CCT210 MIDTERM

Week 1 - Semiotics: core definition

The study of signs and how meaning is produced through sign systems.

Week 1 - What counts as a sign

Words, images, sounds, gestures, smells, objects, actions, events—anything interpreted as standing for something else.

Week 1 - Classic sign formula

"Aliquid stat pro aliquo" = something stands for something else.

Week 1 - Homo significans

Humans as natural meaning-makers who live in a symbolic world.

Week 1 - Where meaning resides

Meaning is not in things; it emerges via signs that mediate reality.

Week 1 - Semiotics scope

Not only a theory of signs, but of meaning, signification, and representation.

Week 1 - Early roots (Hippocrates)

Medical "symptoms" as signs indicating underlying conditions.

Week 1 - Early roots (Augustine)

Theological/philosophical reflections on signs and interpretation.

Week 1 - Early roots (Locke)

Used "semeiotike" for the doctrine of signs within philosophy.

Week 1 - Two modern traditions

Saussure's sémiologie (social/linguistic) and Peirce's semeiotic (logical/philosophical).

Week 1 - Semiotics today

The umbrella term covering both Saussurean and Peircean traditions.

Week 1 - Transdisciplinarity

Applied across anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, media/cultural studies.

Week 1 - Relation to semantics

Semiotics overlaps with semantics (meaning in language) but extends to all sign systems.

Week 1 - Morris's three branches (overview)

Semantics (meanings), Pragmatics (uses), Syntactics (relations among signs).

Week 1 - Semantics (Morris)

Study of the meanings of signs and sign systems.

Week 1 - Pragmatics (Morris)

Study of how signs are used in contexts and for purposes.

Week 1 - Syntactics (Morris)

Study of formal relations among signs within a system.

Week 1 - Hermeneutics link

Semiotics connects to interpretation theory: how meanings are read from signs.

Week 1 - Aesthetics link

Arts as sign systems governed by conventions and codes.

Week 1 - Structuralism (overview)

Focus on relational systems and "deep structures" of meaning (language as model).

Week 1 - Why study semiotics (practical aim)

To analyze how meaning is made and how realities are constructed/maintained.

Week 1 - Mediation principle

All experience/communication passes through signs linking mind-world-society.

Week 1 - Social constructionism

We know the world via shared cultural signs (moderate view ≈ critical realism acknowledges material reality).

Week 1 - Meaning transmission vs interpretation

Meaning isn't sent; it's actively interpreted through shared frameworks.

Week 1 - Critical payoff

Semiotics reveals how signs maintain social realities and ideologies we can question.

Week 1 - Overall takeaway

Semiotics studies how meaning is produced; it bridges philosophy, linguistics, culture; it exposes the "natural" as constructed.

Week 2 - Ch1 Models: what a sign is

A sign has a material sign-vehicle and becomes a sign only when interpreted; signs are relational.

Week 2 - Semiotic triangle

Relates sign vehicle ↔ concept ↔ referent; meaning arises from the triad.

Week 2 - Saussure's dyadic model

Signifier (form) + Signified (concept); link is arbitrary; meaning from systemic differences.

Week 2 - Langue vs parole (Saussure)

Langue = system/code; parole = individual utterance/use.

Week 2 - Peirce's triadic model

Representamen (form) + Object (referent) + Interpretant (sense/effect in the mind).

Week 2 - Semiosis (Peirce)

Endless chain where interpretants become new signs (ongoing interpretation).

Week 2 - Icon (Peirce)

Sign by resemblance (e.g., portrait, diagram).

Week 2 - Index (Peirce)

Sign by causal/physical connection (e.g., smoke → fire).

Week 2 - Symbol (Peirce)

Sign by conventional/arbitrary rules (e.g., words, traffic lights).

Week 2 - Jakobson's 6 functions (overview)

Referential, Emotive, Conative, Phatic, Metalingual, Poetic—dependent on context, code, contact, addresser/addressee.

Week 2 - Jakobson: Referential function

Conveys information about a context or referent ("facts").

Week 2 - Jakobson: Emotive function

Expresses speaker attitude/affect ("wow!", tone).

Week 2 - Jakobson: Conative function

Orients toward receiver (commands, vocatives).

Week 2 - Jakobson: Phatic function

Maintains channel/contact (small talk, "you there?").

Week 2 - Jakobson: Metalingual function

Talk about the code itself (definitions, grammar).

Week 2 - Jakobson: Poetic function

Focus on message form (style, pattern, rhyme).

Week 2 - Mixed sign modes

Most signs blend iconic, indexical, symbolic aspects (e.g., photography: index + icon).

Week 2 - Hjelmslev's contribution

Emphasized relational forms (expression/content) and the materiality of the sign.

Week 2 - Models overall insight

Meaning is constructed through systems of difference and interpretation; different models highlight different mechanisms.

Week 2 - Ch7 Perspectives: Structuralist semiotics

Explains signs via underlying systems/binary oppositions; meaning is relational within structures.

Week 2 - Ch7: Post-structuralist turn

Challenges fixed structures; meaning is unstable, contextual, tied to power.

Week 2 - Ch7: Social semiotics

Analyzes signs in social practice: production, audiences, power/ideology shaping "common sense."

Week 2 - Ch7: Bourdieu and classification

Classifications (gender, space, taste) encode worldviews and social order.

Week 2 - Ch7: Cognitive semiotics

Links sign use to perception, embodiment, mental processes.

Week 2 - Ch7: Ecological semiotics

Emphasizes multimodality and mind-body-environment interaction in meaning.

Week 2 - Ch7 key takeaway

Semiotics evolved from language-centric structuralism to a broad, critical, interdisciplinary study of culture, society, and mind.

Week 3 - Ch3 Structures: definition

Structures = patterned relations among signifying units; meaning from positions in the system.

Week 3 - Syntagmatic axis

Horizontal combinations in sequence (in praesentia) e.g., word order in a sentence, shots in film.

Week 3 - Paradigmatic axis

Vertical sets of substitutions (in absentia) e.g., choose "cried/laughed/sang."

Week 3 - Value from both axes

A sign's meaning depends on its role in combinations and contrasts.

Week 3 - Binary oppositions (Lévi-Strauss)

Cultural systems generate meaning via paired opposites (nature/culture, raw/cooked).

Week 3 - Jakobson on oppositions

Oppositions are dynamic, not rigid; can transform/overlap.

Week 3 - Bourdieu's "master binary"

Gender as an organizing opposition structuring perception (strong/weak, high/low, etc.).

Week 3 - Spatial structures in images

Top/bottom, left/right, center/margin map power and value; composition guides interpretation.

Week 3 - Goffman (ads)

Men often depicted higher than women → visualizes social dominance.

Week 3 - Kress & van Leeuwen

Image grammar analyzes compositional oppositions as meaning resources.

Week 3 - Narrative as syntagm

Narratives sequence functions/events (Propp: hero departs, trials, return).

Week 3 - Metz's filmic syntagms

Eight key units structuring film sequences (scene, sequence, shot types).

Week 3 - Classic narrative arc

Equilibrium → disruption → new equilibrium (closure "naturalizes" meanings).

Week 3 - Ideology & closure

Closure resolves conflict to stabilize dominant meanings (Hodge & Kress).

Week 3 - Ch3 key takeaway

Structures (syntagm/paradigm/oppositions) organize meaning in language, images, myths, narratives.

Week 4 - Ch2 Realities: language as system

Saussure: focus on langue (system) over isolated signs; meaning from internal relations.

Week 4 - Arbitrariness

No natural bond between word and thing; different languages carve reality differently.

Week 4 - Linguistic diversity

Concepts vary cross-linguistically; translation gaps reflect different value systems.

Week 4 - Saussure's "valeur"

Meaning (value) depends on a sign's position/contrast within the system (chess analogy).

Week 4 - Systemic meaning vs reference

Meaning is differential/systemic, not a mirror of objects in the world.

Week 4 - Langue vs parole focus

Semiotics studies the shared code (langue) because it structures possible meanings.

Week 4 - Ch2 key takeaway

Meaning is produced by systemic differences within sign systems, not by direct reference.

Week 5 - Ch4 Codes: definition

A code is a socially shared set of conventions/rules organizing signs into meaningful messages.

Week 5 - Code vs message (Jakobson)

Code = system of conventions; message = particular utterance using the code.

Week 5 - Why codes matter

Communication works only when encoder/decoder share enough of the code.

Week 5 - Decoding is active

Readers use cognition and prior knowledge; texts aren't meaningful by themselves.

Week 5 - Codes are social

Codes arise from, and operate within, shared cultural understandings.

Week 5 - Culture as systems of codes

A culture can be seen as "a system of sign systems."

Week 5 - Social codes examples

Verbal (phonology/syntax/lexis/prosody), bodily (gesture/gaze/posture/proxemics), commodity (fashion/objects), behavioral (rituals/etiquette/games).

Week 5 - Textual codes examples

Scientific notation, aesthetic movements, genre/stylistic/rhetorical rules, mass-media conventions.

Week 5 - Interpretive codes examples

Perceptual habits; ideological frames (liberalism, feminism, racism, materialism, capitalism).

Week 5 - Limits of "code" notion

Not all meaning is rule-governed; people bend/mix codes; agency/creativity matter.

Week 5 - Ch4 key takeaway

Codes enable shared meaning but context, ideology, and interpretation shape how messages are understood.

Week 6 - Ch5 Ways of meaning: pivot

Meaning emerges in interaction between texts and readers, not inside texts alone.

Week 6 - "Meaning exists only in communication"

Urban (1939): meaning isn't prior to communication; it is produced through it.

Week 6 - Hall's three readings

Dominant (accept), Negotiated (adapt), Oppositional (resist) decoding positions.

Week 6 - Aberrant decoding (Eco)

Readings that diverge from the producer's intended code.

Week 6 - Barthes on the reader

Readers co-produce meaning; texts are open (polysemy).

Week 6 - Realism and ideology

Realistic forms feel "transparent" but naturalize dominant ideologies and subject positions.

Week 6 - Genre as positioning

Genres cue expectations and carry ideological values that shape interpretation.

Week 6 - Modes of address

Texts assume relations with audiences (tone/register/visual address) that construct identities and power relations.

Week 6 - Intertextuality

All texts echo/transform other texts; meaning circulates through networks of references.

Week 6 - "Life imitates art"

Media representations shape how we perceive and live reality.

Week 6 - Ch5 key takeaway

Meaning is interactive, social, and ideological; audiences can accept, negotiate, or resist.

Week 7 - Ch6 Interactions: why context

Context is indispensable; code alone can't determine meaning.

Week 7 - Idiolect and adaptation

Each person's idiolect requires ongoing interpretation to achieve understanding.

Week 7 - Code + context (Jakobson)

Both systemic conventions and situational factors co-determine meaning.

Week 7 - "Duck" example

Same sign can mean bird or action—context disambiguates.