Signification in TV language
Semiotics:
How spoken or written words communicate meaning to the reader or listener
>The study of signs
>Also investigates if TV images work in a similar way to language
- Idioms are symbolic, they represent other more complicated things and ideas
- The signifier is the element we can see or hear, the signified is what is meant, the picture that is brought to our mind.
- Signs are never seen in isolation >paradigms, sets of signs, are organized in syntagms
- A Television text is constructed by selecting images from syntagms
- TV is a medium of moving images in combination with spoken language
- Pictures on TV consist of a moving series of iconic signifiers
->some scenes are heavily dependent on visual meaning, possibly without any dialogue at all
Moving images therefore consist of a grammar just like language.
Signification is conveyed through.....
Connotation: Denotation is the literal meaning of a signifier, Connotation is what we associate with it.
- conveys cultural attitudes, values and beliefs
- carries social judgements
Metaphor: A word or image is used symbolically to represent something else
- mostly similes
- images are often used methaphorically in TV texts
Metonomy: A word or image signifies only a part of something but represents the whole
- Bond's martini refers to his glamurous lifestyle
- Advertising tends to use stereotypical images of people metonomically
- used also in non-fiction, like documentaries (one person stands for a whole part of the population)
->Many television texts are both, metaphorical and metonomical at the same time.