CMN 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Polysemy, Junk Food, Intertextuality
25 May 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The openness of signs to multiple meanings (and the openness of texts to multiple interpretations) Code is a helpful concept for understanding how meaning is patterned or structured. A rule-governed system of signs, whose rules and conventions are shared amongst members of a culture, and which is used to generate and circulate meanings in and for that culture - john fiske. Ex. the english language, traffic lights, fashion, technical-asthetic codes of radio, television. Codes guide our uses of signs; the meaning of a sign is structured in two dimensions: Paradigm: sign"s difference from other signs in a signifying system or code. Syntagm: sign"s combination with other signs in the same text. The process whereby signifying elements are linked together to form a sign with particular meanings in a given code. Signifier: the colour yellow, shape of the ribbon, or actual ribbon. The relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary. Meaning is produced through articulation of signifiers to signifieds.
