Intro to Communication

Dr. P.M.G. Verstraete

WEEK 8
Signification:

Denotation / Connotation
 Signification

Recap last week:

arbitrary vs
conventional codes
(aesthetic codes)

conventionalisation

cultural membership
 Arbitrary vs Conventional
Codes

Arbitrary Code
= simply defined, and easily understood; where the
agreement among the users is explicit and defined;
with a stated and agreed relationship between
signifiers and signifieds

= symbolic, denotative, impersonal, and static

 Arbitrary vs Conventional
Codes
 Arbitrary codes have a defined, limited paradigm of signifiers with a
precisely related paradigm of signifieds. They emphasize denotative
meaning. They are simply defined and easily understood.

Arbitrary codes are static and can only change by explicit agreement amongst the users.

They are closed: meaning within the text, not much negotiation, you need to know the
code

 Conventional codes have open-ended paradigms: new units can be

added; existing ones can drop out of use.

Conventional codes tend not to have an agreed paradigm of signifieds. They are thus
more dynamic and capable of change.

They are open: active negotiation from the reader

 Arbitrary vs Conventional
Codes
Aesthetic Code
(= type of conventional code)
= more varied, loosely
defined, change rapidly

 Aberrant decodings are

the norm in aesthetic
codes
 Interior, subjective world
(= emotive)
Aesthetic Codes
 Aesthetic Codes

But in art… (aesthetic/

conventional code)

R. Magritte, ‘this is not a pipe’

– it is a convention to read the painted image as a pipe
 From Art to Decoration
Conventionalisation
From Art to Decoration
 Cultural membership

 Codes and Conventions

enable us to understand our social existence and to

locate ourselves within our culture.

Only through the common codes can we feel and

express our membership of our culture.
Today’s Class

Signification = a process of negotiation between

producer/reader and text
(cf. de Saussure & Peirce)

But so far, no attention to

the cultural experience of
the producer/reader.

So: focus on Roland Barthes’

- Denotation
- Connotation: Myth
Symbol
+ Metaphor / Metonymy
 Roland Barthes

2 Orders of Signifaction
 First-Order: Second-Order:
Denotation Connotation

= associated or second meaning,

= the common-sense, hidden or deeper meaning,
obvious meaning, surface (inter)subjective meaning,
meaning of the sign
based on interaction between

 the sign
 the feelings/emotions of the
users
 the values of their culture
 Roland Barthes

DENOTATION &
CONNOTATION

Rose is just a word

The reader shapes or decodes the meaning

Rose DENOTES a red

sweet-smelling flower

Rose CONNOTES
(has connotations of)
love, passion &
romance
 Roland Barthes

This image denotes the movie star

Marilyn Monroe
 Roland Barthes

The image connotes glamour, stardom,

sexuality, beauty

If this was one of the last

photographs of Marilyn
Monroe, we may also
associate it with her
depression, drug-taking
and ultimately death
 Roland Barthes

A Movie Poster

What are the connotations of

a) The match?
b) The globe?
 Roland Barthes

Photographs (= icons)
 DENOTATIVE LEVEL: what we actually see

the mechanical reproduction on film of the object at which the

camera is pointed; what is photographed

 CONNOTATIVE LEVEL: what you associate with this

image

the selection of what to include in the frame, of focus,

aperture, camera angle, quality of film, and so on; how it is
photographed
 Roland Barthes

Connotation is largely arbitrary, specific to one culture, though it

frequently has an iconic dimension. For example: soft focus connotes
nostalgia, imprecise memory, romanticism, subjective emotion.
 Roland Barthes

Also clothes can connote…

 Roland Barthes

Second Order Signifiers:

 Myth
= a story by which a culture explains or understands some
aspect of reality or nature; a culture’s way of thinking about
something, a way of conceptualizing or understanding it

 Symbols
= something that through convention and use receives a
meaning that enables it to stand for something else (cf.
Peirce: symbol, icon, index)
 Roland Barthes

Myths
 Primitive
myths
 Modern myths
 Roland Barthes

the main way in which myths work is to naturalize

history

= the product of a social class that has achieved

dominance by a particular history

Example:
the ‘modern’ family
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
 Roland Barthes
Myths naturalize meanings.
We need to ‘demystify’ the myth.
Change in myths is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
 Roland Barthes

Myth is not universal: myth and counter-myth

 Roman Jakobson

Metaphor and Metonymy

Metaphor = to express the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar
(‘vehicle’ = the familiar, ‘tenor’ = the unfamiliar)

vehicle and tenor have enough similarity to be in the same paradigm, but
enough difference for the comparison to work

- Visual metaphors: for example, advertisements

metaphor (vehicle) stands for a product (tenor)
- Everyday metaphors: to make sense of our everyday experiences
- Literary metaphors: appear widespread, common sense ‘natural’ though they
aren’t
 Roman Jakobson
Visual metaphors
 Roman Jakobson

Metaphor and Metonymy

Metaphor = transposing qualities from one plane of reality to another (they work
paradigmatically for imaginative effect)

Metaphors are imaginative, based on association (similarity between different

planes)

Metonymy = associating meanings within the same plane (contiguity: nearness or

neighborhood); making a part stand for the whole (they work syntagmatically for
realistic effect)

cf. (visual / literary) synechdoche

Metonymy in the news = indexical (appearing as ‘natural’ index’) + based on

arbitrary selection = one-sided, incomplete picture
 Roman Jakobson

Literary metaphors (cf. figures of speech):

He was ‘drowning’ in paperwork.

As time is ‘running out’. (= now common usage, ‘dead’ metaphor)

The ham sandwich has ‘wandering hands’.

(metaphor has a metonymic basis)
Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson

Metaphor =

paradigmatic
 Roman Jakobson

Metonymy
 Roman Jakobson

Visual synechdoche as a type of

metonymy
 Roman Jakobson
All photographs are metonyms…

Myth functions in news broadcasts metonymically in that one sign stimulates

us to construct the rest of the chain of concepts that constitute a myth, just as a
metonym stimulates us to construct the whole of which it is a part.