Semiotics

To star with a simple definition – as the subject is not, even by its name, far from complexity –, semiotics is the theory of signs. Sign is an essential element in the communication process, lying around in different contexts by the various aspects of human knowledge. Semiotics comes from the Greek word semeiotikos, the interpreter of signs. As we can see, the importance of signs comes from a long time ago, when the Greeks were used to interpret natural events, like the weather, as interference of the gods on the future of the species, and it is still extremely relevant for human communication with all its forms of expressions.

Signs can be anything. They are everywhere and are amazingly diverse. As a quick example, the wall painting of Oticrature¹, the traffic lights, novels, films and food are considered signs, and it is important for us to understand their meaning, what the signs as vehicle of messages are trying to communicate. Taking the lights on the street as basic objects of analyzes, their meaning is pretty obvious for human beings because of our knowledge about driving and walking on the street. Since our childhood, we learn the meaning of all the color on a traffic light: the green color means GO, the yellow color means PROCEED WITH CATION and the red color means STOP. Therefore, we are supposed to know all about traffic lights by the time we decide to take our driver’s license. It is obvious that we have to learn all this information in order to keep us and people around us safe from harm in the traffic scenario. In this sense, traffic lights are an aspect of human knowledge which has a universal meaning.

It seems pretty easy to understand the diverse representation and meaning of the signs, but although some of them are internationally recognized, as the one we just discussed, others are only understood within a particular group or context. That’s where our interest of study takes place.

After all those considerations, let’s move towards our objective, that is, the kind of sign that will “break our heads”, make us wonder why isn’t the sign to analyze so much easier, like that one of the traffic lights. Well, we will see that, even though “breaking heads” in a literary way is not really cool, the “breaking heads” in a nonliterary way is a lot of fun.

There are several theories of semiotics out there to study different types of signs in different structures of meaning, like visual arts and linguistics. We are, though, selecting one, which is among the text: literature, which also includes poetry, drama and narrative. Like any other semiotics, the literary one has its root in linguistics, and, at some point, we’ll be discussing a few elements of linguistics related to some aspects of literary semiotics. However, we won’t take to much time discussing linguistics, as it is a vast campus of study. The purpose of this introduction is to make the understanding of literary semiotics clear so we can easily apply it in our analysis.

We said earlier that a sign has a Signifier and a Signified. While the first one is “something” that has a meaning, the second one is the meaning that that “something” has. In an easy way:

Signifier + Signified = Sign

The traffic lights are the signifier and the meaning of it (to keep us safe from harm) is the signified.

It is important for us to understand signifier and signified – two linguistic elements – as we will be using these terms while discussing semiotics and literature.

Signs can be shaped, communicated and understood in different ways. In literary semiotics, the channel of meaning is the book. In order to understand the message transmitted by a book, we need to know its structure, that is, textual. Then, we can discuss all its ways of meaning (literal, analogical, metaphorical), the sources of meaning (cultural), context of meaning (historical…) and types of meaning (cognitive, non-cognitive). If we can go through all these elements, we are more likely to have an understanding of the signifier. That’s why, in literature analyzes, we try to extract information about the historical moment in which the literary work was written, who was the author and his/her influences in life, the artistic movements in fashion, and any other elements that can contribute in a better understanding of the signifier in analyzes.

In a literary work, we have the elements of the story in a surface structure, which means they are clear to the readers: characters, themes, plot, genre, style and so on. We also have elements of the story in a deep structure, that is, it may not be as apparent as we expect. These elements are important in our analysis in a way that the surface structure will help us to understand the deep structure. The difference between a book for merely entertainment and a book of superior academic value is that, while in the first one you don’t have to make an analysis of it for the narrator gives you all the information you need in order to follow the sequence of actions, the second gives you a few tips through the narrations as puzzle pieces, in which the reader has to collect them, analyses them and put them in a logical sequence to give the fiction a meaning.

HALL points the following:

[…] The deep structure is important because by accessing it we can reveal the underlying meaning and importance of what is being told to us. For instance, the deep structure might be there to persuade the reader of the value of (or, in some cases, to question the value of) such things as traditional values, dominant political ideologies, prevailing ethical systems, preferred social attitudes, established cultural norms, current forms of knowledge, and existing institutional practices. For example, it might be argued that, while Jane Austen wishes to defend certain traditional ideas about romantic love in Pride and Prejudice, Gustave Flaubert seeks to challenge them in Madame Bovary (2012, p. 12-13).

There are several studies about textual semiotics, in which structuralism is among them. For our first analyzes, we will apply the structuralism of Vladimir Propp from his “Morphology of the Folktale”, in which he analyzes Russian’s folk tales and identifies common themes within them. Our first literary work for discussion will be Macunaíma, a Brazilian novel by the author Mário de Andrade. We will, then, try to observe in which way Macunaíma’s structure is close to that of a folktale and what is its message to the readers.

We have discussed a few ideas about semiotics, which are very little pieces of information from a vast field of study. But the most important thing is that semiotics, as our tool, will help us to have our own perspective of what a specific signifier means. There are lots of studies about Pride and Prejudice, for example, but each one has its own ways of interpretation. We are free to interpret, as long as we can proof our point of view through the elements of meaning we just discussed. So let’s get ready for our first reading: Macunaíma, by Mário de Andrade.

Where to find it: amazon.com (unfortunately, there is only one edition of it in English, which was translated by E. A. Goodland and published by Randm House in 1984.)

Let’s get into this adventure together. Next discussion will be about literature, definition and importance to us. Could you tell me in which way literature has a role in your life?

Note:

1. A Leitura, by Almeida Junior, 1892.

Bibliography

Barthes, Roland. (1964). Elements of Semiology. Hill and Wang: New York. 

Cobley, Paul & Jansz, Litza. (2004). Introducing Semiotics. Icon Books: US. 

Hall, Sean. (2012). This Means This, This Means That: A User’s Guide to Semiotics. London: Laurence Ling.

Nöth, Winfried. (1990). Handbook of Semiotics. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis.