Semiotics

Semiotics: The study of signs and signification

How do we communicate?

Roland Barthes is a French philosopher who studied semiotics as a process which allowed him to teach and communicate with people on a deeper level or that what he hoped to achieve and what he taught to others through his book, “Camera Lucida”. In this book Barthes explores the nature of photography, what sets it apart from other arts, what are its benefits and its responsibilities. He also ponders what exactly a photograph is, and what that image on a flat piece of paper really achieves.

So…. Signs….

Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, acts or objects, but such things have no inherent meaning and become signs only when we assign them with a meaning. We understand things as signs mainly unconsciously by relating them to recognizable systems of belief. It is this meaningful use of signs which is how semiotics can be used to understand how we communicate.

Now without getting to technical a sign must have both a signifier and a signified. A signifier is the physical form, for example a house is just a building but the signified is what the signifier refers to which in this case would be the house is a place for living- a home. So in this theory you can see how stereotypes could be used in signs to related to us on a deeper and unconscious level, we are trained by what we see, do and how we live to make certain associations, much like how road signs are made to be understood worldwide despite small variations in different countries.

Research:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html