1/28/2004 slide 15
Saussure’s
Sign, Referent, and Code 1/3
•Sign: The basic unit of language (visual or otherwise)
–Signifier: the visual thing you see (e.g., letters in a word, a woman in a photo)
–Signified: concept or object (what the sign implies). We interpret the letters “cow” to mean a big farm animal. We may also interpret a photo of a woman in a car ad to mean something beyond “a woman happened to be near the car.”
•Referent: the actual object depicted (e.g., the real woman/actress who was in the ad)
•Code: Conventionalized ways of making meaning (e.g., highway signs, advertising, etc. all have established
codes)
Slide from
last lecture
The English
language
Chinese…
Semiology
(from the Greek semeîon, ‘sign’ )