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SOME BASICS ABOUT LANGUAGE
AND LINGUISTICS
• Language is a means of communication between
human beings (and possibly animals (Sebeok 1972))
and the study of languages is called Linguistics.
The components of language:
 Verbal – relating to speech, sounds or phonetics
 Written – relating to the written representation
of sounds and words
• Linguistics studies the structures and relationships of
these different components in order to understand
the construction and origins of languages.

“Semiotics is concerned with
everything that can be taken as a
sign. “
Umberto Eco

• Semiotics is the study of
signs and signification.

• Developed from studies of language
and logic
 Ferdinand de Saussure (Switzerland)
 Charles Sanders Pierce (America)

Sausurre
• Explored signs in relation to language
• Construction of signs and their meaning rather
than the structures of specific languages
 Signifier – the physical element, the actual spoken
or written word
 Signified – the mental concept, the idea of the sign
 Assigned by time, convention and practice
 Relational and depends on its difference from
other words

• Semiology
 langue – the system of signifier/signified,
or linguistic signs
 parole – the practical application of the
system within a specific language, or act of
speech

Pierce
• Explored the sign within the broader
context of:
 Ontology – study of pure being and the
essence of things
 Phenomenology – study of experiencing
phenomena in the world

Three Elements to the Sign
• Representamen – the sign itself (i.e. a word)
• Object – to which the representamen refers to
• Interpretant – the sense of the thing which
links the other two

Semiosis – the
interaction of those
three components;
the interptetant can
be a representamen
to another sign
leading to another
sign leading to a
potentially infinite
cycle.

• Identified different states or stages of the
object and interpretent
 Symbolic, iconic, and indexical – can be
understood on a scale of arbitrariness or
conventionality
• Developed a typology of signs based on the
different modes of relationship between
the components of the triad

• Symbolic mode – arbitrary signs, no intrinsic
relationship between the elements of the sign
• Indexical mode – signs in which there is a direct
connection or genuine relationship between the
representamen/signifier and
interpretant/signified
• Iconic mode – signs which owe their connection
to the object through some resemblance
between representamen/signifier and
interpretant/signified

An Allegory
with Venus
and Cupid,
Bronzino.

“…a nude Venus with Cupid kissing her, and on one side Pleasure
and Play with other Loves; and on the other, Fraud, Jealousy,
and other passions of love. Venus and Cupid are identifiable by
their attributes, as is the old man with wings and an hourglass
who must be Time (not mentioned by Vasari). The identity of
the other figures, and the meaning of the picture remain
uncertain.
The howling figure on the left has been variously interpreted as
Jealousy, Despair and the effects of syphilis; the boy scattering
roses and stepping on a thorn as Jest, Folly and Pleasure; the
hybrid creature with the face of a girl, as Pleasure and Fraud;
and the figure in the top left corner as Fraud and Oblivion.”
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bronzino-an-allegory-with-venus-and-cupid

A. The Basic Semiotic Plane
- covers the elements and
general, technical, and physical
aspects of the work

B. The Iconic Plane or the Image
Itself
- includes the choice of the subject
which may bear social and political
implications

C. The Contextual Plane
-the viewer draws out the dialogue
relationship between art and society
resituating the work in its context

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Semiotics

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