Semiotics ITS PLACE IN INFORMATION SCIENCE

overview

• Definitions

• Meanings and Semiotics

• Goals

• The Role of Semiotics in IS

• History

• Modern Roots

definitions

• Semiotics is the “science of produced meanings” (Danesi, 2007).

• Semiotics applies to how people represent things in a meaningful way.

• Social context establishes the meanings that signs convey.• The meaning a word conveys in one context may

differ from the meaning a word conveys in a different context i.e. “Seminole.”

Meanings and semiotics

• Semiotics looks at how meaning is ascribed to texts (all kinds—musical scores, advertisements, narratives, paintings).

• Semiotics focuses on what information is and how it is interpreted.• This is directed related to the issue of the nature of

information.

• Anything in a culture can be a sign: text, image, building, design of a car, a hairstyle.• These signs are read and a meaning is imputed to them.• Interpretation allows us to make sense of the meanings

we encounter.

Goals of semiotics

• Semiotics seeks to explain the “how and what of signs” (Danesi, 2007).• What is the social function of signs?• What role do signs play in communication and

linguistics?

Brief history

• Hippocrates: Coined the term as a medical concept that referred to symptoms as warning ”signs” of a medical condition.

• Plato: Distinguished between physical and human made or conventional semeions.

• Aristotle disputed Plato’s notion that words reflect innate forms—he believed that words were simply a practical means of identifying things.

• Plato’s method is referred to as a “mentalist” perspective while Aristotle’s process of reasoning is empirical.

Semiotics in medieval thought

• Roger Bacon: (13th c.) • Developed the first typology or classification of signs.

• Poinsot: (17th c.)• Noted as particularly important in the development of sign

theory. • Poinsot believed that signs function as an intermediary

between thoughts and things.

• John Locke: (18th c.) • Adopted Poinsot’s notion and proposed a formal study of signs

in his famous work titled, “Essay on Human Understanding.”• Locke: Locke viewed signs as a method of inquiry in

philosophy, rather than a separate discipline or

branch of philosophy.

modern roots of semiotics

• Saussure (19th c.) Swiss linguist • Viewed as the father of modern semiotics.

• Saussure described signs within their social context.• Social context determined the meaning of signs.

• Signs are a product of human sensory and emotional experience of the world.

modern roots of semiotics

• Pierce (19th c.) American linguist• Pierce viewed a sign as anything that could be

taken as standing for something else.• Pierce views signs as representations that are

basically “containers” for an object.• Pierce’s model is three-dimensional

• Representation, interpretation, and object• The interaction among these dimensions produces

meanings.

Semiotics: the modern period

• Morris (20th c.• Divided the study of signs into sign collections.

• He called these collections syntactics.

• Syntactics—refers to the analysis of signs and their relations. • Morris termed this analysis semantics.

• Pragmatics—refers to the study of the relationship between signs and their users.

• Jakobson (20th c.)• Known widely for his model of communication.• This model indicates that messages or “exchanges” are rarely

neutral; they are generally subjective and involve goal attainment.

• Barthes (20th c.): • Known for his work in decoding hidden meanings in pop culture

and films.

Semiotics: The Modern Period

• Eco (20th c.)• The universe of semiotics can be “postulated in the format of

a labyrinth.” (Eco, 1986). • In other words, signs are interpreted as one’s perception and

experience directs.

• Such a view relates to the interaction of culture, worldview, context, education, and perception.

• A sign is everything that can be taken as significantly substituting for something else.

The semiotic Framework

• Semiotics and “Meaning”• The word “meaning” in English has more than

20 definitions.• To avoid confusion, semiotics employs the terms

• reference• sense• definition

Reference, sense, and definition

• Reference (denotation)• Points out or identifies something

• Definition• Representation between mental signifier and

referential object (Hockett)

• Sense (connotation)• Refers to what something evokes psychologically,

historically, and socially (context).• For example: Connotive senses of the word “cool.”

• How many uses or senses of the word “cool” can you think of? Or, “Super,” “Great,” “Sorry,” etc.

Semiotics and information science

• Raber (2003) views semiotics and information science as concerned with “representation and the production of culture.”

• “…the relationship between representation and what is being represented, are at the heart of information science,” (Raber 2003 p. 225).

Semiotics and issues in IS

• Arbitrary nature of language and signs.

• Meanings are cooperatively generated.

• The concept of information, itself, conveys many meanings – depending upon its users, their purpose, and the context.

Approaches to issues

• Buckland – information-as-thing, information-as-knowledge, information-as-process.

• Ingwersen – aboutness and interpretation or identification of authorial intent.

• Raber – the indeterminable nature or ambiguity of signs or objects; context and user needs – user interpretation.

Thank YouFlorence Margaret Paisey