Media Language Theories

Charles Sanders Pierce (1931) – details that ‘we only think in signs’. Signs only represent anything when society attributes meaning to them. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as 'signifying' something - referring to or standing for something other than itself. We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions. It is this meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of the concerns of semiotics.

Charles Sanders Pierce (1931) – there are three types of sign that we use every day to create

meaning; iconic, indexical and symbolic signs.

•          Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures.

•          Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level).

•          Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags.

Did your work contain any signs?

Roland Barthes (1967) – signifier/signified – to discuss connotations that can be attributed to denotations (signs).

John Fiske (1982) - “denotation is what is photographed, connotation is how it is photographed”.

Stuart Hall (1980) – texts can be encoded by producers and meaning is decoded by audiences.