semiotics in 10 minutes

10 Minute TheoryStephen Cox - UX Australia 2009

Semiotics

Ferdinand de Saussure Linguist (French)1857 –1913

Charles Sanders Peirce Mathematician (American)1839 –1914

Claude Levi-Strauss Anthropologist (French)1908 -

Structuralists

Signified

Signifier

Sign

DOGgau

hund

Inu

canis

STRUCTURALISM

SYNTAGMATICPARADIGMATIC

MAN BITES+ DOG+Syntagmatic

MAN BITES DOG+ +WOMAN

Paradigmatic

SIGNIFIERSThe

Cabinet

The Glass

Knick Knacks

SYNTAGMATIC

International

Australian

Front door

How are they ordered?

PARADIGMATIC

What’s missing?

Where are the

Australian travel Knick

Knacks? Why were these things chosen for

the cabinet?

ANALYSISCabinet is an unconscious metaphor

Map of the perfect world where the international is kept safely behind glass

Suburbs are changing

Allows you to ask more specific questions and get better answers about why they wanted to move to a gated community.

DENOTIONCONNOTATION

July 3rd

DENOTION

September 11th

CONNOTATION

SEMIOTICS

Everything is a sign

Signs can be read

Signs exist in a structure and context

Looking at the structure of signs allows you to get to the meaning

For each text what is being said, by whom and why?

GIVE IT A GO

LEARN MORE

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