Week 4: Visual Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics: Structure, meaning and context.

Question: If all Visual communication is subjective, what is the point of studying Visual communication?

Visual communication relies both on eyes that function and on a brain that makes sense of all the sensory information received. The writer William Saroyan once mentioned that "One picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, but only if you look at the picture and say or think the thousand words." (Lester, 2006) states that the most powerful, meaningful and culturally important messages are those that combine words and images.

   

 However, if all visual communication is subjective, the point of studying visual communication is that there is a widely understood language of the visual that enables communication professionals to use for their work. (Martin, 1995) stated that codes are a system of signs for textual or visual messages. In other words, it is a set of rules agreed upon by a culture and society. But also to remember that to know codes differ upon every culture. So it is important to study about the certain codes of particular culture so we will able to respect its culture values content. “Codes determine a dominant reading of the sign (Chris Woo, 2012).”

When we study visual communication, we would come to familiarise important terminology such as Codes, Signifiers that form a sign is syntax, and Semantics are the signifieds and connotations of the sign, Modality, Sender, receiver and context.

We use the basics of semiotics such as signifiers to learn how the syntax of an image is created. Semiotics studies how signs are connected to the social and cultural. Syntax explores how colour, lines, shades and shadow are all part of this grammar of the visual. Modality is the medium that we use to express or pass on the information and lastly, to learn about the syntactic rules of colours, lines and composition. All of the above that mentioned about is important for the visual communicators to study as it has to be based upon the society perception.

Words are easily forgotten, but pictures stay in our minds. Words and pictures become one powerfully effective communicative medium inside your own mind. In other words, there is a value to study visual communication because that’s how the visual communicators for example Advertisers know how to make an image appealing and attention grabbing just because they know how to use their knowledge of what appeals to us and confine our attention.

References:

Chris, W.H.W. (2010). Analyzing Visual Communication. BA in Professional Communication Reader. Published by University Brunei Darussalam. 

Chris Woo Lecture Presentation

Lester, P. M.  (2006). Syntactic theory of Visual Communication. Retrived 30th August, 2012 from Communication Faculty of Fullerton University Website: http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html

Martin, P. (1995). Visual Communication Images with Messages. United States: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

wi:k θri: : semɪ'ɒtɪks rɪ'vɪsɪtɪd*- You don’t wear clothes but clothes wear you.

Question 2: What does "coded" meaning mean?

To those unfamiliar with IPA symbols, the title of this entry may seem like it is from a distant language. However, if you flip through the dictionary, you will find that the symbols I have used above has been there ever since. IPA symbols are used to represent phonemic sounds - how one unit of a word sounds. For example, the 'a' sound in 'bat' is represented with the symbol; /æ/.My choice to use IPA symbols for the title may seem irrelevant, but I thought it would be interesting to use them as one of the prominent figures in semiotics is a linguist, Ferdinand de Sausseure, who introduced the concept of language being arbitrary (Leong Ping, Deterding & Low, 2006, p. 59). Sauesseure had referred to words as 'signs', and semiotics is that - interpreting meanings from signs (Griffin, 2009, p.323). From one aspect, semiotics is like an academic venture into the world of metaphors.

In order to establish the meaning of a 'code' in semiotics, one would have to know that signs are divided into two components; the "signifier", the literal 'form' of the sign, and the "signified", the idea or the concept that is being represented by the sign (Chandler, 1994). When these two concepts are established, that is where "codes" come in. According to Leeds-Hurwitz (1993, p. 51), a set of signs is referred to 'codes; – the referred “set” being a combination of a signifier and the signified. In other words, what links a signifier to a signified are 'codes'. According to Irvine (2004), codes are defined as a “framework, a learned a shared conceptual connection at work in all uses of signs (language, visual)”.

With the basic concepts of semiotics structured in the above paragraph, "coded meanings" can therefore be understood to refer to signs which draws on codes understood and agreed on by the community. When an object has a coded meaning, it simply means that the object can have no relation to what it literally looks like, but can be interpreted as something else because of the meanings attached to it, as defined by the community. Exemplifying the above explanation could create a better understanding of "coded" meanings. For instance, without having to venture outside the virtual realm, internet slang;

"BRB" in the above picture is an example of a "coded" meaning. If the meaning was not encoded to have a specific meaning, it can be interpreted as a sound or perhaps and acronym for 'Bunny Rubs Belly' and other interpretations. However, the acronym "BRB" is established by the internet community to mean "Be Right Back", thus making it a "coded" meaning. When someone says "BRB" in an online chat, it is understood by the receiver that the message being conveyed is "be right back".

• 'B', 'R' & 'B' = signs

• 'be right back' = signified

References:

Chandler, D. (1994) Semiotics for beginners. Retrieved from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html on 16th August, 2012.

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Irvine, M. (2004). Media theory and semiotics: Key terms and concepts. Retrieved from http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/Theory-KeyTerms.html on 16th August, 2012.

Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1993). Semiotics and communication: Signs, codes, cultures. New Jersey, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Leong Ping, A., Deterding, D., & Low, E. L. (2006). An introduction to linguistis. Singapore: McGraw Hill.

Week 2: Seeing and Perception: The world is flat because you’ve never seen it round.

Question 1: What is perception and why is it different from seeing?

The perceptual process allows us to experience the world around us. Take a moment to think of all the things you perceive on a daily basis. At any given moment, you might see familiar objects in your environment, feel the touch of objects and people against your skin, smell the aroma of a home-cooked meal and hear the sound of music playing on your audio car. All of these things help make up our conscious experience and allow us to interact with the people and objects around us.

Firstly, Barry (2005) describes 'perception' as the process where “data are reduced and compressed, and what was once a retinal image becomes … representative map of visual reality. In this way, light is transformed into meaning built from separate, specific functions in the brain.” (p. 51). To further simplify this ideology, our perception is influenced by what we already know (Berger, Blomberg, Fox, Dibb & Hollis, 1977).

Seeing is not the same as perceiving. My own understanding of these two terms is that we may 'see' things the same way, but we may not 'look' (perceive) it the same way. The difference between seeing and perceiving is due to the fact that when we see, we see at what our biological make up had manufactured.  We see images that we have learned, stored in our brains through our lifetime learning process since birth.  We see the image as it is with no interference with feelings or ideas. In contrast, perceiving is the process of you building up feelings and ideas through what you see and even sometimes refract away from the common.

Therefore, to explain how 'perception' and 'seeing' are different: 'seeing' is like the first stage of viewing things. It is where the light emits from an object and the reflection of those lights into your retina, which produces an image in your brain. The process of 'perception' is like the second level of viewing things, you use information that you have previously obtained to impose meaning on a something.

“Perceiving is related to the individual's accumulated experience.” (Martin, 1995)

References:

Barry, A. M. (2005). Perception Theory. In K. Smith, S. Moriarty, G. Barbatsis & K. Kenney (Eds.), Handbook of visual communication: Theory, methods and media (pp. 45-62). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Berger, J., Blomberg, S., Fox, C., Dibb, M., & Hollis, R. (1997). Ways of seeing. London: Penguin Books.

Martin, P. (1995). Visual Communication Images with Messages. United States: Wadsworth Publishing Company.