Free Transcript of Episode 1.2 Semiosis for Designers and Illustrators
Semiosis 101 Season 1 Video 2 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 3 Aug 2022, we discuss how Peirce's sign-action (Semiosis) differs from Saussure's Semiology. We will see how Peirce's triadic relationship offers visual communicators a powerful theoretical scaffolding, around which you can enhance YOUR visual communication effectiveness.
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 today's second episode on general Peircean semiotic theory for illustrators and designers. Today in around 10 minutes, we will focus on how Peirce's sign-action - Semiosis - differs from Saussure's Semiology.
You will see how Peirce's triadic relationship between the CONCEPT, how it is REPRESENTED and then INTERPRETED, offers visual communicators - illustrators and designers - a powerful theoretical scaffolding around which you can enhance your visual communication effectiveness.
It will be a theory packed 10 minutes of Peirce’s Semiosis in designer-centric terms. So stay tuned, subscribe, hit the bell and let us go!
In the previous video, I talked about the two different forms of semiotic theory.
So, what we have is essentially two pieces of semiotic theory, one developed in Europe, and one developed in North America at the early stage of the 20th century - late 19th century/early 20th century. In Europe the philosophy of semiotics is classed as a Structuralist philosophy. It's called Semiology and Saussure developed it. It was then taken further by other philosophers into an expanded theory.
In North America, in the same period of time, we have Charles Sanders Peirce developing the philosophy of Pragmatism. And also, as part of that development of Pragmatism, he is responsible for his semiotic theory, which - from a graphic design, illustration, Visual Communication Design point of view - I am calling Semiosis. It is a word he defined himself, which is essentially meaning “SIGN-ACTION” - the action of the semiotic sign.
So, all the videos are going to be focusing more on Charles Sanders Peirce, but this first video here is going to look at the slight differences between the two. I am not going to go into great depth about Semiology, and because I am going to lead towards Semiosis instead.
So just as an overview of the fundamental aspects of Semiology. Obviously it's a lot more complicated than what I am going to be covering in this talk, but for a sign to function - from a Semiology point of view - and for that sign to communicate to us, it has two functioning parts. This is the thing if you say “semiotics” to people, I think this is the one that most people will say, if they know anything about semiotics, the SIGNIFIER and the SIGNIFIED.
So, these two terms are from Saussure - are from Semiology. It talking about the SIGNIFIER and the SIGNIFIED. But what does that actually mean? Well here's an example.
A SIGNIFIER could be the colour RED. The colour RED as a semiotic sign could mean any of these things… It could be meaning FIRE, it could be meaning PASSION. It could be meaning ANGER, DANGER, STRENGTH. That would be what would be classed as the SIGNIFIED from the SIGNIFIER. So RED is the SIGNIFIER it is signifying something. And the SIGNIFIED is the meaning we take from [the] SIGNIFIER. So in it could be FIRE, PASSION, ANGER, DANGER, STRENGTH, depending on what context we see the colour RED in as a semiotic sign.
So, that is coming through Saussure. Just to summarise the fundamental starting points of Semiology - the SIGNIFIER is the form of the sign - it could be a word, image, sound, etc. But we are talking about Visual Communication here. We are talking about things that we can see visually, whether that's words or images, the SIGNIFIED is the concept that is being represented by the SIGNIFIER. So, the SIGNIFIER and the SIGNIFIED come together as parts of the semiotic sign that Semiology discusses in more depth, in more theory.
If you are interested in this particular area of semiotics there's loads and loads of books out there if you want to follow a Structuralist linguistic approach to semiotics but I am just going to flip to now… essentially… Semiosis.
Charles Sanders Peirce. Philosopher. He basically created the… (or was one of the founding fathers) of …Pragmatism, a new philosophy coming out of North America. He says in his writings “Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign” and that's really crucial to what we are going to explore over all of these videos that I am going to be putting on this channel.
“Nothing is a sign unless it is INTERPRETED as a sign.”
It is that word INTERPRETED that is going to be the linchpin to everything that we talk about. Okay, so what does that mean? Well one of the problems… and I will say this up front because there's what I am going to be unpacking from all the videos …is that Peirce, being a philosopher, came up with lots of different terms he invented, that in a way obfuscates his intention of what the theory can actually help with.
And one of these words, here is in the first line… “A sign or REPRESENTAMEN.” So there is one word already. “REPRESENTAMEN is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. “It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call (which is Peirce calls) the INTERPRETANT of the first sign.”
Two words already– REPRESENTAMEN [and] INTERPRETANT.
“The sign stands for something, its OBJECT.” Now these words are crucial to how Peirce describes his semiotic theory:
REPRESENTAMEN
INTERPRETANT
and OBJECT.
I will unpack those three words as we go through videos. The whole intent behind these videos is that I place Peircean semiotic theory in more designer-centric terms. But it is important to drop in here, the actual language that Peirce uses in his theory, because that is the big blockage as far as trying to apply it to graphic design or illustration, because we don't use these terms. We have never come across these terms if we are reading Peirce from scratch.
Let us just go through that again, and replacing his words with something that we understand. Okay, so here is my translation of what he is saying in the terms of visual communication…
“A sign, its REPRESENTATION is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.”
“The REPRESENTATION addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or REPRESENTATION perhaps of a more developed idea.”
“That sign which it creates is essentially that person's INTERPRETATION of the REPRESENTATION.”
“That REPRESENTATION stands for something - a CONCEPT.”
So, by changing those words to OBJECT - the CONCEPT you start from. How the CONCEPT is REPRESENTED …and then… How that REPRESENTATION is then INTERPRETED by your audience… is essentially the fundamentals of how to apply Peircean semiotic theory into Visual Communication Design - graphic design and illustration. And that brings us to, what [Peirce} describes as a Determination Flow.
The CONCEPT that needs to be communicated. How you REPRESENT that CONCEPT, leads to its INTERPRETATION, and that INTERPRETATION should put in the mind of the audience the CONCEPT you need to communicate. That sums up the visual communication journey and within there we can look at ways of using Peircean semiotic theory to enhance our visual communication skills, to improve how effectively we communicate to our intended audiences… From the client, through how we create the design outcomes/illustration outcomes, that will then be taken by our target audiences, and understood by them that leads them back to the original CONCEPT.
So some of those awkward words that Peirce uses in his theory, that becomes - straight away - problematic to anybody who is not Peirce, because we have to understand what does he mean by these complex terms. So Peirce uses a triadic approach. Everything is in threes. We have the CONCEPT - the OBJECT. REPRESENTAMEN which is REPRESENTATION. INTERPRETANT which is basically the INTERPRETATION of it.
Slide 12
There is the first major triad of terms and within each of those we have three different levels of complexity …and there's that word (…complexity…)! I am going to be making all these things accessible to designers and illustrators as we go through videos.
REPRESENTAMEN is split into three different levels …so the REPRESENTATION has got three different levels…everything from the what he calls:
A Qualisign.
A Sinsign.
A Legisign.
I am not going to unpack them yet. We will unpack them in future videos. The INTERPRETANT He classes in three different levels, from simple to complex:
Rheme.
Dicent.
Argument.
Again, I am not going to unpack them right now. I am just putting these terms out here because these will be refined as designer-centric terms over coming videos. The ones that we're going to be focusing on, more so in the very early stages of the videos, is about the CONCEPT - the REPRESENTATION of the CONCEPT. And even here there are two terms that have now developed different meanings in Visual Communication Design than when Peirce came up with these.
So, in Peirce - simple to complex - the REPRESENTATION of the CONCEPT:
Icon.
Index.
Symbol.
An Icon and a Symbol now have different meanings - or other meanings - within design, I am going to be unpacking those as we go through. At this stage, I just wanted to show these different terms, which is just underpinning how complex Peirce’s language is. Which means that these videos are going to be really important to translate these into designer-centric terms, so that designers can have Peircean theory more accessible to their day-to-day terms of use.
So that is our 10 minutes of Peircean Semiosis 101 for this week. We now have a clearer understanding of the key differences between Saussure’s Semiology and Peirce’s Semiosis theories of semiotics. Saussure’s Semiology focuses on the SIGNIFIER and the SIGNIFIED and Peirce’s Semiosis involves the audience directly in the sign-action.
Designing for audiences is embedded in our design process from ideation to publication, and Peirce's Semiosis utilises the sign-action power between what the CONCEPT is, how it is REPRESENTED, which facilitates an INTERPRETATION. This INTERPRETATION leads the audience connotatively to the CONCEPT. Thus completing what Peirce calls a Determination Flow.
Over the coming weeks in Semiosis 101, we will explore how this semiotic Determination Flow can be applied to enhance visual communication in illustration and graphic design.
I hope as creatives you agree that Peirce's semiotic theory of Semiosis offers a lot of rich pickings to enhance our visual communication skills? There will be another video next week, so come back again.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…