Free Transcript of Episode 1.8 10 Semiotic Signs in Semiosis In 10 Minutes
Semiosis 101 Season 1 Video 8 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 21 Sep 2022, we will begin to explore the basis for Peirce’s ten signs in more depth …from simple to complex.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…
…and here is the video’s transcript.
NOTE: As with any video transcript the tone used is conversational. The following transcript text features ad libs, and therefore should be read in the spirit of any semi-scripted video.
Let us get to the eighth episode on general Peircean semiotic theory for illustrators and designers.
In last week’s video we got a sneak peek at Peirce's ten classes of semiotic signs. Today in around 10-minutes, we will begin to explore the basis for these ten signs in more depth – from simple to complex.
Today we will just begin our understanding of why Peirce defined these ten signs AND why, for now, you creatives do not need to be flummoxed by Peirce’s academic terminology. I want in this video to positively blow your minds with the powerful potential of Peirce's sign-action of these Ten semiotic signs, AND to prevent your mind being blown up trying to struggle WITH Peirce's problematic philosophical language.
The potential of Semiosis to improve your visual communication skills outstrips any terminology to open up your ability to apply Peirce's semiotic theory into YOUR commercial creative practice. The trick is to synthesise the theory seamlessly into YOUR ideation by DOING rather than by TRIPPING over the terminology, and that is why I make these videos …to help you over the obstacles of Peirce's terminology.
So, while it will be a theory-packed 10-minutes of Semiosis, it will be in designer-centric terms. All great, rewarding journeys begin with small steps. So, come and join me on your next small step to enhancing YOUR visual communication skills with Semiosis.
Let us go.
Okay. In this video, what we are going to focus in on, is a sort of continuation from the previous video, about what Peirce defines in his theory about 10 semiotic signs. I mentioned in the previous video, about the complexity of his language. So, if you want to check out that video first before coming to this video, that might make a bit more sense… but this video is a self-contained video and we will take this a little bit further.
Okay? In this video, we are going to focus, as just an explainer about what Peirce classifies as the 10 semiotic signs - from simple to complex. Okay? If you look at it from the the perspective of what we have been talking about so far, which is about the Concept - what Peirce calls the OBJECT - of what we are going to be visually communicating, which is based upon a triad.
So, the Dissemination Flow goes from the Concept, to how it is Represented, and how that Representation then gets Interpreted by our target AUDIENCE. And hopefully, if we have done our job correctly, semiotically speaking, how we have Represented the visual communication will help our target AUDIENCE make connection back to the Concept that is in the brief, that we have been briefed on as designers, visual communication designers, graphic designers and illustrators to actually achieve.
All of these things are intertwined. This is the context that we are talking about in Peircean semiotic theory, in regards to a higher level of thinking. Which is how we can do this… You utilising 10 semiotic signs.
Okay? It is a lot more complex than I first make it sound, but the important thing here is to understand what we mean, first of all, by Iconic signs. An Icon is not the same as an "icon" in interface design. The "icon" that we press as a button to take us to another page in an interface. [An Icon] is not the same as what we use in popular culture, when we say… “Oh, that is an iconic building.” It is not about that.
This is the unfortunate thing about when Peirce wrote this theory in the 19th century…late 19th century / early 20th century …words change meaning. So part of my task here, is to get you in a frame of mind that when I talk about “Iconic-ness”, it is nothing to do with any other use of the word “iconic” in popular culture. It is about how Iconic refers to a particular state of the Concept, through how we represent [the Concept] within Peircean semiotics.
So as long as you are with me on this one, let us continue.
An Iconic sign is the very basic level of how we visually communicate, semiotically, the Concept. That Iconic sign is embedded within three signs of Peirce’s 10 signs - from simple to complex.
Indexical. I will talk about Indexical in future presentations because that needs unpacking. But if you think about your index finger… that is the clue… it POINTS at THINGS. That is all I am going to say at this stage. Come back and watch future videos to understand what Indexical semiotic representation means. But, here, there are four out of the ten signs that are Indexical in nature… that point to the Concepts.
Then the last one is Symbolic. Again, the word Symbol… we are used to the word “symbols” nowadays within interface design, within the interfaces that we use on our smartphones, etc. But when I talk about Symbolic signs and “Symbolicness” it is in the context of Peircean semiotic theory. These will all be unpacked in future videos, so come back and catch some of those… (we cannot do everything in ten minutes).
We have got these three levels of how our Concept can become Represented, effectively:
• Iconicness - a very basic level
• Indexical - mid-level of importance
and then the higher level of visual communication is
• the Symbolic nature of things.
Now, what I will quickly do is, just take you through, from a Peircean semiotic, theoretical point of view, his terms. I am not going to explain what the terms actually mean… (but you just see the problematic nature of the language that Peirce uses in his writing, which bears no resemblance to what we use within Visual Communication Design). And even those words that we do understand, that we do see are not what we think they are because they have different meanings in semiotic language.
At this point in time, this video is just there to explain, ahead of time, almost like a taster, ahead of time, of how Peircean semiotic theory, despite the problematic nature of [Peirce’s] terminology, has the potential to really enhance how we, as visual communicators, craft the visual communication that we do, within our graphic design and illustration, to connect with our target AUDIENCE back to what the client hopes you are doing within the brief.
So, all this language you see in these 10 signs, (through these videos that I put together), I am going to be translating all of this into designer-centric terms to help you make the connection to how Peirce can really, really, help you up your game, through visual communication, to become a more effective communicator to your target AUDIENCE, which will make you more employable [to] your clients, who want to communicate to you, Okay?
That is basically the focus of today's video, which is just to get you to a point where you understand the difference between what Peirce writes about …which is very, very, technical language - language he creates… and how these videos that I put together, through this channel, will help you, as a meta-language… help you make connections to that richness of his theory, so that you can actually - with confidence - begin to apply that theory into your design work.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…