Semiotics: the study of signs

43 thoughts on “Semiotics: the study of signs”

1. University of Toronto or Harvard are good choices

2. Napoleon Dynamite + Acoustic Bass = Semiotics

3. it's called learning.

4. phonetical connection ?
   (shit, 6 years of wasted university)

5. Searching for a kind of language which is easy to understand which almost no one knows about?

   G00GLE and click on Truth Contest and then click on the link The Present.

6. Unsolicited advice: Where the subject matter is arcane the communication style should be more vibrant.

7. Great video! I totally get it… Keep up the good work

8. Pronounced Peirce wrong. Didn't watch.

9. semiotics why you so hard!

10. Very nice job. Good refresher.

11. like the difference between a threat and an attack
    *flexes his arms and clenches his fists and gives you a sinister grinnn*

12. one of the inevitable conclusions of semiotic study is that we are all cartoon characters

13. Pierce's name is actually pronounced 'Purse'.

14. ughhh, I have to understand this for my course, but it's so confusing and his voice is so monotone! :'(

15. CIS11 ??????????????

16. Didn't know there was a name for my fascination since I was six.

17. Words are symbols and vibrations with assigned meaning.

18. Nice work!

19. thanks great use of symbols and annimation

20. That was a mouthful!!!!!!!!!

21. This is different

22. this just saved me from getting an F on my exam, thank you sooo much! 😀

23. I really want to thank everyone who has commented on this video. I think, though there are problems with it, the video is a decent introduction to the general idea of semiotics. I want to just say a few words to answer some questions/concerns raised in comments over the years. First, this project was made as an undergraduate assignment in an adobe after effects class in 2005. So, yes, we created the whole project in the 2004-5 version of adobe after affects. There were also specific parameters on the assignment and one of them was that the video had to be informative and under three minutes. This is why in post we took out most of the pauses in the voice over. Sorry the dialog goes so fast! I think the last sequence with the two people sitting at the table is a bit hard to follow- there is too much going on. Second, our communication department didn't formally teach semiotics, at least it didn't use the seminal texts and theorists, and I unfortunately had at the time never actually heard anyone pronounce the the name "Peirce" as "Purse". My apologies to those who were offended by my mispronunciations of Peirce and I hope that they will blame the institution and forgive my innocent ignorance and let us know whether the video was at least informative or not. 
    Third, yes, you can trace the study of semiotics farther than Peirce and Saussure, but as one person already commented (thanks btw!), its modern use is usually, in most semiotics scholarship, traced to these two. 
    Next, I think it is an interesting question on the usefulness of semiotics. If anything what both Saussure and Peirce agreed on was that language was arbitrary, historical, and dependent on social structures and collective practices to create meaning. If this is true than language is at the mercy of the social and ultimately, power. This is both comforting and scary. Now that I'm a PhD candidate and hopeful academic, I use semiotics as a way to help students 'denaturalize' language, to show its constructedness and relationship to politics. We also have to keep in mind the historical time period in which the semiotic systems Peirce and Saussure described came about. They were perhaps trying to make sense of language, perhaps even rationalize its processes, during the development  of modern systems of mass communication that negotiated a budding geographically and socially mobile society(ies) . Saussure, specifically, was in Europe during a violent period of nationalism before WWI and observed the importance of language and origin in defining national culture. Semiotics, like the study of communication, negotiated both a broad fear of mass chaos in an ever expanding, yet increasingly linked society, and the modernist fear of the 'labyrinth' of personal isolation (thanks John Durham Peters!). Is semiotic scholarship traditionally a professional academic language? Yes. Do we also encounter it everyday to the point that it is invisible and mundane? Yes, but studying it leads us to continue to ask questions about how meaning (signifier/signified) becomes 'acceptable', how it establishes the 'norm' and maintains it. That for me is what makes it a very potent theory to at least consider.
    Sorry this note is so long, but perhaps I'm making up my silence over the years. Anyway, the last comment I want to make is to ask what types of concepts people/viewers/you guys would like to see in this type of short format next (perhaps not so fast and with correct pronunciations). I'm finally in a position where I'd like to more videos like this. Let me know.

    thanks again,

    digimatt

24. darude-sandstorm

25. Omg wha??? Slowly now..

26. Studying for my end of the year exam and this seriously helped!

27. Superb…

28. Dude sounds like Napoleon Dynamite lol

29. Thank you – this was quick and to the point, just what I needed!! 🙂

30. I am going to fail english because of this….

31. The matrix has you

32. Regarding Semiotics: Learn german. Its easier to understand.

33. This dude's voice, I had to stop the video.

34. C.S Peirce is pronounced "Purse"

35. studying for finals like whaaat 🙂 thanks man

36. C.S. Peirce 'pragmaticist' not pragmatist

37. Thank you for making this, it helped a lot with my assignment!

38. does humain language include indexical iconic or symbolic signs ? justify your answer.

39. Thank you so much …

40. It's a good video, but the narrator is talking a bit fast. Maybe I'm just an idiot, but I had to watch it twice to really get it

41. This is one of the oldest videos on Youtube. The first time i saw it was in college.

42. garbage ass video

43. ily

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