Ferdinand de Saussure

mainly two people- Charles Pierce and Ferdinand De Saussure. They often share the same thoughts. According to Johnathan Bignell (2002 p.5,6) “Semiotics or semiology, then, is the study of signs in society, and while the study of linguistic signs is one branch of it, it encompasses every use of a system where something (the sign) carries a meaning for someone”. Semiotics according to Ferdinand De Saussure refers to “The signs of life within society”. As said by Saussure, a sign contains two…

Structuralism Essay The Flowers by Alice Walker uses several structuralist concepts that can help the reader better understand the story. There are three different structuralist terms emphasized while reading the story: sign, code, and symbol. A sign, in a literary sense, is a thing that makes you think of something else without an obvious connection between the sign and object. Codes are a set of ideas, rules, letters, numbers, symbols, etc., that are used to represent another thing. A…

In the excerpts from his book, Paul Frankl introduced the concepts of symbols of mean and symbols of form. Separated into two sections, Frankl establishes a difference between the two and explains the “three degrees” of symbolism within a cathedral:1) natural objects, 2) works of man, and 3) symbols. In his exploration of these two types of symbolism, Frankl takes a great care to address linguistics and point out specific word choices he is making to avoid confusion. Throughout these excerpts,…

In this essay I am going to give a description of Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach. I am going to define dramaturgy and how this work by Erving Goffman was influenced by Kenneth Burke. I will explain this concept of dramaturgy through Goffman’s main ideas of the presentation of self and also impression management. Within these concepts are a number of ideas that help Goffman relate life to that of a play. I will assess the dramaturgical approach of Erving Goffman. Finally, by applying…

INTRODUCTION I am going to analyse the text by using textual anaylsis consisting of semiotics, genre theory to determine the genre of the music video Anaconda by Nicki Minaj. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, anything that can be taken as a sign, words, images, objects, and texts can be studied to understand their meaning. I will also be using textual analysis such as genre theory that will enable me to recognize the genre of the music video anaconda. Genre is recognisable through…

Semiotics is, in simple words, the study of signs. Semiotics can be exercised to anything that can be seen as signifying something, that is to say, to everything that has meaning within a culture. The main goal of a semiotic analysis is to establish the elemental conventions by identifying significant differences and oppositions in an attempt to show the system of categories, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, connotations, distinctions and the rules of combination present. Using a…

Since the beginning of birth, unconsciously, we are culturally trained to reads sings before we even learned to speak. With semiotics-the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation, we utilize this within our everyday communication. Signs are made up of two components; the signifier, which is the materialistic form of the sign, and the signified, the mental concept that the sign represents. We see these signs everywhere. For example, television uses signs to give meaning to…

sound-image (Saussure, 66). He does this in order to avoid the fallacy of examining only the sound-image, or phonetic pronunciation of the word, for according to him, each recalls the other, and a concept without a sound-image is voiceless, and a sound-image without a concept is meaningless (Saussure, 67). The main crux of Saussure’s argument is that because “because the sign is arbitrary, it follows no law other than that of tradition, and because it is based on tradition, it is arbitrary”…

to the mid 1700’s, the way we look at our planet changed drastically. Ferdinand Magellan set out on September 20, 1519 to find the Spice Islands for Spain. Magellan discovered the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of Argentina. He crossed through the Strait and found an ocean which he named the Pacific Ocean. Though he died on an island, Magellan is credited as being the first man to circumnavigate the world. Ferdinand Magellan and his expedition to find the Spice Islands changed the…

continued along the gulf coast and later on the mississippi river. Many members died due to severe weather along the way. De vacas boat got wrecked on an island in texas which led to only four men surviving including de Vaca. After being shipwrecked, the men got captured, but escaped close to six years later. The journeyed on foot getting help along the way from native americans. Later, de Vaca returned to Spain, writing about his travels in the first European…