague school.
Tynyanov, Yuri See Moscow school.
Voloshinov, Valentin N.* (1884/5–1936) Russian linguist who probably wrote Marxism and the Philosophy of Language(published in 1929) – which included a strident materialist
critique of Saussure’s exclusion of the social, the historical andthe ideological. Authorship is contested: it may actually havebeen written by (or at least heavily influenced by) Mikhail
Bakhtin (1895–1975).
Whorf, Benjamin Lee* (1897–1941) American linguist who, withthe linguist Edward Sapir (1884–1939), developed the‘Sapir–Whorf hypothesis’ of linguistic relativity and linguistic
determinism.

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GOING FURTHER

There are several useful works of general reference on semiotics:
Nöth 1990, Colapietro 1993, Sebeok 1994b, Bouissac 1998, Danesi
2000, Martin and Ringham 2000 and Cobley 2001. Any serious
student should consult the work of the foundational theorists,
Saussure and Peirce, since they are frequently misrepresented in
popular texts. There are two English translations of Saussure – thatby Wade Baskin dating from 1959 (Saussure 1974) and a later Britishtranslation by Roy Harris (Saussure 1983). Watch out for Harris’s
quirky substitution of ‘signal’ and ‘signification’ for what are stillinvariably known as the signifier and the signified. Peirce’s writings
are voluminous and the references to semiotics are scattered. Thereis an eight-volume edition (Peirce 1931–58) which may be available
in libraries, the most useful volume perhaps being volume two.
A searchable but expensive CD-ROM version is available fromInteLex. A chronological edition has reached its sixth volume so far(Peirce 1982–93). Useful selections are also available (e.g. Peirce
1966, 1998).

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GOING FURTHER

The main works of the leading semioticians are listed here
in the references. Two collections of essays by Barthes offer a fairly
gentle introduction to his version of cultural semiotics – Mythologies(1957/1987) and Image–Music–Text (1977). The work of Jakobson(e.g. 1990) and Lévi-Strauss (e.g. 1972) is an essential foundation
for structuralist theory. Greimas’s On Meaning (1987) is not for
beginners. Eco’s Theory of Semiotics (Eco 1976) is widely cited but
difficult – it should be read in conjunction with his more recent Kant
and the Platypus (Eco 1999). The writings of the key poststructuralists, Derrida (1976, 1978), Foucault (1970, 1974) and Lacan(1977), are initially daunting, and a beginner’s guide may be helpful(e.g. Sarup 1993). Readers offering affordable selections are available for some of the major theorists (e.g. Barthes 1983, Foucault
1991, Kristeva 1997, Derrida 1998).
In the few years since the first edition of this book was
published there has been something of a publishing revival in books
on semiotic topics and in public interest in the field. This has encouraged me to provide a list of suggested texts in English on selected
topics. It includes material already referenced in the text but I havealso responded to readers’ requests for further reading on subject
areas not necessarily featured in the book. The topic list was thus
generated reactively and it is far from comprehensive. For instance,
I have resisted the temptation to include general dictionaries of‘symbolism’. However, I hope that within its areas of coverage thislist is a useful resource for readers. To keep it within manageable
proportions I have restricted it to material available in book form
and in English. In some topic areas I have also included a numberof authors who are not explicitly semiotic and even a few posing as‘anti-semiotic’. Reading the texts suggested for a topic should atleast introduce the reader to some of the issues and debates in thefield and will hopefully inspire further exploration.
ADVERTISING, MARKETING AND CONSUMER CULTURE
Leymore 1975, Williamson 1978, Goffman 1979, Dyer 1982,
Vestergaard and Schrøder 1985, Jhally 1987, Umiker-Sebeok 1987,
Leiss et al. 1990, McCracken 1990, Cook 1992, Goldman 1992,

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Holbrook and Hirschman 1993, McKracken 1993, Nadin and Zakia
1994, Forceville 1996, Goldman and Papson 1996, Messaris 1997,
Mollerup 1997, Nava et al. 1997, Goldman and Papson 1998, Stern
1998, Budd et al. 1999, Beasley et al. 2000, Floch 2000, Richards
et al. 2000, Scanlon 2000, Floch 2001, Beasley and Danesi 2002,
Schroeder 2002, McFall 2004
ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Agrest and Gandelsonas 1977, Krampen 1979, Preziosi 1979a,
Preziosi 1979b, Broadbent et al. 1980, Cable 1981, Colquhoun 1981,
Rapoport 1983, Minai 1985, Gottdiener and Lagopoulos 1986,
Carlson 1993, Lukken and Searle 1993, Jencks 2002
CINEMA AND FILM
Metz 1968, Wollen 1969, Kitses 1970, Metz 1971, Reisz and Millar
1972, Lotman 1976b, Metz 1977, Carroll 1980, Eaton 1981, Monaco
1981, Nichols 1981, Peters 1981, Worth 1981, Branigan 1984, deLauretis 1984, Bordwell et al. 1988, Lapsley and Westlake 1988,
Whittock 1990, Nichols 1991, Stam 1992, Bordwell and Thompson
1993, Rodowick 1994, Buckland 1995, Lapsley and Westlake 1988,
Dyer 1992, Iampolski 1998, Altman 1999, Buckland 2000, Mitry
2000, Stam 2000, Tamburri 2002, Ehrat 2004
COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA
McLuhan 1962, Cherry 1966, McLuhan 1967, Hall 1973, Eakins
and Eakins 1978, Tuchman 1978, Galtung and Ruge 1981, Fiske
1982, Hartley 1982, Davis and Walton 1983, Wilden 1987, LeedsHurwitz 1993, Jensen 1995, Bignell 1997, Nöth 1998, Danesi 2002,
Finnegan 2002, Katz and Aakhus 2002COMPUTERS, INFORMATION SCIENCE AND THE INTERNET
Bolter 1991, Warner 1994, Aarseth 1997, Andersen 1997, Yazdani
and Barker 2000, Manovich 2001, Myers 2003, Perron et al. 2003,
Boardman 2004, Burnett 2005, de Souza 2005

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GOING FURTHERLANGUAGE, WRITING AND PRINT
Saussure 1916, Ogden and Richards 1923, Richards 1932, Bloomfield
1939, Jakobson and Halle 1956, Sebeok 1960, Hjelmslev 1961,
McLuhan 1962, Gelb 1963, Whorf 1967, Lanham 1969, Jameson
1972, Voloshinov 1973, Derrida 1976, Coward and Ellis 1977, Lyons
1977, Derrida 1978, Reddy 1979, Lakoff and Johnson 1980,
Silverman and Torode 1980, Shapiro 1983, Eco 1984, Pharies 1985,
Jakobson 1990, Meggs 1992, Harris 1995, Eco 1997, Keller 1998,
Cobley 2001, Harris 2001, Kress 2001, Scollon and Scollon 2003
LAW
Jackson 1985, Benson 1989, Jackson 1995, Kevelson 1988a,
Kevelson 1988b, Kevelson 1990, Kevelson 1991, Liu 2000, Wagner
et al. 2005
LITERATURE
Propp 1928, Barthes 1953, Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss 1970, Abrams
1971, Barthes 1974, Culler 1975, Lotman 1976, Hawkes 1977, Lodge
1977, Belsey 1980, Kristeva 1980, Culler 1981, Eco 1981, Eagleton
1983, Scholes 1983, Silverman 1983, Halle et al. 1984, Genette 1997,
Petrilli and Ponzio 2004
MUSIC AND SOUND
Lévi-Strauss 1969, Ostwald 1973, Barthes 1977a, Nattiez 1977,
Tarasti 1979, Steiner 1981b, Middleton 1990, Agawu 1991, Barthes
1991, Shepherd 1991, Altman 1992, Monelle 1992, Nattiez 1992,
Hatten 1994, Tarasti 1994, Tarasti 1995, van Baest 1995, Elicker
1997, Lidov 1999, van Leeuwen 1999, Monelle 2000, Cumming
2001, Tamburri 2002, Tarasti 2002, Nattiez 2004, van Baest 2004
NONVERBAL COMMUNICATIONHall 1959, Hall 1966, Argyle 1969, Goffman 1969b, Birdwhistell
1971, Benthall and Polhemus 1975, Hinde 1975, Henley 1977,

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Eakins and Eakins 1978, LaFrance and Mayo 1978, Polhemus 1978,
Kendon 1981, Mayo and Henley 1981, Argyle 1983, Argyle 1988,
Burgoon et al. 1989, Malandro et al. 1989, Guerrero et al. 1990,
Hall 1990, McNeill 1995, Remland 2000, Knapp and Hall 2002,
Beattie 2003, Collett 2003
ORGANIZATIONS
Holmqvist et al. 1996, Jablin and Putnam 2000, Liu et al. 2000, Liuet al. 2002, Gazendam 2003, Liu 2004, Desouza and Hensgen 2005
PEIRCE
Gallie 1952, Zeman 1977, Shapiro 1983, Pharies 1985, Fisch 1986,
Kevelson 1991, Merrell 1991, Shapiro 1993, Sebeok 1994a, Merrell
1995a, Merrell 1995b, Muller 1995, van Baest 1995, Liszka 1996,
Merrell 1997, Sonesson 1998, Kevelson 1999, Deledalle 2000,
Muller and Brent 2000, Merrell 2001, Shapiro 2003, Ehrat 2004,
Freadman 2004
PHOTOGRAPHY
Barthes 1961, Barthes 1964, Berger 1968, Sontag 1979, Hirsch 1981,
Burgin 1982, Chalfen 1987, Tagg 1988, Ziller 1990, Spence andHolland 1991, Barthes 1993, Bertelsen et al. 1999, Scott 1999,
Alvarado et al. 2001
SAUSSURE AND STRUCTURALISM
Hjelmslev 1961, Lévi-Strauss 1964, Douglas 1966, Barthes 1967a,
Barthes 1967b, Metz 1968, Lévi-Strauss 1968, Lévi-Strauss 1969,
Lane 1970, Hayes and Hayes 1970, Leach 1970, Metz 1971, Jameson
1972, Lévi-Strauss 1972, Macksey and Donato 1972, Douglas
1973, Needham 1973, Culler 1975, Douglas 1975, Leach 1976,
Barthes 1977, Hawkes 1977, Sturrock 1979, Greimas and Courtés
1982, Leach 1982, Culler 1985, Sturrock 1986, Harland 1987, Harris
1987, Jakobson 1990, Holdcroft 1991, Seiter 1992, Stam 1992,

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Thibault 1997, Dosse 1998, Harris 2001, Harris 2003, Sanders 2004,
Barthes 2006
TELEVISION
Williams 1974, Fiske and Hartley 1978, Morley 1980, Hodge andTripp 1987, Fiske 1987, Threadgold and Gillard 1990, Lewis 1991,
Morley 1992, Seiter 1992, Bignell 1997, Budd et al. 1999, Page
2000, Gray 2005
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
Elam 1980, Esslin 1988, Alter 1990, Yell 1990, Aston and Savona
1991, Fischer-Lichte 1992, Carlson 1993, de Marinis 1993, Donahue
1993, Pavis 1993, Melrose 1994, de Toro and Hubbard 1995, Quinn
1995, Counsell 1996, Ubersfeld 1999
VISUAL ART, VISUAL REPRESENTATION, AND VISUALRHETORIC
Goodman 1968, Panofsky 1970, Berger 1972, Kennedy 1974,
Gombrich 1977, Goodman 1978, Mitchell 1980, Steiner 1981a,
Worth 1981, Gombrich 1982, Bertin 1983, Bryson 1983, Foucault
1983, Mitchell 1987, Ashwin 1989, Sonesson 1989, Saint-Martin
1990, Barthes 1991, Bryson et al. 1991, Miller 1992, Messaris 1994,
Mitchell 1994, O’Toole 1994, Block 1996, Forceville 1996, Kressand van Leeuwen 1996, Schapiro 1996, Tomaselli 1996, Dyer 1997,
Walker and Chaplin 1997, Andrews 1998, Elkins 1998, Stephens
1998, Evans and Hall 1999, Ewen 1999, Thomas 2000, Carson andPajaczkowska 2001, van Leeuwen and Jewitt 2001, Bogdan 2002,
Schroeder 2002, Crow 2003, Fuery and Fuery 2003, Howells 2003,
Jones 2003, Kostelnick and Hassett 2003, Handa 2004, Hill andHelmers 2004, Schirato and Webb 2004, Barnard 2005
Semiotics is served by a range of journals addressing more specialized academic interests. These include (with title, ISSN and dateestablished): Sign Systems Studies (1406–4243, 1964), Transactionsof the Charles S. Peirce Society (0009–1774, 1965), Semiotica(0037–1998, 1969), Kodikas/Code: An International Journal ofGOING FURTHER

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Semiotics (0171–0834, 1977), Zeitschrift für Semiotik (0170–6241,
1979), American Journal of Semiotics (0277–7126, 1982), International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (0952–8059, 1988),
European Journal for Semiotic Studies (1015–0102, 1989), Semiotic
Review of Books (0847–1622, 1990), Social Semiotics (1035–0330,
1991), Cybernetics and Human Knowing (0907–0877, 1993),
Elementa: Journal of Slavic Studies and Comparative Cultural
Semiotics (1064–6663, 1993), Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic
Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis (1087–5557, 1996), Visio: Revueinternationale de sémiotique visuelle/International Journal for Visual
Semiotics (1026–8340, 1996), Applied Semiotics/Sémiotique appliquée(1715–7374, 1996) and International Journal of Applied Semiotics(1488–0733, 1999). Articles written from a semiotic perspective can,of course, be found in many other academic journals.
The scholarly societies and associations for semiotics at aninternational level include the International Association for Semiotic
Studies, the International Association for Visual Semiotics and theInternational Association for the Semiotics of Law. There are also
regional and national bodies. Current contact details are best obtained
via a search engine. Some useful resources on the Web at the timeof writing included:• International Association for Semiotic Studies
http://www.arthist.lu.se/kultsem/AIS/IASS/• International Semiotics Institutehttp://www.isisemiotics.fi/• Martin Ryder’s Semiotics links page
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/semiotics.html• Open Semiotics Resource Center
http://www.semioticon.com/• Text Semiotics
http://www.text-semiotics.org/• Wikipedia entry for Semiotics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
The online version of the text of this present volume includes gateways to additional resources. This is currently at: http://www.aber.ac.
uk/media/Documents/S4B/

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GLOSSARY

aberrant decoding Eco’s term referring to decoding a text by meansof a different code from that used to encode it. See also codes,
decoding.
absent signifiers Signifiers which are absent from a text but which(by contrast) nevertheless influence the meaning of a signifier
actually used (which is drawn from the same paradigm set).
See also deconstruction, paradigm, paradigmatic analysis,
signifier.
addresser and addressee Jakobson used these terms to refer towhat, in transmission models of communication, are called the‘sender’ and the ‘receiver’ of a message. Other commentators
have used them to refer more specifically to constructions ofthese two roles within the text, so that addresser refers to an
authorial persona, while addressee refers to an ‘ideal reader’.
See also codes, functions of signs.
analogue oppositions (antonyms) Pairs of oppositional signifiersin a paradigm set representing categories with comparative

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grading on the same implicit dimension, e.g. good–bad where‘not good’ is not necessarily ‘bad’ and vice versa. See alsobinary oppositions.
analogue signs Analogue signs are signs in a form in which they
are perceived as involving graded relationships on a continuum
rather than as discrete units (in contrast to digital signs). Note,however, that digital technology can transform analogue signs
into digital reproductions which may be perceptually indistinguishable from the ‘originals’. See also digital signs.
anchorage Roland Barthes introduced the concept of anchorage.
Linguistic elements in a text (such as a caption) can serve to‘anchor’ (or constrain) the preferred readings of an image(conversely the illustrative use of an image can anchor an
ambiguous verbal text). See also preferred reading.
arbitrariness Saussure emphasized that the relationship between the
linguistic signifier and signified is arbitrary: the link between
them is not necessary, intrinsic or natural. Many subsequent
theorists apply this also to the relation between the signifier
and any real-world referent. Peirce noted that the relationshipbetween signifiers and their signifieds varies in arbitrariness.
Other semioticians argue that all signs are to some extent arbitrary and conventional. See also conventionality, motivationand constraint, primacy of the signifier, relative autonomy.
articulation of codes Articulation refers to structural levels withinsemiotic codes. Semiotic codes have either single articulation,
double articulation or no articulation. See also double articulation, relative autonomy, single articulation, unarticulated
codes.
associative relations This was Saussure’s term for what later cameto be called paradigmatic relations. The ‘formulaic’ associations of linguistic signs include synonyms, antonyms,
similar-sounding words and words of similar grammatical
function. See also paradigm.
binarism The ontological division of a domain into two discrete
categories (dichotomies) or polarities. Binarism is a loaded
term which critics have applied to what they regard as theobsessive dualism of structuralists such as Lévi-Strauss andGLOSSARY

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Jakobson. Hjelmslev argued against binarism. Derridean
deconstruction demonstrates the inescapability of binary logic.
See also binary oppositions, deconstruction.
binary oppositions (or digital oppositions) Pairs of mutually
exclusive signifiers in a paradigm set representing categories
which are logically opposed, e.g. alive–not-alive. See also
analogue oppositions (antonyms), markedness.
bricolage Lévi-Strauss’s term for the appropriation of pre-existingmaterials which are ready to hand is widely used to refer tothe intertextual authorial practice of adopting and adapting
signs from other texts. See also intertextuality.
broadcast codes Fiske’s term for codes which are shared by members of a mass audience and which are learned informallythrough experience rather than deliberately or institutionally. In
contrast to narrowcast codes, broadcast codes are structurally
simpler, employing standard conventions and ‘formulas’. They
are more repetitive and predictable – ‘overcoded’ – having ahigh degree of redundancy. See also codes, intertextuality,
narrowcast codes.
channel A sensory mode utilized by a medium (e.g. visual, auditory, tactile). Available channel(s) are dictated by the technicalfeatures of the medium in which a text appears. The sensory
bias of the channel limits the codes for which it is suitable.
See also medium.
codes Semiotic codes are procedural systems of related conventions
for correlating signifiers and signifieds in certain domains.
Codes provide a framework within which signs make sense:
they are interpretive devices which are used by interpretive
communities. See also articulation of codes, broadcast codes,
codification, dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code and reading,interpretive community, narrowcast codes, negotiated codeand reading, oppositional code and reading, unarticulated
codes.
code-switching Term usually used by sociolinguists referringto interlingual switching by bilingual speakers or sometimes tointralingual switching between discourse types; more generally
switching between sub-codes in any sign-system.

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codification A historical social process whereby the conventions ofa particular code (e.g. for a genre) become widely established(Guiraud).
combination, axis of A structuralist term for the ‘horizontal’ axis
in the analysis of a textual structure: the plane of the syntagm(Jakobson). See also selection, axis of.
commutation test A structuralist analytical technique used in theparadigmatic analysis of a text to determine whether a changeon the level of the signifier leads to a change on the level ofthe signified. See also markedness, paradigmatic analysis,transformation, rules of.
complex sign Saussure’s term for a sign which contains other signs.
A text is usually a complex sign. See also simple sign, text.
conative function See functions of signs.
connotation The socio-cultural and personal associations produced
as a reader decodes a text. For Barthes, connotation was asecond ‘order of signification’ which uses the denotative sign
(signifier and signified) as its signifier and attaches to it anadditional signified. In this framework, connotation is a sign
which derives from the signifier of a denotative sign (so denotation leads to a chain of connotations). See also denotation,orders of signification.
constitution of the subject See interpellation, subject.
constraint See motivation and constraint.
contiguity In ordinary use, this term refers to something which
touches or adjoins something else; semioticians (e.g. Jakobson)
use it to refer to something which is in some sense part of (orpart of the same domain as) something else. Contiguity may
be causal, cultural, spatial, temporal, physical, conceptual,formal or structural. See also metonymy.
conventionalism This term is used by realists to describe a position
which they associate with epistemological relativism and thedenial of the existence of any knowable reality outside representational conventions. They associate it with the ‘severing’of signs from real world referents and with the notion thatreality is a construction of language or a product of theories.
They regard ‘conventionalists’ (or constructivists) as reducing

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reality to nothing more than signifying practices. They criticize
as ‘extreme conventionalism’ the stance that theories (and theworlds which they construct) are incommensurable.
conventionality A term often used in conjunction with the term
arbitrary to refer to the relationship between the signifier andthe signified. In the case of a symbolic system such as verbal
language this relationship is purely conventional – dependent
on social and cultural conventions (rather than in any sense
natural). The conventional nature of codes means that they
have to be learned (not necessarily formally). See also arbitrariness, primacy of the signifier, relative autonomy.
decoding The comprehension and interpretation of texts by decoders
with reference to relevant codes. Most commentators assume
that the reader actively constructs meaning rather than simply‘extracting’ it from the text. See also codes, encoding.
deconstruction This is a poststructuralist strategy for textual
analysis, which was developed by Jacques Derrida. Practitioners
seek to dismantle the rhetorical structures within a text todemonstrate how key concepts within it depend on their
unstated oppositional relation to absent signifiers. Deconstructionists have also exposed culturally embedded conceptual
oppositions in which the initial term is privileged, leaving‘Term B’ negatively ‘marked’. Radical deconstruction is not
simply a reversal of the valorization in an opposition but ademonstration of the instability of such oppositions. See alsodenaturalization, markedness, analogue oppositions, binary
oppositions, paradigmatic analysis.
denaturalization The denaturalization of signs and codes is a
Barthesian strategy seeking to reveal the socially coded basisof phenomena which are taken for granted as natural. The goal
is to make more explicit the underlying rules for encoding anddecoding them, and often also to reveal the usually invisible
operation of ideological forces. See also deconstruction, naturalization.
denotatum Latin term for a referent. In relation to language, thedenonatum is extralinguistic as distinct from the signatum(Morris, Jakobson). See also designatum, object, referent.

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denotation The term refers to the relationship between the signifier
and its signified (or referent). In the pairing denotation/
designation it signifies the relation of reference (Sebeok). In
the pairing denotation/connotation, denotation is routinely
treated as the definitional, literal, obvious or common-sense
meaning of a sign, but semioticians tend to treat it as a signified about which there is a relatively broad consensus. See also
connotation, designation, orders of signification.
designation refers to the relation of sense or meaning as opposed
to denotation (Sebeok). See also meaning, sense.
designatum Latin term sometimes used for a referent (Morris,
Jakobson). See also denotatum, object, referent.
diachronic analysis Diachronic analysis studies change in a phenomenon (such as a code) over time (in contrast to synchronic
analysis). Saussure saw the development of language in termsof a series of synchronic states. See also langue and parole,synchronic analysis.
différance Derrida coined this term to allude simultaneously to‘difference’ and ‘deferral’. He deliberately ensured that (inFrench) the distinction from the word for ‘difference’ wasapparent only in writing. Adding to Saussure’s notion of
meaning being differential (based on differences between
signs), the term is intended to remind us that signs also defer
the presence of what they signify through endless substitutionsof signifiers. See also deconstruction, transcendent(al) signified, unlimited semiosis.
digital signs Digital signs involve discrete units such as words andnumerals, in contrast to analogue signs. See also tokens andtypes.
directness of address Modes of address differ in their directness.
This is reflected in the use of language (‘you’ may be directly
addressed), and in the case of television and photography, inwhether or not someone looks directly into the camera lens.
See also modes of address.
discourse Many contemporary theorists influenced by Michel
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such as those of science, law, government, medicine, journalism and morality. A discourse is a system of representation consisting of a set of representational codes (including a distinctive
interpretive repertoire of concepts, tropes and myths) for constructing and maintaining particular forms of reality within the
ontological domain (or topic) defined as relevant to its concerns. Representational codes thus reflect relational principles
underlying the symbolic order of the ‘discursive field’. See
also interpretive community, representation, signifying
practices.
discourse community See interpretive community.
dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code and reading Within Stuart Hall’s
framework, this is an ideological code in which the decoder
fully shares the text’s code and accepts and reproduces thepreferred reading (a reading which may not have been the resultof any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)). See
also negotiated code and reading, oppositional code andreading, preferred reading.
double articulation A semiotic code which has double articulation(as in the case of verbal language) can be analysed into two
abstract structural levels. At the level of first articulation thesystem consists of the smallest meaningful units available (e.g.
morphemes or words in a language). These meaningful units
are complete signs, each consisting of a signifier and a signified. At the level of second articulation, a semiotic code isdivisible into minimal functional units which lack meaning inthemselves (e.g. phonemes in speech or graphemes in writing).
They are not signs in themselves (the code must have a firstlevel of articulation for these lower units to be combined
into meaningful signs). See also articulation of codes, single
articulation.
elaborated codes See narrowcast codes.
élite interpreter Semioticians who reject the investigation of otherpeople’s interpretations privilege what has been called the ‘élite
interpreter’ whereas socially oriented semioticians would insist
that the exploration of people’s interpretive practices is fundamental to semiotics.

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empty signifier An ‘empty’ or ‘floating’ signifier is variously defined
as a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or nonexistent signified. Such signifiers mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds;
they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean.
See also signifier, transcendent(al) signified.
encoding The production of texts by encoders with reference to relevant codes. Encoding involves foregrounding some meanings
and backgrounding others. See also codes, decoding.
expressive function See functions of signs.
foregrounding, stylistic This term was used by the Prague school
linguists to refer to a stylistic feature in which signifiers in atext attract attention to themselves rather than simulatingtransparency in representing their signifieds. This primarily
serves a ‘poetic’ function (being used ‘for its own sake’) rather
than a ‘referential’ function. See also denaturalization, reflexivity.
functions of signs In Jakobson’s model of linguistic communication, the dominance of any one of six factors within an
utterance reflects a different linguistic function: referential,
oriented towards the context; expressive, oriented towards theaddresser; conative, oriented towards the addressee; phatic,oriented towards the contact; metalingual, oriented towards thecode; poetic, oriented towards the message.
hegemonic code See dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code andreading.
homology See isomorphism.
iconic A mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling orimitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding,feeling, tasting or smelling like it) – being similar in possessing
some of its qualities. See also indexical, isomorphism,
symbolic.
ideal readers This is a term often used to refer to the roles in which
readers of a text are ‘positioned’ as subjects through the use ofparticular modes of address. For Eco this term is not intended
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intention but a ‘model reader’ whose reading could be justified
in terms of the text. See also addresser and addressee, modesof address, preferred reading, subject.
imaginary signifier This term was used by Christian Metz to referto the cinematic signifier. The term is used in more than one
sense. The cinematic signifier is ‘imaginary’ by virtue of anapparent perceptual transparency which suggests the unmediated presence of its absent signified – a feature widely regarded
as the key to the power of cinema. The term is also related to
Lacan’s term, ‘the Imaginary’ – the cinematic signifier is theorized as inducing identifications similar to those of ‘the mirror
stage’.
indexical A mode in which the signifier is not purely arbitrary but
is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) tothe signified – this link can be observed or inferred (e.g. fingerprint). See also iconic, symbolic.
interpellation Interpellation is Althusser’s term to describe a mechanism whereby the human subject is ‘constituted’ (constructed)
by pre-given structures or texts (a structuralist stance). See also
subject.
interpretant In Peirce’s model of the sign, the interpretant is not
an interpreter but rather the sense made of the sign. See also
unlimited semiosis.
interpretive community Those who share the same codes are
members of the same ‘interpretive community’. Linguists tend
to use the logocentric term, ‘discourse community’. Individuals
belong simultaneously to several interpretive communities. See
also code, signifying practices.
intertextuality Intertextuality refers to the various links in form andcontent which bind a text to other texts. See also bricolage,
intratextuality.
intratextuality While the term intertextuality would normally be
used to refer to links to other texts, a related kind of link iswhat might be called ‘intratextuality’ – involving internal relations within the text. See also anchorage, intertextuality.
irony Irony is a rhetorical trope. It is a kind of double-coded signin which the ‘literal sign’ combines with another sign to signify

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the opposite meaning (although understatement and overstatement can also be ironic). See also metaphor, metonymy,
synecdoche, trope.
isomorphism The term is used to refer to correspondences, parallels, or similarities in the properties, patterns or relations of (a)two different structures; (b) structural elements in two different
structures and (c) structural elements at different levels within
the same structure. Some theorists use the term homology inmuch the same way. See also iconic, transformation, rules of.
langue and parole These are Saussure’s terms. Langue refers to theabstract system of rules and conventions of a signifying system– it is independent of, and pre-exists, individual users. Parolerefers to concrete instances of its use. See also diachronic
analysis, synchronic analysis.
literalism The fallacy that the meaning of a text is contained within
it and is completely determined by it so that all the reader must
do is to ‘extract’ this meaning from the signs within it. This
stance ignores the importance of ‘going beyond the information given’ and limits comprehension to the decoding (in the
narrowest sense) of textual properties (without even reference
to codes). See also decoding, meaning.
logocentrism Derrida used this term to refer to the ‘metaphysics ofpresence’ in Western culture – in particular its phonocentrism,
and its foundation on a mythical ‘transcendent signified’.
Logocentrism can also refer to a typically unconscious interpretive bias which privileges linguistic communication over therevealingly named ‘non-verbal’ forms of communication andexpression. See also channel, phonocentrism.
markedness The concept of markedness introduced by Jakobson
can be applied to the poles of a paradigmatic opposition. Paired
signifiers (such as male–female) consist of an unmarked form
and a ‘marked’ form distinguished by some special semiotic
feature. A marked or unmarked status applies not only to signifiers but also to their signifieds. The marked form (typicallythe second term) is presented as ‘different’ and is (implicitly)
negative. The unmarked form is typically dominant (e.g. statistically within a text or corpus) and therefore seems to beGLOSSARY

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neutral, normal and natural. See also analogue oppositions,binary oppositions, deconstruction, paradigm, transcendent(al) signified.
meaning Osgood and Richards (1923) listed 23 meanings of theterm ‘meaning’. The key distinction in relation to models of
the sign is between: (a) sense – referred to by various theorists simply as ‘meaning’, or as conceptual meaning (e.g.
linguistic meaning), content, designation, signatum, significatum, signified, signification, interpretant, idea or thought;and (b) reference to something beyond the sign-system (e.g.
extralinguistic) – what is ‘represented’, variously termed denotation, denotatum, designatum, object, reference, referent,or simply ‘thing’.
medium The term ‘medium’ is used in a variety of ways by different
theorists, and may include such broad categories as speech andwriting, or print and broadcasting or relate to specific technical forms within the media of mass communication or the
media of interpersonal communication. Signs and codes arealways anchored in the material form of a medium – each ofwhich has its own constraints and affordances. A medium istypically treated instrumentally as a transparent vehicle ofrepresentation by readers of texts composed within it, but themedium used may itself contribute to meaning. See alsochannel, sign vehicle.
message This term variously refers either to a text or to the meaningof a text – referents which literalists tend to conflate. See also
text.
metalingual function See functions of signs.
metaphor Metaphor expresses the unfamiliar (known in literary
jargon as the ‘tenor’) in terms of the familiar (the ‘vehicle’).
In semiotic terms, a metaphor involves one signified acting asa signifier referring to a rather different signified. Since
metaphors apparently disregard literal or denotative resemblance they can be seen as symbolic as well as iconic. See also
irony, metonymy, synecdoche, trope.
metonymy A metonym is a figure of speech that involves using one
signified to stand for another signified which is directly related

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to it or closely associated with it in some way, notably thesubstitution of effect for cause. It is sometimes considered toinclude the functions ascribed by some to synecdoche.
Metonymy simulates an indexical mode. See also irony,metaphor, synecdoche, trope.
modality Modality refers to the reality status accorded to or claimed
by a sign, text or genre.
modelling systems, primary and secondary Secondary modellingsystems are described, following Lotman, as semiotic superstructures built upon primary modelling systems. Saussure
treated spoken language as primary and saw the written word
as secondary. Since this stance grants primacy to the spoken
form, it has been criticized as phonocentric. Other theorists
have extended this notion to texts in other media, seeing themas secondary modelling systems built out of a primary‘language’. See also phonocentrism.
modes of address Implicit and explicit ways in which aspects ofthe style, structure and/or content of a text function to position readers as subjects (‘ideal readers’) (e.g. in relation toclass, age, gender and ethnicity). See also functions of signs.
motivation and constraint The term ‘motivation’ (used by
Saussure) is sometimes contrasted with ‘constraint’ indescribing the extent to which the signified determines thesignifier. The more a signifier is constrained by the signified,
the more ‘motivated’ the sign is: iconic signs are highly motivated; symbolic signs are unmotivated. The less motivated thesign, the more learning of an agreed code is required. See also
arbitrariness.
multiaccentuality of the sign Voloshinov’s term is used to refer tothe diversity of the use and interpretation of texts by different
audiences.
myth For Lévi-Strauss, myths were systems of binary alignments
mediating between nature and culture. For Barthes, myths were
the dominant discourses of contemporary culture. He argued
that myths were a metalanguage operating through codes andserving the ideological function of naturalization.

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narrowcast codes In contrast to broadcast codes, narrowcast codes
are aimed at a limited audience, structurally more complex,
less repetitive and tend to be more subtle, original and unpredictable. See also broadcast codes, codes.
natural signs (a) (in classical theory) representational visual images
as opposed to ‘conventional signs’ (words); (b) signs not intentionally created but nevetheless interpreted as signifying, suchas smoke signifying fire (St Augustine); (c) signs (apparently)
produced without the intervention of a code (as in Barthes’
initial characterization of photographs); (d) (allegedly inpopular perception) metonyms (in contrast to metaphors). See
also iconic, indexical.
naturalization Codes which have been naturalized are those which
are so widely distributed in a culture and which are learned atsuch an early age that they appear not to be constructed but
to be naturally given. Myths serve the ideological function ofnaturalization. See also denaturalization.
negotiated code and reading Within Stuart Hall’s framework, thisis an ideological code in which the reader partly shares the
text’s code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own
social position, experiences and interests (local and personal
conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule). See
also dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code and reading, oppositional code and reading.
object Term used in Peirce’s triadic model of the sign to describe
the referent of the sign – what the sign ‘stands for’.
open and closed texts Eco describes as ‘closed’ those texts whichshow a strong tendency to encourage a particular interpretation– in contrast to more ‘open’ texts. See also broadcast codes.
oppositional code and reading Within Stuart Hall’s framework, thisis an ideological code in which the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to thedominant code, understands the preferred reading but does notshare the text’s code and rejects this reading, bringing to bearan alternative ideological code. See also dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code and reading, negotiated code and reading.

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oppositions, semantic See analogue oppositions, binary oppositions.
orders of signification Barthes adopted from Hjelmslev the notionthat there are different orders of signification (levels of
meaning) in semiotic systems. The first order of significationis that of denotation: at this level there is a sign consistingof a signifier and a signified. Connotation is a second order ofsignification which uses the denotative sign (signifier and signified) as its signifier and attaches to it an additional signified.
Barthes argued that myth is also a higher order of signification built upon language. See also connotation, denotation,myth.
overcoding ’Overcoding’ refers to structurally simple, conventionaland repetitive texts having what information theorists call ahigh degree of redundancy. These are alleged to be features ofbroadcast codes. Under-coding is a feature of texts using lessconventional narrowcast codes. See also broadcast codes,
preferred reading.
pansemiotic features Jakobson’s term for properties shared by all
systems of signs (not just verbal language).
paradigm A paradigm is a set of associated signifiers which are allmembers of some defining category, but in which each signifier is significantly different. In natural language there aregrammatical paradigms such as verbs or nouns. In a given
context, one member of the paradigm set is structurally replaceable with another. See also paradigmatic analysis, syntagm.
paradigmatic analysis Paradigmatic analysis is a structuralist technique which seeks to identify the various paradigms which
underlie the ‘surface structure’ of a text. This aspect of structural analysis involves a consideration of the positive or
negative connotations of each signifier (revealed through theuse of one signifier rather than another), and the existence of‘underlying’ thematic paradigms (e.g. binary oppositions). See
also analogue oppositions, binary oppositions, commutation test, markedness, paradigm, syntagmatic analysis.
parole See langue.
phatic function See functions of signs.

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phonocentrism Phonocentrism is a typically unconscious interpretive bias which privileges speech over writing (and consequently the oral–aural over the visual). See also channel,
logocentrism.
poetic function See functions of signs.
positioning of the subject See subject.
poststructuralism See Appendix.
preferred reading (Stuart Hall). Readers of a text are guided
towards a preferred reading and away from ‘aberrant decoding’through the use of codes. A preferred reading is not necessarily the result of any conscious intention on the part of the
producer(s) of a text. The term is often used as if it refers toa meaning which is in some way built into the form and/or
content of the text – a notion which is in uneasy accord witha textual determinism which Hall rejected. See also dominant(or hegemonic) code and reading.
primacy of the signifier The argument that reality or the world is
at least partly created by the language (and other media) we
use insists on the primacy of the signifier – suggesting that thesignified is shaped by the signifier rather than vice versa. Some
theorists stress the materiality of the signifier. Poststructuralist
theorists such as Lacan, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault have developed the notion of the primacy of the signifier, but its roots
can be found in structuralism. See also arbitrariness, conventionality, relative autonomy.
reading, dominant, negotiated and oppositional See dominantcode and reading, negotiated code and reading, oppositional code and reading.
reference The meaning of a sign in relation to something beyond
the sign-system. Sometimes a synonym for referent.
referent Term used by some theorists (e.g. Ogden and Richards) for
what the sign ‘stands for’. In Peirce’s triadic model of the sign
this is called the object. In Saussure’s dyadic model of thesign a referent in the world is not explicitly featured – this issometimes referred to as ‘bracketing the referent’. Note thatreferents can include ideas, events and material objects. See
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referential function See functions of signs.
reflexivity Some ‘reflexive’ aesthetic practices foreground their
textuality – the signs of their production (the materials andtechniques used) – thus reducing the transparency of their style.
Texts in which the poetic function is dominant foregroundthe act and form of expression and undermine any sense ofa natural or transparent connection between a signifier anda referent. Postmodernism often involves a highly reflexive
intertextuality. See also denaturalization, foregrounding,materiality of the sign, poetic function.
relative autonomy Saussure’s model of the sign assumes the relative autonomy of language in relation to reality (it does notdirectly feature a ‘real world’ referent); there is no essential
bond between words and things. In a semiotic system withdouble articulation the levels of the signifier and of the signified are relatively autonomous. The signifier and the signified
in a sign are autonomous to the extent that their relationshipis arbitrary. See also arbitrariness, articulation of codes,
conventionality, primacy of the signifier.
representamen The representamen is one of the three elements ofPeirce’s model of the sign and it refers to the form which thesign takes (not necessarily material). See also signifier.
representation Standard dictionaries note that a representation issomething which stands for or in place of something else –which is of course what semioticians call a sign. Semiotics
foregrounds and problematizes the process of representation.
Representation always involves the construction of reality. All
texts, however realistic they may seem to be, are constructed
representations rather than simply transparent reflections,recordings, transcriptions or reproductions of a pre-existing
reality. Both structuralist and poststructuralist theories lead toreality and truth being regarded as the products of particularsystems of representation. See also referent.
restricted codes See broadcast codes.
selection, axis of A structuralist term for the ‘vertical’ axis in theanalysis of a textual structure: the plane of the paradigm(Jakobson). See also combination, axis of.

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semeiosis This term (also spelled semiosis) was used by Peirce torefer to the process of meaning-making – specifically to theinteraction between the representamen, the object and theinterpretant. See also signification, signifying practices,
unlimited semiosis.
semeiotic This was Peirce’s term (also spelled semiotic) for the‘formal doctrine of signs’, which was closely related to logic.
semiology Saussure’s term sémiologie dates from a manuscript of1894. ‘Semiology’ is sometimes used to refer to the study ofsigns by those within the Saussurean tradition (e.g. Barthes,
Lévi-Strauss, Kristeva and Baudrillard), while ‘semiotics’sometimes refers to those working within the Peircean tradition (e.g. Morris, Richards, Ogden and Sebeok). Sometimes‘semiology’ refers to work concerned primarily with textual
analysis while ‘semiotics’ refers to more philosophicallyoriented work. See also semiotics.
semiosphere The Russian cultural semiotician Yuri Lotman coined
this term to refer to ‘the whole semiotic space of the culture
in question’ – it can be thought of as a semiotic ecology inwhich different languages and media interact.
semiotic square Greimas introduced the semiotic square as a meansof mapping the key semantic oppositions in a text or practice.
If we begin by drawing a horizontal line linking two familiarly
paired terms such as ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’, we turn this intoa semiotic square by making this the upper line of a square inwhich the two other logical possibilities – ‘not ugly’ and ‘notbeautiful’ occupy the lower corners. The semiotic square
reminds us that this is not simply a binary opposition because
something which is not beautiful is not necessarily ugly andthat something which is not ugly is not necessarily beautiful.
semiotic triangle Peirce’s triadic model of the sign is a semiotic
triangle. See also referent, sense, sign vehicle.
semiotics, definition of Semiotics is ‘the study of signs’. It is not
purely a method of textual analysis, but involves both thetheory and analysis of signs, codes and signifying practices.
See also semiology, sign.

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sense In some semiotic triangles, this refers to the sense made of
the sign (what Peirce called the interpretant). See also: interpretant, meaning, semiotic triangle.
shifters Term adopted by Jakobson from Otto Jespersen for ‘indexical symbols’ in language – grammatical units with anindexical (deictic) character (such as personal pronouns) –which can be decoded only by reference to the specific context
of particular messages.
sign A sign is a meaningful unit which is interpreted as ‘standingfor’ something other than itself. Signs are found in the physical form of words, images, sounds, acts or objects (thisphysical form is sometimes known as the sign vehicle). Signs
have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when signusers invest them with meaning with reference to a recognized
code. See also analogue signs, digital signs, functions ofsigns, signification.
sign vehicle A term sometimes used to refer to the physical ormaterial form of the sign (e.g. words, images, sounds, acts orobjects). For some commentators this means the same as thesignifier (which for Saussure himself did not refer to material
form). The Peircean equivalent is the representamen: the form
which the sign takes, but even for Peirce this was not necessarily a material form. See also medium, representamen,
signifier, tokens and types.
signans Latin term favoured by Jakobson for the signifier or perceptible form of the sign (signum) – its ‘sound form’ in the caseof words. See also signatum, signifier, signum.
signatum In Jakobson’s dyadic model the signatum is the signified
or conceptual meaning of the sign; in language it refers to
linguistic meaning as distinct from the denotatum. See also
signans, signified, signum.
signification In Saussurean semiotics, the term signification refers
to the relationship between the signifier and the signified. It isalso variously used to refer to: the defining function of signs(i.e. that they signify, or ‘stand for’, something other than themselves); the process of signifying (semiosis); signs as part ofGLOSSARY

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an overall semiotic system; what is signified; the reference of
language to reality; a representation. See also semiosis, value.
significatum Morris’s term for the sense of the sign (as distinct fromdenotatum).
signified (signifié) For Saussure, the signified was one of the twoparts of the sign. Saussure’s signified is the mental concept
represented by the signifier (and is not a material thing). This
does not exclude the reference of signs to physical objects inthe world as well as to abstract concepts and fictional entities,
but the signified is not itself a referent in the world. See also
referent, signifier, transcendent(al) signified.
signifier (signifiant) In the Saussurean tradition, the signifier is theform which a sign takes. For Saussure himself, in relation to
linguistic signs, this meant a non-material form of the spoken
word. Subsequent semioticians have treated it as the material(or physical) form of the sign – something which can be seen,
heard, felt, smelt or tasted (also called the sign vehicle). See
also empty signifier, primacy of the signifier, representamen, sign vehicle, signified.
signifying practices These are the meaning-making behaviours inwhich people engage (including the production and reading oftexts) following particular conventions or rules of construction
and interpretation. See also interpretive community.
signum Jakobson’s favoured Latin term for a sign, uniting a signans
and signatum in his dyadic model.
simple sign A sign which does not contain any other signs, incontrast to a complex sign. See also complex sign, sign.
simulacrum This was Baudrillard’s term (borrowed from Plato);‘simulacra’ are ‘copies without originals’ – the main form inwhich we encounter texts in postmodern culture. More broadly,
he used the term to refer to a representation which bears no
relation to any reality. See also digital signs, empty signifier,tokens and types.
single articulation, codes with Codes with single articulation have
either first articulation or second articulation only. Codes with
first articulation only (e.g. traffic signs) consist of signs –meaningful elements which are systematically related to each

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other – but there is no second articulation to structure thesesigns into minimal, non-meaningful elements. Other semiotic
codes lacking double articulation have second articulation
only. These consist of signs which have specific meanings
which are not derived from their elements (e.g. binary code).
They are divisible only into figurae (minimal functional units).
See also articulation of codes, double articulation, unarticulated codes.
structuralism See Appendix.
subject In theories of subjectivity a distinction is made between ‘thesubject’ and ‘the individual’. While the individual is an actual
person, the subject is a set of roles constructed by dominantcultural and ideological values. Poststructuralist theorists critique the concept of the unified subject. See also addresser andaddressee, interpellation, preferred reading.
symbol (a) for some theorists (e.g. Goodman), and in popular usage,
simply a sign; (b) a symbolic (i.e. conventional) sign, as
distinct from an iconic or an indexical sign.
symbolic A mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is arbitrary or purely conventional – so that therelationship must be learnt (e.g. the word ‘stop’, a red traffic
light, a national flag, a number). See also arbitrariness, iconic,
indexical.
synchronic analysis Synchronic analysis studies a phenomenon(such as a code) as if it were frozen at one moment in time.
Saussurean structuralism focused on synchronic rather thandiachronic analysis and was criticized for ignoring historicity.
See also langue and parole.
synecdoche A figure of speech involving the substitution of part forwhole, genus for species or vice versa. Some theorists do not
distinguish it from metonymy. See also irony, metaphor,metonymy, trope.
syntagm A syntagm is an orderly combination of interacting signifiers which forms a meaningful whole. Syntagmatic relations are
the various ways in which constituent units within the same text
may be structurally related to each other. These can be either
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spatial (e.g. in paintings or photographs). See also paradigmatic analysis, syntagmatic analysis.
syntagmatic analysis Syntagmatic analysis is a structuralist technique which seeks to establish the ‘surface structure’ of a text
and the relationships between its parts. See also paradigmatic
analysis, syntagm.
text Most broadly, this term is used to refer to anything which canbe ‘read’ for meaning; to some theorists, the world is ‘social
text’. Although the term appears to privilege written texts (itseems graphocentric and logocentric), to most semioticians atext is a system of signs (in the form of words, images, sounds
and/or gestures). The term is often used to refer to recorded(e.g. written) texts which are independent of their users (usedin this sense the term excludes unrecorded speech). See also
representation.
tokens and types Peirce made a distinction between tokens andtypes. In relation to words in a text, a count of the tokens would
be a count of the total number of words used (regardless oftype), while a count of the types would be a count of thedifferent words used (ignoring any repetition). The medium
used may determine whether a text is a type which is its own
sole token (unique original) or simply one token among manyof its type (‘a copy without an original’). See also digital signs.
transcendent(al) signified Derrida argued that dominant ideologicaldiscourse relies on the metaphysical illusion of a transcendental signified – an ultimate referent at the heart of a signifying
system which is portrayed as ‘absolute and irreducible’, stable,
timeless and transparent – as if it were independent of and prior
to that system. All other signifieds within that signifying system
are subordinate to this dominant central signified which is the
final meaning to which they point. Without such a foundationalterm to provide closure for meaning, every signified functions
as a signifier in an endless play of signification. See also deconstruction, empty signifier, markedness.
transformation, rules of Lévi-Strauss argued that new structural patterns within a culture are generated from existing ones throughformal rules of transformation based on systematic similarities,

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equivalences, parallels, or symmetrical inversions. The patterns
on different levels of a structure (e.g. within a myth) or in different structures (e.g. in different myths) are seen as logicaltransformations of each other. Rules of transformation enable
the analyst to reduce a complex structure to some more basic
constituent units. See also commutation test, isomorphism.
transmission model of communication Everyday references to communication are based on a ‘transmission’ model in which a‘sender’ ‘transmits’ a message to a ‘receiver’ – a formula which
reduces meaning to content (delivered like a parcel) and whichtends to support the intentional fallacy. Such models make noallowance for the importance of either codes or social contexts.
trope Tropes are rhetorical ‘figures of speech’ such as metaphor,metonymy, synecdoche and irony.
types and tokens See tokens and types.
unarticulated codes Codes without articulation consist of a seriesof signs bearing no direct relation to each other. These signs
are not divisible into recurrent compositional elements (e.g. thefolkloristic ‘language of flowers’). See also articulation ofcodes.
unlimited semiosis Umberto Eco coined the term ‘unlimited semiosis’ to refer to the way in which, for Peirce (via the‘interpretant’), for Barthes (via connotation), for Derrida (via
‘freeplay’) and for Lacan (via ‘the sliding signified’), the signified is endlessly commutable – functioning in its turn as asignifier for a further signified. See also interpretant, transcendent(al) signified.
value Saussure distinguished the value of a sign from its signification or referential meaning. A sign does not have an absolutevalue in itself – its value is dependent on its relations withother signs within the signifying system as a whole. Words in
different languages can have equivalent referential meanings
but different values since they belong to different networks ofassociations. See also signification.
Note: A more extensive glossary is available in the online version ofthis text, currently at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/

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INDEX

aberrant decoding (Eco) 158, 186,
228, 243, 257
Abrams, Meyer H. 104, 238
absent signifiers 72, 84, 87–8, 95,
108, 134, 141, 243, 247, 251
address, modes of see modes ofaddress
addresser and addressee (Jakobson)
180–1, 184, 186, 192, 194, 243,250
advertising xviii, 21, 49, 90, 101,
104–5, 113, 128, 131, 133, 144,
186–7, 197, 202–4, 236–7
aesthetic codes 67–8, 78, 103–4,
127, 135, 150, 161, 172, 198
Albertus Magnus 14
Alcoff, Linda 133
Alexander, Monty 105, 172alignment 100–6‘all grammars leak’ (Sapir) 82
Allport, Gordon W. 90

Althusser, Louis 27, 139, 188, 198,
251
Altman, Rick 169‘always-already given’ 100, 151,
198, 200
analogical thinking (Lévi-Strauss)
101–3
analogue codes 47–9, 91, 138, 149,
162, 164, 193, 213, 244
analogue oppositions 91, 243–4
analogy 5, 19–20, 39–40, 42, 51,
101–3, 117, 119–20, 125, 140,
145, 148, 168–9
anchorage (Barthes) 70, 79, 193,
204, 225, 244
Ang, Ien 67
arbitrariness 19, 22–8, 35–47, 63,
68, 73–6, 78, 129, 139, 145, 148,
157, 162, 165, 168, 212–15, 219,
230, 244, 247, 258, 262
architecture xiv, 5, 148, 237

294

INDEX

Argyle, Michael 154–5
Aristotle 23, 33, 92, 102
Augustine, St 14, 34, 36, 255
articulation xviii, 6–7, 244, 249,
258, 261–2, 264
associative relations (Saussure) 17,
84–5, 87, 141, 244
authorial intention see intentional
fallacyaxes of selection and combination
see selection and combination
Bacon, Francis v, 33
Baggaley, Jon and Steve Duck 56–7
Bakhtin, Mikhail 33, 200, 234bar, the 15, 17, 24
Bateson, Gregory 227
Barthes, Roland 5, 8, 79, 86–7, 89,
91, 105, 114, 116, 125, 133,
138–40, 143–5, 162–4, 171,
198–9, 200, 204, 208, 211,214–19, 224–5, 227, 229, 231–4,
236, 244, 246–7, 254–5, 256–7,
259, 264
Baskin, Wade 235
Baudrillard, Jean 80–1, 259, 261
Bazin, André 67
Belsey, Catherine 76–7, 160
Benjamin, Walter 50
Bennett, Tony 201
Benveniste, Émile 5, 224
Berger, John 161, 162
Berger, Peter 155
Bernstein, Basil 153–4, 170
Bignell, Jonathan 161
binarism or dualism 34, 56, 90, 95,
98–9, 102, 137, 244–5
binary oppositions 34, 45, 87, 90,
92–3, 98, 100–3, 106–7, 118,
134, 142, 144–5, 158, 229–31,
245, 254, 256, 259
Boethius 33
Bogatyrev, Petr 231–2

Bolter, Jay David 55
Boorstin, Daniel J. 80
Bordwell, David and Kristin
Thompson 166
bracketing the referent xiv, 16, 23,
25, 37, 64, 100, 183, 214, 219,
257
bricolage 205–6. 231, 245
British Telecom 104–5
broadcast codes 170–1, 245,
256
Brøndal, Viggo 228
Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn
Warren 158
brown goods 101
Bruner, Jerome S. 49, 74, 98, 115,
164, 178
Bruss, Elizabeth W. 33, 35, 37, 42,
45, 182
Buhl, Claus 197
Burgin, Victor 67, 204
Burke, Kenneth 136, 228
Burr, Vivien 155
Butler, Judith 81–2
Carroll, Lewis 18, 78
Cassirer, Ernst 228
Cathcart, Robert 172
Caws, Peter 216
chain see syntagm
Chalfen, Richard 55, 216–17
Chandler, Daniel 33, 54–6, 80,
101–2, 104, 199, 206
channel 149, 169, 181, 224,
245
Chase, Stuart 70
Cherry, Colin 47
cinema see film and cinema
circles, linguistic/semiotic see
Copenhagen school, Moscow
school, Paris school, Prague
school, Tartu school, SydneyschoolINDEX

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Clark, Eve V. and Herbert H.
94–6
classification of signs see modes ofrelationshipclothing and fashion 5, 50, 86, 108,148–9, 153, 156, 223
code-switching 245
codes 147–73, 176–86, 245; seealso analogue codes, broadcast
codes, codification, context andcode, digital codes, message andcode, ‘message without a code’,
narrowcast codes, social codes,
interpretive codes, perceptual
codes, representational codesand practices, textual codes
codification 169, 171–2, 246
common sense 18, 24, 36, 73, 77,
137, 145, 164, 213, 216, 218–19,
248
communication 6, 17, 26–7, 48–9,
60, 72, 96, 108–9, 129, 135,
147–8, 150, 153, 157, 175–86,
192, 198, 209, 214, 223, 225,
227, 230, 231, 233, 237, 238–9,
250, 252; see also encoding anddecoding model, transmission
model
commutation test 88–90, 246
complex sign 145, 246
computer semiotics xiv, 150, 206,
237
conative function (Jakobson) 184,
194, 250
conceptual idealism xv
condensation (Freud) 53
conduit metaphor (Reddy) 129
connotation 27, 45, 52, 87–8, 95–6,
104, 112–13, 123, 137–43,
144–5, 159, 163, 172, 216, 227,
228, 229, 246, 256, 264
connotative and denotative
signifieds 137

constitution of the subject 115,
186–90, 232, 251; see alsointerpellation
constraint see motivation andconstraint
constructionism, (social) xv, 10–11,
24, 59, 64–6, 70, 77, 80, 93,
125–6, 153, 155–6, 186, 189,
190, 194, 209, 218–19
consumer culture 21, 49, 81, 101,
104–6, 108, 113, 128, 131, 133,
144, 172, 186–7, 197, 202–3,
236
content: analysis 222–3; plane ofsee planes of content andexpression
context and code xiv, 9, 25, 34–5,
37, 44–5, 100, 128, 135, 138,
148, 153, 168, 177, 179–84, 186,
190, 196, 201, 203–4, 209, 214,
217, 220, 232, 264
contextual meaning xiv, 9–10, 25,
34–5, 37, 44–5, 50, 99–100, 121,
128, 135, 138–9, 148, 151, 153,
157, 168, 171, 177, 179, 180–6,
190, 196, 201, 203–4, 209, 214,
217, 220, 223, 228, 264
contiguity 42, 45, 130, 131, 132,
134, 137, 230, 246; see alsosimilarity versus contiguity
conventional (versus ‘natural’) signs
28, 36–9, 44, 46–7, 51, 66, 77,
117, 165, 178, 213, 244, 247,
255, 262
conventionalism 165, 219, 246–7
conventionality 4, 8, 11, 23, 27–8,
35–47, 66–8, 75, 77, 81, 85, 88,
98, 104, 110, 117, 126–7, 147–8,
155, 158–73, 177–8, 182,
189–90, 193, 198, 202, 213–19,
247
Copenhagen school 228–9, 230,
234

295

296

INDEX

Corner, John 150
Coward, Rosalind and John Ellis 9,25, 46, 54, 188, 197, 215
Cranny-Francis, Anne 220
Cratylus (Plato) 23, 36
critical discourse analysis 222
Crystal, David 154
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly andEugene Rochberg-Halton 9, 55,
142, 216, 223–4
Culler, Jonathan 28, 45, 64, 78–9,
83, 95, 118–19, 137, 197
cultural code (Barthes) 171
cultural relativism/relativity see
relativism/relativity, cultural
Davis, Desmond and Paul Walton
192
Davis, Howard 120
deconstruction xiv, 11, 54, 79–80,
99–100, 145, 173, 199, 205, 212,247
deep structure 5, 106, 114, 117, 137,
232–3
Deledalle, Gérard xiv
denaturalization, defamiliarization
11, 70, 126, 145, 157, 173,
214–15, 218, 247; see also
naturalization
denotation 22, 39, 60, 67, 123–4,
127, 137–40, 142–4, 163, 196,
228, 246, 248, 253, 256
Deregowski, Jan B. 161
Derrida, Jacques 16, 53–4, 79–80,
95–6, 100, 126, 151, 211–12,
228, 233, 236, 247–8, 252, 257,
263, 264
Déscartes, René 99
design features of language 6, 22,74
determination of meaning 23, 80,
86, 139, 157, 183, 186, 188,
195–6, 208, 216

diachronic analysis 9, 45, 99, 103,
120, 215, 248, 262
Dickens, Charles 107–8, 191
differential meaning 21
digital codes 47–9, 91, 138, 149,
162, 244, 248
directness of address 190–3, 248
discourse 68, 77, 93, 99–100, 105,
109, 123–4, 126, 143–4, 148,
158, 182–3, 185, 187, 195–8,
205, 219, 222, 248–9
displacement (linguistic) 74
displacement (Freud) 53
dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) code andreading (Hall) 150, 172, 190,
194–5, 214, 228, 249, 255‘doomed to analogy’ (Barthes)125
double articulation 6, 244, 249, 258,
262
drama see theatre, drama andperformance
dress, semiotics of see clothing andfashiondualism see binarism
duality of patterning see double
articulation
dyadic model of sign 14, 29–30,
33–5, 37, 229, 257, 260, 261
Dyer, Richard 27, 155Eagleton, Terry 170, 201
Eco, Umberto 2, 16, 29, 31, 35, 41,
49–50, 55, 64, 66, 134, 149,
150, 158, 161, 165, 170, 172,
180, 186, 211, 228, 236
ecology of signs 223–5
Eikhenbaum, Boris 232
elaborated codes see narrowcast
codesélite interpreter 170, 222, 249
empty signifier xviii, 78–81, 128,250

INDEX

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encoding 102, 150, 175, 178, 181–2,
185–6, 195, 250
encoding and decoding model ofcommunication 181–2, 185–6
epistemological realism xv
epistemology xv, 64, 75, 246
essentialism 63, 116, 188, 258
expression: content and 19, 56–7,
78; plane of see planes of
expressive function 105, 143, 184,
194, 250
factual contiguity and factual
similarity (Jakobson) 45
Fairclough, Norman 159, 222
fashion see clothing and fashion
figurae (Hjelmslev) 79, 262
film and cinema 9, 66, 99, 103,
115, 121, 161–2, 164–5, 167–9,
171, 185, 190, 192, 231, 237,
251
first articulation 249, 261
Fish, Stanley 123–4, 194
Fiske, John 8, 138, 142, 170
Fleming, Dan 108
floating signifier see empty signifier
Floch, Jean-Marie 108
flow, television (Williams) 203
fonts 141
food and eating 92, 148
Forceville, Charles 128
foregrounding 68, 78, 86, 96, 99,
113, 132, 135, 138, 160, 167,
184, 189, 190, 192, 250, 258
form and content 56, 123, 125
form and substance see plane ofcontent, plane of expression
formalism 70, 114, 135, 215,
228–9, 231–2
formality of address 190, 192–3
Foucault, Michel 75, 99, 126, 201,
211, 218, 228–9, 236
Freud, Sigmund 53, 73, 93

functionalism 184, 217, 220, 230–1,
233
functions of signs 5, 51, 61, 126,
157, 181–2, 184–6, 194, 250
Fuss, Diane 96
Gallie, W. B. 80
Galtung, Johan and Eric Ruge 80,
114
Gardiner, Michael 25
garment system (Barthes) 86; seealso clothing and fashion
Gelb, I. J. 47
Genette, Gérard 206
genre 2, 57, 64–5, 67–8, 85–6, 88,
94, 98, 133, 150, 158–60,
164–6, 172, 184, 186, 189–90,
191–2, 195, 201–3, 206–8,
224
gestalt psychology 62, 113, 151–2,
177
Glasgow University Media Group
119–20, 222
glossematics 228–9
Goffman, Erving 112–13, 155
Gombrich, Ernst H. 48–9, 81,
160–1, 165, 175–8, 201, 229
Goodman, Nelson 162, 165,
229
grammars 5, 34, 82, 86, 110, 114,
116–19, 192, 213graphocentrism 263
grande syntagmatique (Metz) 120,231
Grayling, Anthony C. xvii
Grayson, Kent 63
Greenberg, J. H. 94
Greimas, Algirdas 5, 72, 106–8,
118–19, 136, 211, 215, 229
Gross, Larry 180
Grosz, Elizabeth 100
Guiraud, Pierre 150, 171
Gumpert, Gary 172

297

298

INDEX

Hall, Edward T. 192–3
Hall, Stuart 138, 148, 150, 155–6,
158, 170, 185–6, 187, 194–5,
249, 255, 257
Halle, Morris 92,
Halliday, Michael A. K. 219–20
Harris, Roy xiv, 84, 180, 200, 235
Hartley, John 8
Havránek, Bohuslav 233
Hawkes, Terence 36, 76, 118, 124,
164, 214
Hayakawa, S. I. 70, 71
hegemonic code see dominantcode
hermeneutic code (Barthes) 171
Hermogenes 23
Hess-Lüttich, Ernest W. B. xvii
historicity 9–10, 25, 27, 41, 46, 62,
83, 98–9, 103, 114, 126, 139,
141, 143, 145, 152, 162–3, 171,173, 215, 218
Hjelmslev, Louis 5–6, 19, 56–7, 79,
138–40, 143–4, 211, 227–9,
231–4, 245, 256
Hobbes, Thomas 14, 125
Hockett, Charles F. 6, 22, 74
Hodge, Robert 10, 38, 55, 65,
67–8, 100, 109, 115, 120, 220–1,
223
homology see isomorphism
homo significans 13
Hoskins, Bob 105
humanism 187, 188
Husserl, Edmund 33, 229
Huxley, Aldous 76, 223
iconic mode 36–8, 40–7, 66, 127,
131, 151, 162, 165, 183, 212,
250, 253–4
iconic symbol (Jakobson) 44
idealism (epistemological) xv, 52–4,
63–4, 80–1, 126, 199, 219
ideological codes 150

ideology 11, 25, 47, 88, 98, 100,
125, 129, 138–40, 144–5,
149–50, 158, 164, 172, 187–8,
189–90, 193, 198, 204–5, 212,
214–15, 217–19, 227, 228, 234,
247, 249, 254–5, 262–3
idiolect 149
image acoustique (sound pattern)(Saussure) 13–16, 179
Imaginary, the (Lacan) 93, 115, 190,
231, 251
imaginary signifier (Metz) 66, 231,
251
immanent or intrinsic meaning 13,
28, 79, 135, 260
imputed contiguity and imputed
similarity (Jakobson) 45
indexical mode 36–8, 40–6, 69, 129,
131, 133–4, 162–3, 183, 212–13,
214, 251, 254, 260, 262
indexical symbol 44, 260; see also
shifters
information science 237
intended meaning 36–7, 48, 75, 104,
135, 150, 177, 179, 182, 186–7,
194, 196, 198, 204, 249, 255,
257, 264; see also intentional
fallacy, preferred reading
intentional fallacy 198, 264
internet 55, 192, 203, 205–6, 237
interpellation (Althusser) 188, 251
interpersonal communication
176–85interpretant (Peirce) 29–33, 35, 36,
63, 140, 228, 251, 253, 259–60,
264
interpretive codes 150, 194, 196,
202 ; see also perceptual codes
interpretive community 159, 194,
196, 208–9, 245, 251
intertextuality 84, 171, 175,
197–203–9, 227, 230, 245, 251,
258

INDEX

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8222
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1222
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7222

intratextuality 84, 203–5, 207, 251
isomorphism or homology 60, 102,
180, 231, 252
Jakobson, Roman xiv, 4–9, 15–16,
23, 26, 28, 31, 34–8, 44–5, 52–3,
60, 79, 84–5, 90–5, 98–101, 103,
106, 110–11, 125, 131–4, 137,
147, 180–5, 186, 194, 211–16,
220, 228, 230–1, 233, 236, 243,
245–8, 250, 252, 256, 258,
260–1James, Henry 191
James, William 88, 152
Jameson, Fredric 19, 72, 106–8,
116, 119, 136, 151, 200Jensen, Klaus Bruhn 220
Johnson, Richard 187
Karcevski, Sergei 233
Keller, Helen 74
Kennedy, John 65
Korzybski, Alfred 70–1, 73, 230
Kress, Gunther 10, 38, 56, 64–5,
67–8, 100, 109, 111–13, 115,
193, 220–1, 224
Kristeva, Julia 5, 197, 207, 211,
230, 233, 236, 259
Lacan, Jacques 5, 24–5, 53, 78–9,
93, 115, 137, 187, 190, 230, 231,
233–4, 236, 251, 257, 264
Lagado (Swift) 60
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson
111–12, 124, 127, 129, 130–1,
132, 143–4
Langer, Susanne K. 6–7, 16–17,
39–40‘language’ of a medium 2, 5, 7–9,
117, 119–21, 144, 148, 151, 161,
162–3, 172, 185, 213, 231,
232–3, 254, 256, 264
language, writing and print 238

langue and parole 8–10, 19, 99, 147,
185, 215, 231, 252
Lanham, Richard A. 132
Larrucia, Victor 117–18
Lash, Scott 209
latent meaning 121, 195, 222law, semiotics of 238
Leach, Edmund 72–4, 92, 102, 109,
148
legal semiotics see law, semiotics ofLeiss, William 222
Lemke, Jay 220
levels of signification see orders ofsignification
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 5–6, 10, 27,
47, 54–5, 72, 79, 87, 92, 102–3,
105, 114, 116–17, 137, 144–5,
205–6, 215–16, 227, 229–31,
234, 236, 244–5, 254, 259,
263
Leymore, Varda Langholz 87, 91,107
linearity 25, 99, 110–11, 114, 179,
206
linguistic determinism 26, 126, 153,
216, 234
linguistic relativism see relativism,
linguistic
literal meaning 80, 90, 97, 100,
123–45, 163, 218, 248, 251, 252,
253
literary semiotics 54, 76–8, 104,
114–16, 124, 127, 132, 137–8,
158, 170–1, 190–2, 198, 201,
227, 238
Little Red Riding-Hood 117–18
Locke, John 2–3, 14, 125
Lodge, David 132
logocentrism 251–2, 263
Lotman, Yuri 170–1, 224, 231, 234,
254, 259
Lovell, Terry 67, 80
Luckmann, Thomas 155

299

300

INDEX

Lyons, John 22, 33, 41–2, 47, 49,
52, 61–2, 90–1, 94–5
MacCabe, Colin 187
McDonald, Edward xvii
McKim, Robert H. 71
McLuhan, Marshall 85
McQuarrie, Edward F. 197, 222–3
Magritte, René 69–70, 73
making the familiar strange see
denaturalization
Malkiel, Yakov 95‘map is not the territory’(Korzybski) 70
Marion, Gilles 108
markedness 79, 93–9, 101, 105,
135, 156, 207, 225, 230, 247,
252–3
marketing, semiotics in see
advertisingmass communication 80, 101, 150,
170, 185–6, 188, 194, 196, 203,
223, 236–7, 240; see also
advertising, masscommunication, newspapers andmagazines, radio, televisionmaterialism 15, 61, 64, 80–1,
99–100, 150, 234
materiality of the sign 14–18, 29,
33, 50–7, 67, 81, 99, 100, 141,
219, 253, 257–8, 260–1
Mathesius, Vilem 233
meaning see connotation, contextual
meaning, denotation,
determination of meaning,
differential meaning, immanent
or intrinsic meaning, intended
meaning, latent meaning, literalmeaning, polysemy, reference,
relational meaning, sense,
structural meaning
meaning structures (Hall) 185
meaning systems (Parkin) 194

media semiotics see advertising,mass communication,
newspapers and magazines,
radio, television
mediation 10, 33, 41, 64, 67, 70, 77,
78, 80–1, 117, 144–5, 160, 169,
202, 213, 219, 251, 254
medium 2, 17, 35, 41–2, 43, 53,
55–7, 65–8, 76–7, 85, 88,
114–15, 123, 131, 134, 138, 150,
157, 160, 162, 171–2, 190, 195,
198, 203, 205, 213–14, 224, 232,
245, 253, 263‘medium is the message’(McLuhan) 85, 97, 115
Merrell, Floyd xiv–xv, 29–30
message and code 147, 172, 176,
178, 181–2, 188, 230‘message without a code’ (Barthes)
44, 162–4, 176, 213
Messaris, Paul 161, 165, 168–9,
193, 213, 215
metacode, metacommunication,
metalanguage 115, 144–5, 157,
184, 227, 229, 254
metalingual function (Jakobson)
157, 184, 250
metaphor 37, 47, 56, 70–2, 100,
111–12, 123–32, 134, 136–7,
140, 228, 230–1, 253, 255, 264
metonymic (synecdochic) fallacy
133
metonymy 126, 129–33, 134,
136–7, 228, 230–1, 253–5, 262,
264
Metz, Christian 56–7, 66, 114, 120,
160, 164–5, 171, 205, 225, 229,
231, 234, 251
Mick, David Glen xviii, 196–7,
222–3
mimesis 77, 160
mirror phase (or stage) (Lacan) 93,
190, 231, 251

INDEX

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8222
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1222
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7222

mise-en-scène 86
modality 38, 63–8, 75, 77, 135, 150,
158, 177–8, 223–4, 254
modelling systems, primary andsecondary 16, 254
models of communication see
encoding and decoding model,transmission model
models of the sign see Peircean
model, Saussurean model
modes of address 186, 189–94, 248,
250, 254
modes of relationship (between
signifier and signified) 35–47,
63, 127, 131, 183, 212; see also
iconic mode, indexical mode,
symbolic mode
Monaco, James 66, 172
montage 43, 86, 120
Morley, David 150, 194, 195–6,
217
Morris, Charles W. 4, 33, 196, 231,
233, 247–8, 259, 261
Morris, Pam 9, 200
Moscow school 214, 230–32, 234
motivation and constraint 26, 38,
47–8, 145, 166–7, 169, 254
Mukarovsky, Jan 233
multiaccentuality (Voloshinov) 188,
254
multimodality 223–4
Munday, Roderick xviii, 30
music xiv, 37, 45, 99, 110–11, 148,
150, 159–60, 164, 170, 184, 458,
201, 205, 223, 225, 238
myth 5, 79, 80, 102–3, 105–6, 117,
129, 143–5, 155, 163, 202, 205,
215–16, 227, 231, 249, 254–6,
264
narration or narrative voice 150,
158, 164, 166–7, 187, 190–2,
204

narrative 5, 57, 66, 77, 86, 114–21,
144, 159–60, 168–9, 171, 187,
190, 196, 202, 233, 262
narratology 114, 227, 229
narrowcast codes 135, 153, 170,
245, 255–6
NASA xviii, 175–6
natural signs 36–7, 138, 255
naturalism 165, 201
naturalization 11, 54, 68, 98, 102,
115, 126, 138, 145, 156, 169,
189, 214, 219, 231, 254–5; seealso denaturalization
negotiated code and reading (Hall)
150, 195, 255
Newcomb, Theodore M. 90
newspapers and magazines 110,
112, 150, 203–4, 209
Nichols, Bill 48, 77, 115, 150–52,
155, 165, 189–90, 193, 214
nomenclaturism 24, 60–3, 76
nominalism xv, 229
nominal realism (Piaget) 74, 76
non-neutrality of medium, sign orrepresentation 27, 55, 68, 75, 81,
85, 96, 111, 123, 139, 149, 158,
160, 164, 189, 200, 204, 214,
252–3
nonverbal communication 2, 52,
149, 154–5, 156–7, 172, 177,
193, 238
Nöth, Winfried xviii, 4, 14, 211,
235
‘nothing outside the text’ (Derrida)
80
object (referent) xiv, 16–23, 25,
28–34, 36–43, 47, 60–63, 67–8,
70–75, 77–8, 80, 115, 130, 156,
163, 180, 182–5, 214, 244,
246–8, 250, 255, 257–9, 261,
263–4
‘objective idealism’ of Peirce xv

301

302

INDEX

objectivity xv, 43, 52, 61, 63–5, 70,
72, 75, 80, 97, 99, 108, 114, 125,
129, 142, 144–5, 150, 152, 160,
163–4, 212, 218–19, 221
Ogden, Charles K. 73
Olson, David 75, 178
onomatopoeia 26
ontology 27–8, 53, 65, 99, 129, 197,
244, 249
open and closed signs and texts 49,
79, 138, 158, 255
oppositional code and reading (Hall)
150, 195–6, 255
oppositions, semantic see analogue
oppositions, binary oppositions
orders of signification 139–40,
143–4
organizational semiotics 239
Orwell, George 95
Osgood, Charles E. 142, 253
overcoding 170, 245, 256
Panofsky, Erwin 138
Paoletti, Jo B. xviii, 156
paradigm 83–91, 94–5, 98–9, 103,
116–17, 137, 141, 147, 165, 205,
231, 243–6, 252, 256, 258
Paris school 118, 229, 232, 234
Parkin, Frank 194
parole see langue
Peircean model of the sign 29–35,
36–45, 59, 140, 182, 183, 207,
212, 228, 230, 231, 233, 259,
260
parsimony, ontological 149
Peirce, Charles Sanders xiv–vi, 2–4,
13–14, 29–45, 46, 49, 52, 59, 60,
61, 63, 66, 80, 131, 140, 162,
165, 181–3, 186, 207, 211–13,
220, 225, 228, 230–3, 235, 240,
244, 251, 255, 257–60, 263–4
perceptual codes 66, 113, 150–2,
155, 164, 177

performance, semiotics of see
theatre, drama and performance
Persil™ 105
Phaedrus (Plato) 208
phatic function of signs 184, 194,250
phenomenological approaches 197,
223
phonocentrism 16, 53, 100, 110,
252, 254, 257‘photographic message’ (Barthes)
138, 162–4
photography 6, 37–8, 43–4, 55, 57,
66–7, 73, 77, 86, 88, 110, 114,
131, 133, 138, 141, 150, 161–4,
165, 172, 188, 192–3, 196,
203–4, 213, 223–4, 239, 248,
255, 263
Piaget, Jean 74, 164
pictorial semiotics see visualart
pink and blue xviii, 156–7
Pioneer 10 xviii, 175–9
planes: of content and expression(Hjelmslev) 19, 56–7, 144,
228–9; of paradigm and syntagm(Jakobson) 84, 246, 258; ofsignifier (or sound) and signified(or thought) (Saussure) 18–19,
24–5, 56
Plato 23, 33, 36, 54, 208, 261
poetic or aesthetic function 150,
184–5, 250, 258
Pollio, Howard 127
polysemy 108, 138, 188polyvocality 191
positioning of the subject 88, 115,
139, 155, 175, 186–91, 194–6,
198, 208, 232, 250–1, 254–5,
262
Postman, Leo J. 90
postmodernism 10, 50, 54, 78,
80–1, 135, 258, 261

INDEX

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8222
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1222
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7222

poststructuralism 5, 17, 32, 53–4,
79, 99–100, 103, 124, 126, 195,
197–8, 212, 217–21, 227–8, 230,
232–3, 236, 247, 257–8, 262
Potter, Elizabeth 133
pragmatics 231
Prague school 89, 230–1, 233–4,
250
preferred reading (Hall) 85–6, 100,
115, 158, 170, 177, 194–5, 204,
217, 244, 249, 255, 257
Prieto-Pablos, Juan A. xvii
primacy of the signifier 18, 24, 54,
62, 66, 78, 230, 257
printed word 49–50, 52, 57, 85, 169,
193, 203, 238
proairetic code (Barthes) 171
Propp, Vladimir I. 114, 116,
118–19, 215, 229, 233
Quine, W[illard] V[an] O[rman]
183
Quintilian 90, 206
radio 8, 37, 115, 150, 169, 172, 203,
209
real, the (Lacan) 93, 113, 231
realism (epistemological) xv, 33,
43, 60–1, 64, 70–1, 78, 80, 125,
218–19, 246realism, aesthetic 11, 36, 41, 66–70,
77–8, 103, 108–9, 114, 132–4,
137–8, 150, 160–5, 166, 187–9,
192, 202, 209, 229, 258
reality/realities xv, 2, 8, 10, 11,
16, 19, 24, 25, 33, 41, 43, 59,
61–74, 77, 78, 80–2, 99, 109,
114, 123, 124, 125, 126, 131,
133, 134, 152, 153, 155, 156,
160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168,
188, 202, 209, 213, 214, 215,
218, 219, 246, 249, 254, 257,
258, 261

Reddy, Michael J. 124, 129, 179
reduction 4, 34, 37, 48, 56, 61, 72,
108, 114–21, 126, 136–7, 145,
162–3, 173, 178, 184, 195, 198,
213–16, 221, 246, 258, 263–4
redundancy 170, 245, 256
referent see objectreferential function (Jakobson) 61,
182–4, 250
reflexivity 135, 145, 207, 258
Reisz, Karel and Gavin Millar 166,
168
relational meaning 9, 18–22, 32,
39, 81, 83–121, 125, 230, 233,
249
relative arbitrariness ofsignifier/signified relations 26–7,
35–45, 63, 139, 145, 147, 165,
212, 214, 258
relative autonomy 19, 25, 27, 53,
63, 76, 101, 173, 232–3, 258
relativism/relativity, cultural 81,
162, 229
relativism, epistemological 135,
209, 219, 246
relativism/relativity, linguistic 153,
234; see also Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis
representamen (Peirce) 29–31, 36,
140, 231, 258–60; see also
objectrepresentation 10–11, 14, 25, 31–3,
41, 47, 56, 59, 63–70, 72–3, 75,
77–8, 80–2, 88, 139, 151, 160–2,
164–5, 177, 188, 196, 209, 219,
223–4, 229, 240, 246, 249, 253,
255, 258, 260–1
representational codes and practices
150, 157–73, 177, 192, 196, 219,
225, 246, 249
reproductive fallacy (Bazin) 67
restricted codes see broadcast
codes

303

304

INDEX

rhetoric 88, 90, 100, 105, 123–37,
138, 145, 150, 158–9, 162–4,
205, 228, 240, 247, 251, 264‘rhetoric of the image’ (Barthes)
138, 162–4
Richards, Ivor A. 25, 33, 127, 253,
257, 259
Rodowick, David N. 201
Rosenblum, Ralph and Robert
Karen 161, 166
Russell, Bertrand 181
Ryan, T. A. and C. B. Schwartz
66
Ryder, Martin vxiii, 241
Sapir, Edward 82, 153, 234
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis 63, 65,
129, 153, 170, 234
Saussure, Ferdinand de xiv, xvi,
2–5, 7–10, 14–28, 29, 30–9,
45–6, 51–4, 56, 59–64, 70,
78–80, 83–8, 90, 95, 99–100,
103–4, 109–11, 138, 140–1, 145,
147, 158, 171, 179–83, 186–7,
197–200, 211–16, 219–21,
228–31, 233–5, 239, 244, 246,
248, 252, 254, 257–62, 264
Saussurean model of the sign
14–28, 32–3, 34–5, 59, 63–4, 78,
140, 183
Scholastics 14
schools of linguistics/semiotics see
Copenhagen school, Moscow
school, Paris school, Prague
school, Sydney school, Tartu
schoolScollon, Ron and Suzie Wong220
Scribner, Sylvia and Michael Cole74
Sebeok, Thomas A. xv, 211, 233,
235, 248, 259
second articulation 6, 249, 261–2

Seiter, Ellen 10
selection and combination, axes of84, 137, 230, 246, 258
semanalysis (Kristeva) 230
semantic differential 142
semantics 49, 70, 183, 230, 231semeiosis or semiosis (Peirce) xiii,
30–31, 64, 80, 140, 220, 224,
228, 259, 260, 264
semeiotic or semiotic (Peirce) 3, 29,
232, 259
semic code (Barthes) 171
semiology (Saussure, Barthes) xiv,
3, 5, 7–8, 21, 28–9, 87, 199–200,
233, 259
semiosphere (Lotman) 224, 259
semiotic economy 6semiotic (Kristeva) 230
semiotic square (Greimas) 106–8,
136, 229, 259
semiotic triangle 29–33, 259–60
semiotics, definition of 1, 2–4,
8, 16, 211, 220–1, 229, 231,
259
‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ 178, 243,264
sense 18, 29, 32–4, 37, 248, 251,
253, 260–1
Shannon, Claude E. and Warren
Weaver 179
Shklovsky,Victor 214, 232
sign, definition of 1–2, 13–14, 29,
60, 260
sign vehicle 14, 29–30, 50, 55, 63,
231, 260–1
signans 15, 34–5, 260–1
signatum 34–5, 183, 247, 253,
260–1
signification xvi, 6, 15, 20, 72, 80,
229–30, 235, 260–1; see alsoorders of signification
signifier and signified xvi, 13–16,
22, 30–3, 34–5, 51, 55, 56, 63,

INDEX

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8222
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1222
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7222

75, 77, 100, 137, 261; see alsoabsent signifiers, empty signifier,imaginary signifier, primacy ofthe signifier, transcendent(al)signifiedsignifying practices 50, 77, 92, 185,
214, 220, 247, 259, 261‘sign of a sign’ (Derrida) 16
signum 260–61
Silverman, David and Brian Torode54, 118
Silverman, Kaja 63, 84, 100–1,
139
similarity versus contiguity 42, 45,
131, 137, 230; see also
contiguity, iconic mode,
indexical mode
simulacrum (Baudrillard) 81,
261
single articulation 244, 261
sites of struggle 10, 65, 212, 219
Slater, Don 217
Smith, Frank 178
social codes 149, 153–7, 169, 173,
177, 179, 218
social construction of reality see
constructivism
social determinism 9, 195
social semiotics, socio-semiotics 8,
10, 50, 64, 139, 185, 188, 195–6,
219–22, 241
sociolect 98
Socrates 23, 208
sound 2, 13–20, 22–4, 26, 34, 35–7,
39, 41, 47–8, 51–3, 74, 88, 120,
128, 159, 164, 169–70, 179, 205,
238, 244, 250, 260, 263
speech circuit (Saussure) 179–80
Sprat, Thomas 125
Stam, Robert 25, 169
Stoics 33, 35
structural: determinism 9; meaning
18

structuralism xiv–xv, 4–5, 8–10, 21,
29, 34–5, 37, 52, 55, 83–4, 88–9,
91–2, 100, 102, 109–10, 115–16,
118, 121, 135, 141–2, 147–9,
172–3, 178, 180, 184–8, 197–8,
212–18, 220–22, 225, 227–33,
236, 239, 244, 246, 251, 256–8,
262–3
structuration 197
Sturrock, John xvi, 21, 25, 63
subject 9, 93, 97, 99, 115, 155,
186–91, 194, 198, 216, 218, 230,
232, 250–1, 254, 262
subjectivism 10, 63, 65, 76, 78–9,
89, 93, 97, 99, 108, 121, 139,
167, 187, 190–1, 198, 216, 221,
262
suture 190
Sydney school 219–21
symbolic (Kristeva) 230
symbolic code (Barthes) 171
symbolic icon (Jakobson) 38, 44
symbolic mode 8, 35–9, 40–1, 44–8,
55, 63, 66, 70, 76, 79, 101, 113,
115, 127, 131, 139, 183, 213,
228, 247, 253–4, 262
symbolic order (Lacan) 93, 231
symbolism 53, 236
synchronic analysis 9–10, 45, 99,
102–3, 120, 141, 158, 177, 197,
215, 248, 262
synecdoche 132–4, 136, 228, 254,
262
syntactics 231
syntagm 83–7, 89–90, 99, 109–21,
137, 141, 147, 165, 190, 203,
205, 231, 246, 262–3
Tagg, John 27, 43–4, 68, 164, 218
Tapper, Richard 102
Tartu school 224, 231, 234
technological or media determinism
172

305

306

INDEX

telephone 104–5, 167, 179
television 8, 37, 43, 55, 65–8, 77,
85, 101, 105, 111, 119–20,
133–4, 143, 158, 164–6, 169,
172, 185, 189–92, 195, 201,
203–5, 208–9, 213, 215, 223–4,
240, 248, 262
tenor (Richards) 127, 253
text, definition of 8, 263
textual analysis xv, 4, 56–7, 59,
83–121, 126, 138, 149, 197–208,
215–16, 221–3, 227, 229, 232–3,
247, 259, 263
textual codes 147, 150, 157–73,
176–8, 186, 189–91, 194–7,
213–14, 218, 243, 246–7,
249–50, 255, 256–7; see also
aesthetic codes
textual determinism 185, 188, 257
textual positioning see positioningof the subject
theatre, drama and performance
168, 240
Thibault, Paul J. 32, 200, 220‘this is not a pipe’ (Magritte)
69–70
Threadgold, Terry 220
Thwaites, Tony 189–90, 194
Todorov, Tzvetan 2
tokens and types 39, 49–51, 52, 61,263transcendent(al) signified (Derrida)
80, 228, 252, 263
transcoding (Greimas) 72
transformation, structural 90,
102–3, 162–4, 206, 215, 229,
231, 263–4
translatability 7, 31, 35, 48–9, 54,
62, 72–3, 114–15, 152, 161, 178,200transmission model ofcommunication 178–80, 184,
214, 243, 264

transparency 11, 17, 22, 35, 54, 63,
68, 73, 77–8, 81–2, 96, 124–5,
138, 154, 161, 164–5, 173, 178,
185, 189, 194, 213–14, 250–1,
253, 258, 263
triadic model of sign 29–30, 33, 35,
37, 255, 257, 259
Tripp, David 55, 65, 120, 220, 223
tropes 90, 123–37, 140, 145, 228,
249, 264
Trubetzkoy, Nikolai 233
Tuchman, Gaye 193
Tudor, Andrew 56–7
Tynyanov, Yuri 9, 232
types and tokens see tokens andtypes
typography 128, 141, 238
unarticulated codes 264
universe of discourse 105, 182–3
univocality 191
unlimited semiosis 31, 80, 228,264
unmarked categories see
markedness
untranslatability see translatability
valorization 53–4, 100, 247
value of a sign (Saussure) 17,
19–21, 32, 34, 55, 84, 88, 95,
200, 264
Vega, Vanessa Hogan and Iván
Rodrigo Mendizábal xvii
vehicle in metaphor (Richards) 127,
253
vehicle, sign see sign vehicle
Vico, Giambattista 129, 136
visual art 40, 45, 48, 50, 70, 99,
131, 138, 143, 160–2, 177, 201,
214, 229, 240
Voloshinov, Valentin N. 9–10, 52,
54, 139, 200, 214, 234, 254
von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 33

INDEX

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8222
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1222
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7222

Watney, Simon 218
web see internet
white goods 101
White, Hayden 136–7, 159
Whitney, Dwight 23
Whorf, Benjamin Lee 63, 65, 129,
153, 170, 234
Whorfianism or Whorfian
hypothesis see Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis
Wilden, Anthony 47–8, 69, 73, 130,
138
Williams, Kenneth 137
Williams, Raymond 203

Williamson, Judith 128
Wimsatt, William K. and Monroe C.
Beardsley 198
writing 6, 8, 16, 21–2, 37, 41, 46–8,
51, 53–4, 65–6, 75, 81, 94, 100,
104, 110–11, 124, 164, 170, 180,
199–201, 202, 208, 238, 249,
257
Young, Brian M. 121
Zeman, J. Jay xiv
zero sign (Jakobson) 79, 94
zoosemiotics (Sebeok) xiv, 233

307