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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

communication, semiotics, harmonious phrase, signifier

College

Fine Arts and Communications

Department

Art

Abstract

Within the field of semiotics, methods of communication (languages) are separated into three distinct categories: signifier, signified, and sign. The signifier is a thing, like a ball. The signified is a definition or concept of the thing: a ball is a spherical object. When the signifier and signified are combined, the result is the sign. The French semiotician Roland Barthes in his essay, “Myth Today,” stated that “the signifier is empty, the sign is full, it is a meaning.” He goes on to equate the “sign” with the “word,” or in other words, the symbol which acts as proxy for the signifier and signified. An example of this would be a picture of a ball, or the word “ball” itself. When a series of signs are strung together or juxtaposed one with another to create a logical phrasing, this phrase becomes a sign encompassing all the others. This paper is a chain of signs, but in its entirety, it is labeled “(CON)TEXT.” If signs were to be aligned in a non-coherent manner (i.e. to non-signs mannerif be aalignedcoherent in were) they would be seen as separate from the whole, some take on new meanings, but a harmonious phrase is not born. They do not become a whole sign that embraces the parts.

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