Semiotics

Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of how symbols acquire and develop their meanings, this process of acquisition is called Semiosis (Hamel, 2011). This field is multidisciplinary and brings together the study of culture, linguistics, visual communications as well as history and philosophy. Semiology was  defined by Swiss philosopher and linguistic Ferdinand Da Saussure in 1916 as the study of the “life of signs within social life” (Anon., 2020); before this semiology had actually been used to describe a branch of medical research relating to physical symptoms, laboratory and somatic signs as early as 1839 and prior to that in 1641 it was used by J. Wilkens to describe a type of ‘sign-language’ and the interpretation of gestures in his book Mercury : or the Secret and Swift Messenger: Shewing How a Man May With Privacy and Speed Communicate His Thoughts To a Friend at Any Distance (Anon., 2020).

The word ‘semiology’ can be split into semiotics + -ology; Semiotics comes from Greek root word ‘Semeion (Adj).’ meaning a sign or a mark derived from the base ‘Semaino (V)’ meaning to signify or indicate (Anon., n.d.) (Anon., n.d.) which also informed the development of French adjective ‘Sémantique’ which was applied to the study of linguistics by Michel Bréal in 1883 to describe the investigation of meaning in language (Anon., n.d.). The -o/logy suffix signifies the study or scientific knowledge of a subject; so, in this case, Semiology can be broken down into the study and knowledge of the acquisition of meaning and the communicative intentions of signs and visual signifiers.

Saussure’s model of semiotics is bilateral, it considers what he identified as “concept” and “sound image” meaning the sign itself and the verbal communication. Philosopher Charles Peirce’s theory of semiotics proposed a triadic structure which takes into account the representamen or the form that the sign takes, the interpretant which is the immaterial imprint left on the psyche by the representamen and finally the object- that which the sign is representing or communicating (Anon., n.d.). The French philosopher, semiologist and literary academic Roland Barthes developed his own theory of semiotics which really is an extension of the latter two theories in which he identified four main components: “I. Language and Speech. II. Signified and Signifier. III. Syntagm and System. IV. Denotation and Connotation.” (Barthes, 1964). Language and speech are not interchangeable here, language refers not just to verbal communication but also body and visual language- we have to consider not just what one individual symbol means but how it exists in relation to other symbols and other modes of communication. Consider the dialect of the place that the symbol exists or originated from; consider what the symbol is trying to communicate- if or how that message could be translated verbally and consider why the maker/marker decided to communicate in a visual mode (Barthes, 1964). ‘Signifier’ here refers to the investigation of the sign itself- are there any parts that have a direct translation to verbal language (significant units). Are there any components without (distinctive units)? The signified is what the sign stands for; “The signified is the information received by the viewer in communication.” (Thipphawong, 2021). Saussure’s semiotic theory in its most basic form can be broken down into signifier and signified where content is the signifier and verbal communication.

Syntagm is the combination of signifiers and can contain ‘smaller’ syntagms (Chandler, n.d.), as mentioned above, symbols can act as visual languages and can be used in combination to carry different  meanings; for example, written languages. Each combination of characters (signifier) carries an entirely different meaning (signified). One word is one syntagm that acts in combination with other words to form a sentence or ‘larger’ syntagms that have a more developed meaning. Denotation and connotation refer respectively to the literal and abstract meaning of words.

Similar to semiology, Iconography is the study of symbols and their meanings. The word Iconography is derived from the Greek noun ‘Ikon’ which means ‘image’ which narrowed by around the seventh century to be the name given to images depicting Christ in the Greek Orthodox Church; eventually ‘icon’ became used to describe images, objects and even people with some ‘special’ quality that they are ascribed. (Anon., n.d.)In Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology Donald Preziosi describes how Erwin Panofsky, influential German art historian and iconologist , believed that a certain “ideal set of procedures” (Preziosi, 1998) needed to be undertaken for meaning to be ascribed to something. Panofsky uses the analogy of hat-tipping in polite society- the action is understood as a polite and proper display of display of respect and acknowledgement but how  did this action become synonymous with respect? Here lies the difference between Iconography and Semiology- Iconography deals with the meanings ascribed to symbols whereas semiology deals with how  the item acquired this meaning.

Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson argue that “Human culture is made up of signs, each which stands for something other than itself, and the people inhabiting culture busy themselves making sense of those signs” (Bal & Bryson, 1991) which suggests, sensibly, that social culture is made up of observing and decoding signs and thus that semiology is a fundamental part of the human experience. Bal and Bryson state that “Art is one such arena…that semiotics has something to offer to” (Bal & Bryson, 1991) and insists that semiotics and art history have been co-morbid long before either concept officially existed (Bal & Bryson, 1991). It is important to note in quotation from William Pencak that “while historical study is inherently semiotic- the historian selects and collects signs to tell a story or make a point” (Pencak, 1995). Artists by nature work with visual and pictorial signs and often work according to rules or standards of a visual language, (Ferreira, 2007) it is the role of art historians to decode the signs and marks within a piece and to investigate the construction of the work as an arrangement of signs in order to understand what they are communicating.

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