CMNS1234 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Denis Mcquail, Connotation, Denotation
28 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Structuralism and Semiotics
Structuralism
• Structuralism proposes that surface events can be explained by looking at the
underlying structures involved.
• ‘structuralism refers to the way meaning is constructed in texts, the term applying to
certain ‘structures of language’, consisting of signs, narratives or myths…semiology
is a more specific version of the general structuralist approach’ (McQuail 2010, p.
345).
Semiotics/Semiology
• semiotics, began as a method for analysing language. It is now used for analysing
how all sign systems work.
• It is concerned with meaning and with the ways in which meanings are produced and
transmitted.
• Semiology is defined as the science of signs or sign systems, which work through
certain rules and structures.
• Semiotics has three main areas of study:
- The sign itself.
- The codes or systems into which signs are organized.
- The culture within which these codes and signs operate.
• The emphasis in semiotics is ‘not so much on communication as a process, but on
communication as the generation of meaning.
• ‘In semiotics, the receiver, or reader, is seen as playing a more active role than in
most of the process models
• The reader helps to create the meaning of the text by bringing to it his or her
experience, attitudes, and emotions’
Ferdinand de Sassure
• Ferdinand de Saussure saw a sign being made up of a signified and a signifier.
• The signifier is the sign's image as we perceive it
• signified is the mental concept to which it refers.
• All messages, the sets of signs we use to communicate, ‘work on the basis of
something standing in for something else;
• This helps us see the construction involved in media messages, and reminds us that
what we are seeing is not 'reality' (although it looks very like it) but signs and
signifiers that aim to represent the real world
• Where we place the words in order affects the meaning syntagmatically.
• What we choose out of the set of possibilities on offer affects the meaning
paradigmatically.
C.S. Pierce
• C.S. Peirce is also seen as one of the founders of semiotics, the science of signs.
• signs work on the basis that the sign stands in for, or represents, something else
• Peirce believed there were three types of signifiers: symbols, icons and indexes.
Claude Levi-Strauss
• Claude Levi-Strauss extended Saussure's theory of language as a structural system
to cover all cultural processes
• Meanings are culture-specific, but the ways of making them are universal to all
human beings
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Structuralism: structuralism proposes that surface events can be explained by looking at the underlying structures involved. Structuralism refers to the way meaning is constructed in texts, the term applying to certain structures of language", consisting of signs, narratives or myths semiology is a more specific version of the general structuralist approach" (mcquail 2010, p. Semiotics/semiology: semiotics, began as a method for analysing language. It is now used for analysing how all sign systems work. The codes or systems into which signs are organized. The culture within which these codes and signs operate: the emphasis in semiotics is not so much on communication as a process, but on communication as the generation of meaning. Narratology: narrative structure produces meaning in the same way as language does. Vladimir propp: early structuralism attempted to find the universal narrative structure that propelled a culture"s myths, propp investigated russian wondertales or folk tales and found a constant narrative structure in them.
