Week 3 ~ Semiotics Revisited

'while every code is a system, not every system is a code' - Stephen Heath  




What does “coded” meaning mean?  Well, from my reading, codes are the conventional construction of we are to translate the meanings of various techniques, this same goes with content.


Codes are maps of meaning, systems of ideas we as human being apply to interpret our own and others' behaviour.  In other word, codes are combination of semiotic systems, semiotics super systems, that imply perception and attitudes of how the social surroundings is ought to be. Therefore, codes links semiotic systems of meaning between values and social structure.


They also supply ways of making sense of the world that, to the extend that you and myself use the codes to guide our actions, in turn shape our attitudes.

For instance, a code, might be a certain set of ideas about what it means to be femininity.  A small girl in our neighbourhood, brought up in our local culture might not follow or want to be like the models in fashion advertisements.  Nevertheless, she is likely to learn a code of femininity which implies that a so called 'true' woman is thin and slim, girlish, trendy, focussed on others, passive and so on.

It same goes to this boy growing up in our Brunei culture, he might not directly imitate the cowboys of the west or detectives surrounding him in media narratives and advertisements.  But yet this images, myths and narratives from few mediums imply particular perception 'codes' about what it means to be a male. So this little boy might learn that 'true' men solve problems through physical prowess.  Men are emotionally inexpressive and regularly breach particular regulations like speed limits and etc..

Codes help to simplify phenomena in order to make it easier to communicate experiences (Gombrich 1982, 35).


Pierre Guiraud notes that 'the frame of a painting or the cover of a book highlights the nature of the code; the title of a work of art refers to the code adopted much more often than to the content of the message' (Guiraud 1975, 9).


References ~ 

• Arthur Asa Berger, Signs in Contemporary Culture: An Introduction to Semiotics, 2nd edition, Sheffield Publishing    Company, 1999.
•  Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, Indiana University Press, 1976.
•  Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics, University of California Press, 1977.
•   Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, Marion Boyars, 1978.
•   Martinec, R., & Salway, A. (2005).  A system for image - text relations in new (and old) media.   Visual Communication, 4 (4), 337 - 371. 
• Riley, H. (2004).  Perceptual modes, semiotics codes, social mores: a contribution towards a social semiotics of drawing.  Visual Communication, 3(3), 294 - 315.
•  http://www.jgould.net/mmw/downloads/semiotics.pdf
•  http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/aesthetics/bldef_semiotics.htm 
• http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08.html