Semiotics and Television Criticism Nick Burnett ComS 169 Feb. 8, 2006

Some Historical Notes  1900, Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist, noted that all languages are perfect systems, no one is better The word “tree” = the word “baum” = “arbre”, rightness depends on your language  A split exists between the word, the actual object…it is important to understand that they are not the same

More historical notes  At about the same time, CS Pierce, (pronounced “purse”) American, argues for a three part split…word, object, and our mental image called to mind by the word  Saussere…meanings are arbitrary  Would a rose smell as sweet? Sure!  Semiotics is the study of how connections are made, what changes them, and why that is important

Syntagms and Paradigms  Syntagms defined as a coherent sequence of signs A sentence (Jack jumped over the candlestick.) Whole story lines as in sit coms  Paradigmatic analysis looks at sets of signs and how they come to stand for something else

Applying Semiotics to Televisual Texts  In class analysis of an infomercial  Can you identify the important signs?  How does the sequencing of signs come to bring meaning?  Are there collections of signs that, taken together, mean something other than what we might at first believe them to be?