Happy Sign Readings

While reading this week's articles, I tried to keep in mind the theme connecting all of the readings together, semiology. I will admit that it took several reads of some paragraphs, even some sentences to conclude anything from the abstract thinking of the authors. In the end I concluded that a sign, as simply stated by Saussure, "is something that stands for something else." More so, however, a sign represents a process. It is a process of reasoning and ordering to ultimately produce a truth, or an answer.

One of the ways Saussure writes of this process is by way of determining the values of words. Different values are placed on words in every language. However, the meaning of a word in one language cannot be a definitive meaning of a similar word in another language. A value must be determined and then further assessed in relation to other words in order to come up with the signification of the words, or the result of the combination and positioning of values.

I also found it interesting how Peirce and Barthes seemed to reject photographs as being acceptable signs. Instead, they saw photographs as a way of only capturing the immediate moment, but nothing else. There is no way to derive any indication of a past or predict any type of future of the photographed subject. According to Peirce the result of a picture is only a likeness of what is being photographed. A photo can only transfer a physical likeness because we know nothing else than what we're shown. You could say something about the physical resemblance of one photograph to another, but could not conclude any personal similarities based only on a physical likeness.

I'm looking forward to reviewing and discussing the articles further in class. Happy sign readings. . .