Thursday, June 23, 2011

WEEK 2 : What is TEXT in SEMIOTICS?

We're a week late from posting. Sorry about that. As stated in the class, lecturer had given us a task in seeking what is text in semiotic and what does text in media meant.

Based on wikipedia semiotics, also called semiotic studies or (in the Saussurean tradition) semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphorsymbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically.

In the modern days,
It represents a methodology for the analysis of texts regardless of modality. For these purposes, "text" is any message preserved in a form whose existence is independent of both sender and receiver.

Therefore, in my opinion, 'text' is a medium containing a sign within and a approach of semiotics is to explain or interpret it as a phenomenon of language. For methodological purposes they are divided into three general approaches according to their definition of the text and the character of its connection with meaning.

The first approach is immanentism. The relations and hierarchy of elements and levels are thought of as immanent, that is real and existing before and independently of any analytical procedure. The audience or analyst can only reveal that which is contained in the text.

The second approach can be called would be intertextualism. Attention is transferred to the relationship between texts.The elements constituting a particular text are thought of as borrowed from and referring to other texts.

The third approach concerns the investigation of semiosisthe, which consists of the problem of arising sign structures from certain non-sign or pre-sign reality.

So what do you think text meant in semitotics? Are they signs? Or a message medium? Or it's something else?

-KooKooZai

5 comments:

  1. In ours life , Semiotics is everywhere, of course text can be a part of semiotics also , for example , we still can see some famous logo which is design base on text,like Mcdonald,KFC and many more.

    at other hand , text also is a form which used to deliver the message to other people , but some of the text can effect each other completely.

    we also can say that , Typography also is a kind of semiotic because different of combination of text can create different type of feeling & message to audience .

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  2. Like Kong said, some famous logo design base on text. For example, In alphabet from A-Z, when we said " A for what", I think 99.999% people will answer Apple, another example, when we rate something, usually A is for the Best/Good product

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  3. Semiotics is the study of signs, in which a sign is more or less acknowledged as anything that has a meaning. Text plays a very important role in representing indications. For instance, the outline or shape of a text or known as typography represents a certain feel. Different types of texts or typography are able to illustrate many meanings. Example, curvier texts are mostly used to represent certain types of mood such as romance. Bold texts are usually used to highlight or aware viewers on a certain issue; this can be seen on newspaper headlines. However there are many types of meanings that can be interpreted behind each text. Therefore, text does play an important role and it is a form of sign.

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  4. Based on the post above, the three general approaches according to the definition of the text and the character with its meaning are immanentism,intertextualism and investigation of semiosisthe. The theory is logically made as which it tries to explain it as a phenomenon of language. In the everyday use of languages, text sign in communication always imply a receiver of the text, and text we make are often responses to prior text made by someone else. In short, what we say and mean is part of an ongoing communication in our daily life.

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  5. in my opinion, text in semiotics may refer to sign, and the meaning that reach interpreter's mind would be the index.What we say does not mean exactly. For example, when i say Coke light, people may think it glows? it very light? or it a table lamp or something else? but in reality, it is a metaphor, coke light means it is low in sugar.

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