Semiotics Concept And Examples
Semiotics is an examination concerning how meaning is derived and how it is conveyed. Its origins lie in the academic study of how signs and images (visual and linguistic) derive meaning. Specifically, they impart the things that are spoken as well as unspoken. In other words, semiotics is the translation of signs and images that disentangles those subconscious perceptions. It is a method of seeing the world, and of comprehending how the landscape and culture where we live massively affects all of us unknowingly.
Signs are all around us. Consider the symbols of men and women placed outside the restaurant washrooms or think about a set of combined faucets in a washroom or kitchen. The left side is likely for the hot water tap and the right one is the cold.
Example of Semiotics
Basic examples of semiotics incorporate traffic signs, emojis used in electronic communication, and logos and brands used by worldwide partnerships to sell us things — “brand loyalty,” they call it.
Our actions and thought process — what we do naturally — are regularly administered by an unpredictable set of social messages and conventions that are dependent upon our capacity to decipher them instinctually and quickly.
For example, when we see the various colours of a traffic signal, we consequently realize how to respond to them. We know this without contemplating it. In any case, this is a sign which has been set up by social convention over a significant stretch of time and which we learn as kids, and requires an arrangement of oblivious cultural knowledge to comprehend its meaning. Viewing and deciphering (or decoding) this sign empowers us to explore the landscape of our roads and society.
Signs are not only visual — they can be aural or sonic signs as well, for example, the sound of a police/ambulance siren, typically heard before the vehicle is seen.
We know for example that the following sign in the West means all is well and ‘OK’. This can be gone back to its supposed use by Roman emperors to signal whether a warrior would live (thus be OK). Its converse — thumbs down — implied death. But, in scuba jumping this sign means go up to the surface, and by the roadside, it implies you need to hitch a ride. In other words, we have to comprehend the setting wherein a sign is conveyed so as to fathom its genuine meaning, and consequently act suitably. What is happening around the sign is for the most part as significant for us to know as the sign itself so as to decipher its meaning.
Semiotics began as an academic study of the meaning of words (semantics/linguistics), it moved into looking at individuals’ behaviour (anthropology and psychology), then developed to become an enquiry into culture and society (sociology and philosophy), after that it moved onto helping with investigations of cultural products (films, literature, art, craft — basic hypothesis), and lastly, more recently, it turned into a technique for exploring and dissecting customer behaviour and brand communications.
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