In our last class, I introduced to semiotics and I though it was rather confusing so I decided to rewrite what I learned about it as a blog to try and make some sense out of it.
Semotics is the study of signs, and signs are anything that could be used to tell a lie, or make meaning. Signs have two aspects, the signifier and the signified. The signifier is any material that is signified, for example, a picture, words, or pretty much any and everything you see on the page. Signified is the concept it’s being referred to, so imagine looking at a picture and the caption underneath. The caption would be the signifier and the concept of the picture would be the signified. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is denotation, which is the the dictionary definition of the sign. Then you have the connotation which is a signifier for something that is already signified. An example in class, was a picture of a rose, and the a picture of the caption, rose. The caption was a signifier, but was also signified in the sense that it is also a picture. These signs are used all the time for advertising, with the goal in mind to say very little and still carry a powerful meaning.
