Thursday April 11


We do not see the world, rather we are taught by representations of the world about us to conceive of it in a culturally acceptable manner.

Sander Gillman


What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare


We don't just borrow words; on occasion English has pursued other languages down alley ways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.James D. Nicoll


Today: Making meaning

Key words: linguistic relativity, semiotics, sign, signifier, signified, denote, connote

Language

o Lived experience, identity, window into cultures

o Can be used to support existing ideological structures.(see Althusser)

o Hegemonic model: ruling classes are able to rule by ideas and culture rather than by force. Rule by consent.

Ideology & media

o Media communicate ideas

o Media represent outside reality

o All texts are produced by people

o All people who produce them have different view points

o All texts present a point of view

o Audiences make sense (meanings) w/in existing knowledge

o All media are owned by somebody

Linguistic relativity

o Elements of culture

o Words

o Images

o Objects

Semiotics/Semiology (see Barthes)

o Study of signs and the way they work

o Language, images, written material, objects

3 Main Areas of study

1. Sign itself

-Form (signifier)

-Refers (signified)

-Recognized

Includes:

Visual Signs

Gestures

Dress codes

Traffic signs

Newspapers

TV programs

Relationships established by language & imagery

 

2. Codes/systems into which signs are organized (rules)

-Encoded

-Text is structure

3. Context

o Cultural relativity

C H U R C H

o The word

o Signs take the place of the actual object; meaning

o Signifier + signified= sign

o Cross + death = church

o polysemic

 

C A T (signifer & sign)

o Recognized by what it is and

o By what it's not:

&endash; Bat

&endash; Rat

&endash; Flat

o Letters /marks =

o Concept = signified

o Real cat? Mental related to real

o Feed the cat

Elements in media have:

o Dennotative-label something

o Connotative meanings-extra associations

o Myth (Barthes)