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Michael Punt Protocol	Darren Stevens
Friday 7th February 2003

 

The seminar focused on a discussion lead by Mike Punt on Structuralism, including concepts related to Semiotics and Post-Structuralism. In preparing for the seminar, the group was asked to read a related article. ‘Totems and Movies’[1]

 

Following this protocol are definitions taken from the web site ‘Oxford Reference’ for the three main areas of focus taken for this seminar (Semiotics, Structuralism and Post Structuralism).

 

Communication is a system of arbitrary relations between the mental concept and the physical/vocal object in itself.

There is no ‘cup’, but a mental conception of a cup, the spoken word of a ‘cup’ and the physical presence of the object ‘cup’ itself.

 

Communication or signification is achieved through the ‘signifier’, the mental concept, and the ‘signified’, the word, sound, object itself.

Signification is therefore the transference of the signified (first conscious) through the signifier (medium of communication, sound, visual, touch, smell and taste) to the signified (second consciousness).

Signification is composed of the ‘sign’, which in turn is composed of both the ‘signified’ and the ’signifier’.

 

There are three types of sign

Symbolic –       A sign that has to be learnt depending on the culture in question.

Iconic –            Has a resemblance to the thing in itself, a drawing of a ‘cup’.

Indexical -        The presence of the thing itself, direct causal relationship between the thing being signified and the sign you are using (the sound of the cup).

 

In order for communication to occur a there must be collective consciousness. We must all agree to the meaning of a sign in order to attain meaningful communication. The contradiction of semiotics is that I am free to say (signify) what I like, but I cannot say (signify) anything unless there is a common ground of collective consciousness.

 

Structuralism is based on the concept of relational difference, there are no separate objects in the world. In order to communicate, objects are arbitrarily cut from the seamless world to create difference. Difference allows for the recognition of positive and negative concepts to signification. From our positive selection of objects we also illustrate the negative objects, that which is not. Signification is a system of presence and absence.

 

Claude Levi Strauss (Cultural Anthropologist) devised a method of studying a society without altering the society through your presence. This was achieved through collecting peoples stories, called Myths (objects in the real world used to express real world relations).

Signification demands regulated difference, Binary oppositions (nature/culture, man/woman), we reverse difference in such a way as to create similarities, the butterfly collection.

Similarities within difference creates groups and a conceptual sanity of the world. The vast gulfs between objects are reduced.

 

Signification contains multiple levels of meaning away from the surface level, relieving deeper social concepts.

 

Structuralism is flawed through the fact that we can never remove ourselves from the system in order to decode and understand it, we are stuck within language.

 

Post Structuralism looks towards to points of signification where language breaks down and meaning is still transferred, jokes or puns. Language has limitations to what is communicated, artists think outside of the limitations through the unlimited availability of meaning of marks on a paper.

 

Semiotics

The general study of symbolic systems, including language. The subject is traditionally divided into three areas: syntax, or the abstract study of the signs and their interrelations; semantics, or the study of the relation between the signs and those objects to which they apply; and pragmatics, or the relationship between users and the system.[2]

 

Structuralism

It suggests that critical attention be focused less on evidence about authors or editors of the text but more on the text as it stands, and what it conveys to the readers. For texts have only a relational, not an essential, meaning. Every word fits into a complex pattern of binary oppositions, and it is this structure which gives it meaning.[3]

 

Post-Structuralism

The approach challenges the STRUCTURALIST notion that there are fixed relationships between signs and meanings, between the signifier and the signified, arguing instead that meaning is contextualized within the individual and highly nuanced. A general trend of post-structuralism method, often termed deconstruction, is to unsettle any allegedly firm, detached, or neutral conclusions on the basis that claims of truth are internal to any particular discourse. In doing so it opens up alternative readings and meanings.[4]