What is Semiotics?
This week get a quick introduction to Semiotics by learning the difference between an Icon, Index, and Symbol.
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This blob is eating dinner. This blob is sleepy. This blob loves you. But how do we know that? This is a job for semiotics, the field of study that explores how humans and other organisms derive meaning from the world around them.
In semiotics, a sign is anything that represents or indicates something else, called the object. A sign isn’t necessarily pictorial, for example, the feel of a fruit may indicate its ripeness, and the sound of buzzing may mean there is a bee around. Charles Sanders Peirce defined three categories of sign (icon, index, and symbol) based on how the sign is related to the object. An icon directly resembles the object; it shares tangible qualities with the object. For example, a painting of a pipe is an icon representing a pipe, a map of London is an icon representing London, and the sound of coconuts may be an icon representing the sound of horses’ hooves in a film. An index has an implied association with the object; the sign and object are connected in a logical way. For example, a growling stomach indicates hunger, sunglasses and a white cane indicate blindness, and the smell of smoke indicates a nearby fire. A symbol is not inherently connected to the object, instead the connection is a matter of convention within a particular society. Because their meanings must be explicitly taught, symbols are easily misunderstood. Examples of symbols include the dotted lines on a road, symbolizing that drivers may pass one another and the Star of David symbolizing Judaism. Most words are also symbols, as they have no natural connection with the objects they represent.
Professionals in any field that involves interaction and communication can benefit from understanding semiotics. For example, user interface designers are charged with making websites, programs, and applications easy to navigate, and they often utilize icons, indices, and symbols to achieve that goal. In order to create an effective interface, designers may run side-by-side tests, called A/B testing, to determine which signs are best associated with the intended object. The public’s interpretation of signs changes very quickly in the realm of technology, as evidenced by the highly-debated use of the hamburger button to represent a menu. Through widespread use of the button and careful design choices surrounding it, the hamburger button is now correctly interpreted by most users and has quickly become an industry standard. Similarly, signs may become less attached to their meaning over time, such as the image of a floppy disk representing the save function. Formerly an index, as users associated a physical floppy disk with storing information, this button has become a symbol as new users learn its function without ever having experience with a floppy disk.
Animators and illustrators also need semiotics to understand how their work will be interpreted by audiences. While some depictions of emotions are based on natural and universal facial expressions, others are symbolic, and only make sense to certain audiences. This became clear when emoji, originally developed for a Japanese phone messaging service, were introduced to the west. This new audience used their own experiences with western comics and cartoons to interpret emoji, often in ways the original designers had not intended. For example, in western animation, an angry character may blow steam from their nose or ears, so western audiences interpret this emoji as angry, while the original intention was to depict a person exhaling in triumph after accomplishing a goal. Understanding how different cultures view certain symbols is of utmost importance in today’s world of global media.
These examples may imply that semiotics focuses only on human interactions with the man-made world, but in fact, biologists use semiotics to study how all life forms interact with and interpret their environment. The ability to express and interpret signs, however rudimentary, is one of the fundamental qualities that distinguishes living organisms from non-living objects. Furthermore, the ability to interpret abstract, symbolic signs seems to be unique to human beings, and may help to distinguish humans from non-human animals.
Whether you’re a fish looking for food or a student looking for the library, interpreting signs is an essential part of everyday life. Knowing more about how we make meaning from the world around us will help us to be better communicators and creators.
Пікірлер: 125
Damn, it's rare to find a video so straight to the point! Thank you for hitting the mark in a succinct fashion.
This is probably one of the most effective helpful videos I have watched in my life. Thank you!
I had to slow down the playback speed as my brain doesn’t absorb as fast as she talks lol *sigh* However this was an excellent explanation. Thank you!
@rachel5478
2 жыл бұрын
I just did the same .
@RedDragon-dk3pw
2 жыл бұрын
I could relate 😂
@eloracha
2 жыл бұрын
Exactly for us its too fast speaking
This is one of the highested quality videos that I have seen on KZread!!!! Thank you for the amazing content!!
The most underrated channel.
Best quick and dirty of semiotics I've found. Great job!
What a clear explanation, thank you!
Great video! Really breaks it down and makes it easy to understand the concept
This video was so helpful, thank you!
lol my professor really gave a 40-page reading material for semiotic landscapes and this video was the only thing that helped me understand it. thanks so much.
Very interesting, clear, definite and cool to watch.
I'm gonna have to watch this a couple times...ARGGG WHY CAN I NEVER UNDERSTAND SEMIOTICS.
@danhanqvist4237
3 жыл бұрын
Semiotics seems to have a problem with communication. Maybe a course in semiotics would help...?
@aggrorulz
3 жыл бұрын
I do get the same feeling sometimes. I believe that the reason for this is that everything we interpret we do using spoken language. At times, spoken language fails to efficiently describe the complexity of whatever there is to describe. It's sometimes not your fault, but instead the fault of the system we use to comprehend things. As a music teacher I sometimes struggle to depict music expression to students. This video is great btw!
@danhanqvist4237
3 жыл бұрын
@@aggrorulz I don't think it's an issue of apprehension but of expresseion. Susanne Langer had a lot to say about it -- she uses many examples from music. Read her!
@aggrorulz
3 жыл бұрын
@@danhanqvist4237 Yes, I did read Susanne Langer and am aware of her viewpoints. It is however an assertion of philosophers and aestheticians that among all - music is the most abstract art and therefore imposes extra complexity in order to be precisely interpreted.
Excellent and admirably laconic. I learned about Saussurean semiotics thanks to the Appalachian Prison Book Project, but I did not hear about Pierce until yesterday at the federal halfway house.
you deserve millions of subscribers and your animations are very funny
This is great 💖so thankful for finding this. We literally need this at university
this has saved me and my assignment!!
Fantastic synopsis, and fun, thank you
MashaAllah this is a great help to understand. Thank you for making this 🥰
this was such a helpful video!
Thank you very much for an extraordinarily helpful video
AMAZING VIDEO! Such good content, thank you so much!
Great explanation, thank you!
This video is very incisive! Thanks.
ooh, it helped me understand :) thanks for clear explaining.
awesome job! keep up the great work
best channel ever
This really helped:) Thank you
Loved this
Great video!
Brilliant Video!
Thanks you for this video!
awesome little video!
That 3 line sign is an iconic repressentation of a HAMBURGER all along? LMAOOOO!!!! I wouldn’t have known
@danhanqvist4237
3 жыл бұрын
I've always read it as a menu with lines for various items.... I suppose a hamburger is not the first to come to mind as food or anything to do with a menu in my experience.......
Fantastic.
Five Stars. Great vid
Very helpful, thanks 👍
Thank you!
Cool. I love it! Lot's of things I didn't know. How is semiotics used when discussing it? Do we just refer to the three types or use the word semiotics? I mostly use the three types interchangeably in conversation so having seen this video and knowing their differences is awesome. Subscribed :D
@occamsanswers8178
6 жыл бұрын
Great question! Semiotics is the whole field of study, like linguistics or physics. If you want to refer to all three types (icon, index, and symbol) at the same time, you can call it a "sign". That's the general term for something that stands for, represents, or indicates something else. Thanks for watching!
@footlong7980
Жыл бұрын
So... Icon= similie or metaphor Index= implication of meaning Symbol= contextual representation
Thanx so much!
I feel like it's basically the stuff we feel, the things we don't think about and just do/think/see
this really helped!
I did a field study of semiotics for my final project in my Linguistic Anthropology class. It was so fun ☺️
@simonbelov7420
2 жыл бұрын
hi, question to the person who made a research on this topic: could please explain the idea of the art "this is not a pipe"? bc we see the picture/symbol of the pipe but the label on it is opposite, so it confuses me a lot
@letiesperanza162
Жыл бұрын
@@simonbelov7420 i'm not the one you were referring to with your question but to me, the answer is very simple. the picture is labeled "not a pipe" because the picture is a drawing of it, a symbol, it's not actually a real pipe but a representation of it in a drawing.
@spacegeek6166
Жыл бұрын
Imma take this as my interdisciplinary course Lets see how it goes....
thank you, your video along with others on youtube helped me a lot for my media class! I made a video just like this one on my channel
A very helpful ❤
Interesting to note that machines are getting pretty good at interpreting human signs, from indexes like facial cues to symbols like recognizing pictures. If the ability to interpret symbols is what separates the living from the non-living, are computers a form of life?
Awesome peeps!
Helpful, though quick
that was awesome
thanks
This video saved me
Thanks for upload this video. Its help me to understand about Semiotics. But, i`m confused differences between signifier and signified, can you make the examples (by video)?
@papitetos
3 жыл бұрын
I can share my understanding - Signifier is the sign itself. A sign can be a picture, a verbal indication, a pointer or anything and the interpretation of the sign is the signified. The signified is the mental concept of the sign(signifier). Example - If the signifier is a 'LAMP' then the signified can be light or anything that you directly associate to. Also, in most cases the relation between a signifier and the signified is interrelated. When I say light, it can be re-associated to the lamp. The signified has to be relatable to the signifier.
i just clipped the intro melody and made a beat, love that
@crimsonlanceman7882
4 жыл бұрын
Stop, THIEF!
@iwabo696
4 жыл бұрын
Link ?
I miss floppy disks and flip phones.
How do you simplify it tho?
I thought Roman Jackson was the one who made the Icon, Index and Symbolic sign relations?
@mariamyan6674
4 жыл бұрын
I also thought it was Him))
Nice monty python reference.
an obscene scrawling is a phallic icon
So animals don't interpret semiotics but what would something like pavlovs dog be an example of?
@54baxers
2 жыл бұрын
Animals do interpret semiotics. How else would we be able to communicate with them? When I make a happy face they can sense my happy feelings.
Signs and Symbols are not the same thing in psychology contexts. Here "Sign" includes the 3 categories but not in Jungian psychology, a sign has a fixed (conventional) universal meaning like a STOP sign, whereas a symbol is a signifier of an intuitive idea with a mix of personal subjective meaning and universal Archetypal meaning. Also, animals also use signs... Not just humans. They are simply not signs made by humans... They are made by themselves. Humans understand signs made by humans... But fail to understand several signs used by other animals.
@lol9600
3 жыл бұрын
can you explain what geosemiotics is?
Nice ;-)
Ok, but who calls it a ham-burger button?....
signified and signifier i don ' t understand plz tell me with example
@danhanqvist4237
3 жыл бұрын
The sign of the ball is the signifier (signifi-er), the ball is the signified (signifi-ed).
I did not know it was called the hamburger menu before it became what it is now. Interesting.
0:32 PERS
Why did you abandon this channel? 😔
tiger was here tiger was here
If I could give you a second like, I would, gladly.
Id like to know more✈️
@TheDataPointer
4 жыл бұрын
try Umberto Eco and semiotics!
Who's teacher sent them this link lol
@mohamedamere5894
3 жыл бұрын
Jaja meee
Hi bmm
Vit makkale varuga varuga
Semisonic
Nice... But slow down please
hi kaysar
@zeindravos6373
4 жыл бұрын
shut uup
Is this semiotics??? Where is ferdinand de saussure???
@dwayneneckles
5 жыл бұрын
orhun büyükkarcı good point
@mirunaciocanescu9434
5 жыл бұрын
Look for him on wikipedia
APA?
@riferioethanwidjaja9694
4 жыл бұрын
APA?
@kaysaralshanahan2736
4 жыл бұрын
@@riferioethanwidjaja9694 Nub animations
@kaysaralshanahan2736
4 жыл бұрын
JK
@riferioethanwidjaja9694
4 жыл бұрын
@@kaysaralshanahan2736 I don't even make animation... :>>>>>
Semiotics should be a required class.
That ghost is really hot.
like if came here because of big bang theory show?
Ellis kenny u scruff
You are too fast..that's why you're underrated...
A spelling mistake?
No room for anti-semiotics in this place!
wish i didnt pick media
POV: you're up to the semiotics bit of your course and it's boring as hell
Speak more SLOWLY! The speed of the talking is painful. Could not watch all the way through.
@spacefentionz
6 жыл бұрын
man, your comment really highlights how different people learn, because the speed at which she talked kept me interested. had she spoke more slowly, i don't think i could've watched the whole way through.
@tiakimball3426
6 жыл бұрын
Laura, You may not need this suggestion anymore, but you can slow the speed in the settings of the individual video. If you click on the widget to the right of the CC button, you can choose your preferred listening speed. :)
@asphaltpilgrim
5 жыл бұрын
Tia Kimball ...Although it can make the speaker sound like they have been drinking ^_^
@thinkislamcheckmychannel
3 жыл бұрын
You can slow the speed of playback
@eileenbass8137
3 жыл бұрын
@@tiakimball3426 thanks so much I never knew you could do that
Please, slowwwwwwww down you speech !!!!!!!!!!!
This concept is so unintuitive
Thank you!