ENG 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Peace Symbols, Semiotics, Shaka
13 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Study of signs: semioics refers to cultural symbols-both visual and textual. Peace sign, thumbs, shaka, black cowboy hat, snake, colours, etc. Audiences who are unfamiliar with the meaning encoded in the act are likely to miss the cultural signiicance of that paricular gesture and the emoional depth embedded in that sense. So semioics is the study of a system of signs that invesigates how symbolic meanings are created and transmited through the use of words, concepts, images and so on. Is it from a movie, a book, a poliical forum?) Context (what cultural, poliical, historical context was it created under). Decoding: to read a sign is to break a paricular code (to decode), to extract meaning from signs using your knowledge, not just being grammaically appropriate but culturally appropriate. You have to know the informal, unspoken, cultural context surrounding sings, to be part of interpreive community.
