Sunday, July 12, 2015

semiotics


Earlier I read, "Symbols mean something" referring to the Confederate flag and my eyes glazed right over. I mean it. Skip, skip, skip, down to the part where that person stops talking. What could they possibly have said to enhance that? To fill it out? My eyes demanded, "don't bother us!" And just stopped reading.

It was awesome.

If we understand the language and can spill back the buzzwords appropriately then we demonstrate mastery and get an A grade. Convincingly enough. Maybe it's just a great way to fake it.

First the hard terms and you'll see how easy it is. We're going to so nail this.

* Paradigmatic relations, signs get meaning from other signs. Oh man, does this ever happen in ASL all over. It's how we make up new stuff. Some things will not make sense without the other symbols and symbol system. Like "world" is two Ws, tapping one atop the other, rotating as twin planets might do, tapping again to finish a rotation. That is the one where Geraldo laughed so hard when I did it backwards and I still don't see any difference. But now "globe" or "global" can do the same thing with "Gs" and earth with "Es" probably even "Ts" for terrestrial if you wanted to push it. And many other similar things, like male/female all the relatives you know the sex of cousins due to the system, words for "crime" "steal" "pilfer" and such are all underhanded and snatching.

* Syntagmatic relations, signs get meaning from their order. Like Burma Shave, Burma Shave, Burma Shave, Burma shave Boom the END is near.

* Myths, paradigms and syntagms that make an elaborate story. See? Use their language to explain a thing more easily explained without their language.  "A" for you.

* Codes, in semiotics, codes are a combination of semiotic systems that form our attitudes, our beliefs about ourselves and other, our values. This is important politically because it implies ideas about how the world should be. Codes are the places where social structure, values, and semiotics intersect, that is, pretty much everywhere.

This is made apparent to me at Dinosaur Ridge and it is this exact thing right here that what was blowing my mind so bad I could hardly stand it. Many more people to serve changes everything. Things must be organized for the physical space to be used best. Things besides the place have changed since then too that bear on the issue of not having real fun. Now there are climbing facilities built specifically for this type of activity. Now it's indoors and controlled. The risks we took were amazing and unacceptable. All of us took those same risks. People did die climbing around. And now there are a lot more. So now, they have well established paths and solid barriers that are more than mere suggestion that take visitors well away from the outcroppings, not closer to them and the space between the "you will walk here" established path and the rocks is filled with life that is not possible when disturbed as we did. The semiotics are warning about snakes that are not there, imperatives to turn in anyone seen "collecting." Values changed. The signs changed. There are a lot more signs now. A lot of public semiotics being driven.

Ideologies, Here we are, the point of the whole thing, in semiotics ideologies are codes that reinforce structures of power, "watch out for the snakes," "no collecting," "turn in collectors," "sea foam made these impressions," (you need us to tell you these things) "don't climb the fence," "no automobiles," all say that this place is now for cyclists and hikers not motorists, for viewing, not for climbing, for being in presence of, not for exploring. And if you do explore then stick to the path. The environment is delicate. Very delicate. Extremely exceedingly delicate. "Mind the erosion in progress!"

The simple ones are:

* signifier, a sign
* signified, the idea the sign refers to
* iconic signs, the sign resembles the thing
* indexical signs, signifier is caused by the signified, smoke/fire
* denotation, most basic kind, a word that specifies
* connotation, secondary meaning, smoke/sexual hotness
* metonymy, ding ding ding, what was that alarm? A type of connotation where a sign is substituted for another that is is closely associated for whatever reason right or wrong or however misinformed.
* synecdoche, ding ding ding, shut up already. In semiotics, a kind of connotation where part is substituted for the whole, like the joke about carrying six packs.


That's it. This is what they teach in colleges today? We are now all A students of semiotics. Living it, we bring so much to the class.

AVM.edu University Vermont

1 comment:

bagoh20 said...

Semiotics? Isn't that the study of half-truths?