Semiotics

The articles for this week were very, very dense. Though I believe I understand the basic concepts of semiotics now I feel a little overwhelmed with jargon.

One thing I wish would have been explored further is the cultural aspect of semiotics. It is touched on in all the articles, but never fully explored. I find it interesting that semiotics has became a very intercultural discipline. The study of signs and how they are interpreted varies greatly between cultures, which in turn would make cross cultural studies extremely fascinating.

In the Chandler article, there is a very interesting quote from anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss who coined the term bricolage: "the process of creating something is not a matter of the calculated choice and use of whatever materials are technically best-adapted to a clearly predetermined purpose, but rather it involves a 'dialogue with the materials and means of execution."

In the discussion of the role mediums play in semiotics, my mind automatically went to the different mediums that media uses to communicate with audiences. While the content is about the same whether you hear a news story on a television, radio or read it in a newspaper, magazine or on the Web the way you interpret it might be different because of the medium. (Newspapers and magazines are always the best because I love to read and there is more time to give the depth of the issue than on most television and radio programs. YAY PRINT!)

In reference to the Gorny article, I find it very ironic while semiotics can be broadly seen as a study in communications field no one can efficiently communicate what the semiotics actually is. But at least Gorny, as a semiotician, has a sense of humor, as seen by this quote, "SEMIOTICS IS THAT WHICH IS CALLED SEMIOTICS BY THE PEOPLE WHO CALL THEMSELVES SEMIOTICIANS."

In this video clip, Blagojevich was trying to send a more forceful message by using expletives, but he was the one who got the message from Senate: "You're impeached!" (I watched this video at least six times.)




An hilarious example of semiotics is the signs all around Illinois with Rod Blagojevich's name on them, which are being taken down as I type. The signs used to communicate the governor and its ability to provide services to the people of Illinois. However, they have come to be associated with the corruption of Illinois' politics particularly the governor's office. Gov. Pat Quinn is trying to communicate the removal as a sign of the end of the Blagojevich scandal and the beginning of better governing in Illinois. One can only hope.

Also in the CNN article, is the statement, An employee standing nearby as the picture was taken away said, "Do we need someone to throw a shoe?"

Late last year, an Iraqi reporter threw a shoe at President Bush during a press conference in Iraq to communicate his hatred and disgust of Bush's policies in Iraq over the past six years. This reference has resurfaced throughout American culture. I also read an account of shoes being thrown at signs with Bush's picture during the inauguration. While this is a very deep insult in Iraqi culture, it has now become a part of American culture as well. This demonstrates the increased inconnectedness of signs in a globalized world.

E-mail

The Safir-Whorf hypothesis seems very logical to me because it is in the discussion of concepts that makes the concepts resonant with us. The words social justice have different meaning to me than they would a Chinese person because of the historical linguistic meanings of words and their combinations have been vastly different in the two different cultures.

This article in the Economist discusses Darwinist concepts, but what interested me the most is the Darwinist theory that justice is “probably an evolved phenomenon.”
The discourse in Western society and in SAE languages over centuries influenced by the Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, and even as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans has probably contributed to the evolution of the sense of justice.

To connect this to the concept of e-mail, I think my generation thinks much differently about e-mail but our thought processes are still evolutionarily linked to spoken communication. I don’t think e-mail has been around long enough to actually affect our thought processes yet.

However, I do think many people I know could benefit from the Jerz article. I’ve received the strangest, most informal e-mails that I find extremely rude because the person has not taken the time to greet me, identify themselves, and identify their reason for e-mailing. Any time you’re e-mailing someone you’re taking up some of his or her time. It is only polite to take up as little as possible by being direct as possible about what it is you want from that person.