Tuesday, 1 January 2013

Communication Theory

Communication Theory
Signs and signification 

How precarious communication is. Meaning isn't guaranteed.

- key themes and concepts 
- to explore key theories and theorists of linguistics 

Ferdinand de Saussure defined semiology - a study of sign systems 

Signifier/signified (mental image) /signified (what you come up with in your head) 

Allows the element of thinking. 
Separated the  process of speaking 
It's a meta language 
Signs work within systems. What dictates the meaning

Walkers crisps example.

Connotation and denotation 

Provides us with levels or orders of signification 

Roland Barthes warns that denotation is NOT literal meaning but its naturalists 

MYTH

become naturalised over time. No literally or logical connection between there meaning. 

Red wine in France - class, intelligence 
Milk in the us - freedom, strength 

Syntagma and paradigms 

Syntagm - a series or collection of signifiers within a text ( a sentence) 

Syntagma tic relations - how signifiers within a syntagm relate to each other

Paradigm - signifiers that relate through the body through a Meaning 

Dolce and gabbana advert. Man, swarm, clean, tuxedoed up. Gives us the meaning that the aftershave is for that sort of person. If we was then to swap the two images around (rugged cowboy) we would get the impression that the aftershave is for that type of man.

Metaphor and Metonym

Are both non literal forms of signification, as such require a level of interpretation 

Rhetoric the act of effective persuasion using language 
  • Politics
  • Journalists 
  • Advertisers 
  • PR

Meta is a prefix used to alter purpose of a practice or system inwards

Meta movie. A film about making a film

Artwork about artwork

Structuralism 

Is the term used for the broad application of semiotics/semiology to a range of sign systems 

Future than the application solely to linguistics 
Structuralism emphasises structures or systems of signification 

Not what is means but how it comes to mean.

Post structuralism 

Wile structuralism focuses on the structures of meaning in any signifying system 

This is authoritarian in nature 

It assumes the presence of meaning ( the metaphysics of presence) logo centrism 
Anything bThat does not fit the discarded or ignored 

Difference
  • Differer - to differ and to defer 
  • Differance - is both differing and deferring simultaneously 

Deconstruction 

Where structuralism identified/created structures of signification 

Deconstruction aims to dismantle the structures - identifying

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