1 2 SEMIOTICS 3 4 THE BASICS 5 6 7 8222 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Following the success of the first edition, Semiotics: the Basics has 8 been revised to include new material on the development of semi- 9 otics from Saussure to contemporary socio-semiotics. This second 20 edition is fully updated with an extended index, glossary, and further 1222 reading section. Using jargon-free language and lively up-to-date 2 examples, this book demystifies this highly interdisciplinary subject 3 and addresses questions such as: 4 5 • What is a sign? 6 • Which codes do we take for granted? 7 • What is a text? 8 • How can semiotics be used in textual analysis? 9 • Who are Saussure, Peirce, Barthes and Jakobson – and why 30 are they important? 1 2 The new edition of Semiotics: the Basics provides an interesting and 3 accessible introduction to this field of study, and is a must-have for 4 anyone coming to semiotics for the first time. 5 6 Daniel Chandler is a Lecturer in the department of Theatre, Film 7222 and Television Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. ALSO AVAILABLE FROM ROUTLEDGE LANGUAGE: THE BASICS (SECOND EDITION) R. L. TRASK PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: THE KEY CONCEPTS JOHN FIELD KEY CONCEPTS IN LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS R.L. TRASK THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO SEMIOTICS AND LINGUISTICS PAUL COBLEY COMMUNICATION, CULTURE AND MEDIA STUDIES: THE KEY CONCEPTS JOHN HARTLEY 1 2 SEMIOTICS 3 4 5 6 THE BASICS 7 8222 9 SECOND EDITION 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1222 Daniel Chandler 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7222 First published 2002 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Reprinted 2002, 2004 (twice), 2005 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Second edition 2007 © 2002, 2007 Daniel Chandler The author has asserted his moral rights in relation to this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: the basics/Daniel Chandler. – 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Semiotics. I. Title. P99.C463 2007 302.2–dc22 2006024738 ISBN 0–203–01493–6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–36376–4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–36375–6 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–01493–6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–36376–1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–36375–4 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–01493–6 (ebk) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 For Jem 8222 9 10 1 ‘The subtlety of nature is greater many times 2 over than the subtlety of argument’ 3 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum 4 (1620) Aphorism XXIV 5 6 7 8 9 20 1222 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7222 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8222 CONTENTS 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1222 List of illustrations xi 2 Preface xiii 3 Acknowledgements xvii 4 5 Introduction 1 6 Definitions 2 7 Relation to linguistics 5 8 Langue and parole 8 9 Why study semiotics? 10 30 1 Models of the sign 13 1 The Saussurean model 14 2 Two sides of a page 17 3 The relational system 18 4 Arbitrariness 22 5 The Peircean model 29 6 Relativity 35 7222 Symbolic mode 38 viii CONTENTS Iconic mode 40 Indexical mode 42 Modes not types 44 Changing relations 45 Digital and analogue 47 Types and tokens 49 Rematerializing the sign 51 Hjelmslev’s framework 56 2 Signs and things 59 Naming things 60 Referentiality 62 Modality 64 The word is not the thing 69 Empty signifiers 78 3 Analysing structures 83 Horizontal and vertical axes 83 The paradigmatic dimension 87 The commutation test 88 Oppositions 90 Markedness 93 Deconstruction 99 Alignment 100 The semiotic square 106 The syntagmatic dimension 109 Spatial relations 110 Sequential relations 114 Structural reduction115 4 Challenging the literal 123 Rhetorical tropes 123 Metaphor 126 Metonymy 129 Synecdoche 132 Irony 134 Master tropes 136 Denotation and connotation 137 Myth 143 CONTENTS ix 1 5 Codes 147 2 Types of codes 148 3 Perceptual codes 151 4 Social codes 153 5 Textual codes 157 6 Codes of realism 160 7 Invisible editing 165 8222 Broadcast and narrowcast codes 170 9 Interaction of textual codes 171 Codification171 10 1 6 Textual interactions 175 2 Models of communication 175 3 The positioning of the subject 186 4 Modes of address 190 5 Reading positions 194 6 Intertextuality 197 7 Problematizing authorship 198 8 Reading as rewriting 200 9 No text is an island 201 20 Intratextuality 203 1222 Bricolage 205 2 Types and degrees of intertextuality 206 3 7 Prospect and retrospect 211 4 Structuralist semiotics 212 5 Poststructuralist semiotics 217 6 Methodologies 221 7 An ecological and multimodal approach 223 8 9 Appendix: key figures and schools 227 30 Going further 235 1 Glossary 243 2 Bibliography 265 3 Index 293 4 5 6 7222 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8222 ILLUSTRATIONS 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1222 1.1 Saussure’s model of the sign14 2 1.2 Concept and sound pattern 15 3 1.3 Planes of thought and sound 18 4 1.4 The relations between signs 20 5 1.5 Peirce’s semiotic triangle 30 6 1.6 Peirce’s successive interpretants 32 7 1.7 Substance and form 57 8 3.1 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes 84 9 3.2 Paradigm set for shot size 89 30 3.3 Markedness of some explicit oppositions in 1 online texts 97 2 3.4 The semiotic square 107 3 3.5 Little Red Riding Hood 118 4 4.1 Substitution in tropes 125 5 4.2 The four ‘master tropes’ as a semiotic square 136 6 4.3 Orders of signification 140 7222 4.4 Some connotations of particular fonts 141 xii ILLUSTRATIONS 6.1 Pictorial plaque on Pioneer 10 spacecraft (1972) 176 6.2 Saussure’s speech circuit 179 6.3 Jakobson’s model of communication 181 6.4 Jakobson’s six functions of language 184 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8222 PREFACE 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1222 The first version of this book was written in 1994 as an online hyper- 2 text document. No comparable introductory text on the subject was 3 available at the time so I rashly attempted to create one which suited 4 my own purposes and those of my media studies students. It was 5 partly a way of advancing and clarifying my own understanding of 6 the subject. Like many other readers driven by a fascination with 7 meaning-making, my forays into semiotics had been frustrated by 8 many of the existing books on the subject which seemed to make it 9 confusing, dull and deeply obscure. So much of what is written about 30 semiotics is written as if to keep out those who are not already 1 ‘members of the club’. This text is intended to be a ‘reader’s 2 companion’ in approaching more difficult semiotic texts, which so 3 often assume knowledge of much of the jargon. 4 One of the things that attracted me to semiotics was the way 5 in which it supports my own enjoyment of crossing the ‘boundaries’ 6 of academic disciplines, and of making connections between appar- 7222 ently disparate phenomena. However, I am not a polymath, so there xiv PREFACE are inevitably many subjects which are neglected here. In this text I have confined myself to human semiosis, so that this is not the place to find an introduction to such branches of semiotics as zoosemi- otics (the study of the behaviour and communication of animals) or biosemiotics (the study of the semiotics of biology and of the biolog- ical basis of signs). My focus is on the humanities and so there is no mathematical or computer semiotics here either. Even within the humanities, I did not feel competent to cover topics such as musical or architectural semiotics. I know that students of some of these subjects are among those who have consulted the text, which lends me some hope that they will find the exploration of general princi- ples of some relevance to their own priorities. To support the needs of such readers, the current edition does include suggestions for further reading in some of the subject areas not explicitly covered within the text. The exclusion of certain subjects is not, of course, to suggest that they are any less important to the semiotic enterprise. The unavoidable selectivity of the text invites the productivity of the reader in its deconstruction. Driven by their own purposes, readers will no doubt be alert to ‘what is conspicuous by its absence’.