This Means This, This Means That: a user's guide to semiotics - Sean Hall

This book is on the course reading list. It's a quick 'how to understand signs' book with some examples. The book tries to make the reader think about the structure that is all around us in our everyday lives; one that we don't think about and take for granted because we are too used to it. Simple examples are used to illustrate this; a traffic light for instance uses the colour scheme red, amber, green. We all know what it means. We also expect the colours to be stacked top to bottom in a certain order. There is no reason why they should be a particular colour or order but we accept that they are.

Everywhere we look signs are all around us. A sign is made up of two parts:

Signifier + Signified = Sign

To break that down:

The signifier = the form taken by the sign.

The signified = the concept the sign represents.

So, seeing smoke on the road ahead is a signifier for fire:

smoke: signifier + fire: signified = sign


At a very basic level Semiotics makes a lot of sense. When it is applied to photography too it becomes a useful tool for analysis. I do think there is a danger of the concept being built into ever more complex webs of signs that end up diluting its impact. Can we really decode the entire world around us by using semiotic signs? We use the code of language to express complex thoughts and ideas so maybe the concept is not so far fetched. The issue may be with interpreting semiotic signs. Who gets to say what sign means what? This must be subjective and prone to misinterpreation. It seems that the concept does have critics:

"Sometimes semioticians present their analyses as if they were purely objective 'scientific' accounts rather than subjective interpretations. Yet few semioticians seem to feel much need to provide empirical evidence for particular interpretations, and much semiotic analysis is loosely impressionistic and highly unsystematic (or alternatively, generates elaborate taxonomies with little evident practical application)." Chandler (2014).

The text in bold is a suspicion that I had myself. At the beginning of this book are a couple of very elaborate diagrams breaking down signs into many sub categories. I am dubious about the practical application of such taxonomies.

I need to read more deeply to be able to understand Semiotics in greater depth. Maybe I will change my mind at that time. For now, this book is good for dipping into as and when I need to remind myself about the usefulness of signs when decoding photographs.











references:

Chandler, D. 2014 [online] Accessed 19th June 2015. [Available from] http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem11.html