Wednesday 16 November 2011

Semiotics

Semiotics can be seen everywhere in all types of media, from films and games to advertisement and books. It is the study of signs and what effect it has on us which the majority of the time we don't even notice.

Denotation refers to the 'literal' truth of a sign, the most basic level of understanding. For example,  take mike from Pixars 'Monsters inc.' animated film. The denotation of mike would be:

  • 3D alien like character
  • Green skin
  • Has one huge eye ball
  • Wears a blue builders hat
  • A ball shaped body
  • Has two legs and arms
  • Holding a notepad
  • Has big teeth
  • He is happy
  • Has two small horns
Connotation is what this suggests, what it  signifies to us. This being:

  • He is Friendly
  • Male
  • Not human
  • Has some kind of building/construction job
  • A great worker
  • Young character
  • Lively and gets along with people socially

Iconic in it's basic form is how close the sign is to the real thing. Arbitrary is the opposite, being how far away a sign is from the real thing. A good example of this would be something you most likely see every day.


On the left shows the male and female sex symbols. On the right shows very simple 'stick man' like figures used to signify the difference between male and female toilets.

The toilet symbols would be higher up the iconic scale due to the fact they visually represent the male and female sexes of the human race. The sex symbols although they mean the same thing would be arbitrary in comparison to the toilet symbols. Realistically the human race doesn't look like neither of the two, but iconically the toilet symbols are closer to 'The real thing' than the sex symbols.

1 comment:

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