Semiotic Terms from AVF
Terms
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- SIGNIFIER
- Any material this that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image.
- SIGNIFIED
- The concept that a signifier refers to.
- SIGN
- THE SMALLEST UNIT OF MEANING. ANything that can be usd to communicate (or tell a lie)
- SYMBOLIC (ARBITRARY) SIGNS
- Signs where the relation between signifier and signified is purely conventional and culturally specific, ie most words
- ICONIC SIGNS
- Signs where the signifier resembles the signified.
- INDEXICAL SIGNS
- Signs where the signifier is caused by the signified eg smoke signals fire
- DENOTATION
- The most basic literal meaning of a sign, eg, the word rose signifies a particular kind of flower
- CONNOTATION
- The secondary, cultural meanings of signs; or signified signs,eg, rose signifies passion
- METONYMY
- A kind of connotation where in one sign is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, eg, Washing for US government
- SYNECDOCHE
- A kind of connotation in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor)
- PARDIGMATIC RELATIONS
- Where signs get meaning from their association with other signs
- SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS
- Where signs get meaning from their sequential order, eg, grammar of the sequence of events that make up a story
- MYTHS
- A combination of paradigms and syntagms that make up an oft told story with elaborate cultural associations.
- CODES
- A combination of semiotic systems, a supersystem, that function as genera maps of meaning, beleif systems about oneself and others, which imply views and attitudes about how the world is and/or ought to be.
- IDEOLOGIES
- Codes that reinforce or are congruent with structures of power. Ideology works largely by creating forms of "common sense," of taken-for-granted every day life.