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The Role of Semiotics: What does it do?

Semiotics itself as a science is closely related to such sciences as logic, philosophy, and linguistics, although they developed at the same time almost independently of each other (Salupere, 2012). Therefore, this science can be called complex and composite since it can simultaneously cover many areas, including the aforementioned branches of science. More than one scientist looked at semiotics as a niche that includes different experiences. Jose Luis Caivano, defining the concept of semiotics, called it a discipline that is the basis for biological cognitive systems (human, non-human) and includes and provides an epistemological framework for various other perspectives (Caivano, 1998).


The following questions are important for semiotics as a science: What is the meaning of the sign? Which signs can be taken for granted and why? What is the meaning of text as a concept? How can semiotics be used to analyze this text? (Chandler, 2017). However, these are only primary questions that are important to the science itself, but they do not explain how semiotics analyzes the text itself. Speaking about semiotics as a science of analysis, Daniel Chandler emphasizes the desire of people to create and explain meanings and describes this as Homo significans, which translated from Latin means creator of meaning (Chandler, 2017). Therefore, everything seen around - houses, natural objects, natural phenomena are signs that are interpreted by giving them appropriate meanings and are divided into signifiers (e.g. cat, person) and signifieds (love, hate), which makes it possible to interpret various objects differently (Chandler, 2017). Silvi Salupere describes signs as an object of research in the science of semiotics, which aims to be known and described (Nastopka, Broden & Salupere, 2012). But there are other definitions that group signs more. Sonara Harsiddh distinguished many areas: zoosemiotics (communicative behavior of animals, communities and the cultural and social signifiers that appear in them), olfactory signs (smells with emotional significance), tactile communication (codified social behavior such as hugging, kissing, patting on the shoulder, etc.), taste signs (objects that initiate the sense of taste and emotional experience during this sensory stage), paralinguistics (suprasegmental, increasingly institutionalized and systematized signs responsible for linguistic communication, such as yawning, whispering, laughter, etc.), medical signs (interface between signs, diseases, symptoms), kinesics and proxemics (attribution of gesturing to certain cultures), musical signs (music as value and its meaning and influence), formalized languages - sciences from algebra to chemistry, studying mathematical structures and searching for cosmic and interplanetary languages (Harsiddh, 2014).





When analyzing a work, it is important to consider not only what kind of sign it is, but also how it relates to other objects. According to D. Chandler, this connection between the sign and the object is very important because the ability to understand what connects and separates them from each other will help to discover the aspects that connect and separate them and explain them (Chandler, 2017). Therefore, if the object of semiotics is an advertisement, it is important to consider what is in that advertisement - the colors, the space, and the constructs of that space. S. Salupere describes such a combination of constructs and their interpretation one by one, not as a link with reality, but as a creative modulation (Salupere, 2012). Many different objects can be used for this modulation, but some of the most commonly used are space and color.


Space is one of the main aspects and signs of semiotic analysis. Elliot Gaines describes space as the relationship between an object and a spatial construct (Gaines, 2006). Therefore, it becomes very important not only where the action takes place, but also which characters are involved in that action and how it affects the state of those characters. The space itself can be very different and include different aspects. Kristina Juodinytė-Kuznetsova, speaking about spatiality in semiotics, distinguished the physical elements of spatiality (city, building, map) and its metaphorical, philosophical, psychological meaning as undefined but dependent on the general context, as well as the geometric concept of space, which is distinguished according to the linearity of space (verticality, horizontality, or other geometric shapes and forms) (Juodinytė-Kuznetsova, 2011). D. Chandler has also distinguished the following spaces: public (spaces that are accessible and known to everyone), private (the subconscious and the processes taking place in it) and those that do not have a specific definition, since it cannot be defined from the details due to impermanence, only implied from hints to the supposedly existing space. And it can be recognized on the basis of different sequences: independent insights, guided by parallels, relying on an instantaneous, descriptive or variable sequence, based on images that indicate the continuity of time, an episodic sequence that shows a certain event but is interrupted in the process, and the last - a conventional sequence in which temporality is evident and action compression (Chandler, 2017). However, this description of space also raises many questions. Another definition of space can be found, where space is divided according to geographical, social, economic, legal, cultural, and emotional causality. What is important here is the physical environment (use of nature or specific territory, aesthetic solutions, memory, myths), therefore religious beliefs, knowledge (historical, political, economic), cultural and traditional (gender relations, ethnic origin) also have a great influence by semiotically analyzing space (Thurlow, 2019). However, there is also a different perception of space, closely related not to personal experience but to the sense of time. D. Chandler indicates the following types of space: Synchronous/synoptic (it is important for him to have one place of action and that there is no repetition), diachronic/synoptic (changing time, but not changing place), synchronic/diatopic (time remains unchanged, but places change), diachronic/diatopic, in which different images are connected only by a common theme (Chandler, 2017).






Color, like space, can be used as a sign in semiotic analysis because when an image is formed on the retina, a sensation is created, during which the brain continues to analyze the information received, and this information slowly acquires meaning, giving meaning to the experience based on the past. It is based on personal knowledge, has predefined meanings that are inferred from personal experience and beliefs, and thus interpreted (Kauppinen-Räisänen & Jauffret, 2018). Although color analysis is mainly sensory, J. L. Caivano singles out the following features of color analysis: when analyzing colors, it is important to distinguish variables, to define the colors used by identifying them, and to distinguish elements of their interaction with other interacting laws (Caivano, 1998). Therefore, not only the sensory feeling is important, but also what category the color belongs to and what general impression it creates, analyzing the connections and differences between color and other details of the environment.


Therefore, it is not enough to categorize the colors themselves according to specific meanings because each color is generally related to other objects around and the feeling that a specific color creates. In discussing this sense-making, Hannele Kauppinen-Räisänen and Marie-Nathalie Jauffret emphasized that the primary meaning of a color that is most often conveyed is its ability to imitate a specific familiar object, and only after that comes a deeper ("inner") meaning (Kauppinen-Räisänen & Jauffret, 2018). Therefore, the same color may have different meanings or be associated with different objects for different people, depending on the field of vision of that color. The experience of colors is usually associated with the following: health (effect of colors on the body, assignment of human organs to a specific color, a belief that comes from ancient Egyptian times, color therapy), culture (acceptability of color in religious contexts, rituals), emotions (colors that are positive and negative, help to focus, distract, help to maintain or lose concentration), as well as gender, as gray, white, or black colors are more acceptable for men, and red and blue for women (Singh, 2006).


Sources


Broken, T., F., Salupere, S., Nastopka, K. (2012). Semiotika. Trys semiotikos. http://www.semiotika.lt/images/Semiotika-8.pdf

Kauppinen-Räisänen, H. and Jauffret, M-N. (2018). Using colour semiotics to explore colour meanings. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal. Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 101-117. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-03-2016-0033

Singh, S. (2006). Impact of color on marketing. https://ion.uwinnipeg.ca/~ssingh5/x/color.pdf



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