Semiotics: The Book that I loved reading

Book: Semiotics, Marketing, and Communication: Beneath the Signs, the Strategies

Semiotics, as christened by Pierce, appeals to marketeers in areas involving more ‘more intelligibility’, ‘more pertinence’, and ‘more differentiation’. The author designates ‘languages’ as the primary field of investigation for ‘semiotics’ as a subject. The thrust of semiotics lies in outlining the definition of conditions concerning the ‘production’ and ‘apprehension’ of ‘meaning’. As per the ‘Immanence Principle’, semiotics can be designated as a discipline pertaining to ‘form’.

‘Signs’, as described by the author, is a concoction of various ‘dimensions’ and ‘substances’. Signs are relatively interchangeable and derive value through the context of their occurrence. In semiotics, signs are but a set of superficial entities, which play in underlying significations. Marketeers are more interested in the generative approach of semiotics vis-à-vis the corresponding trajectory of signification. By ‘trajectory’, the author interprets the time, over which the meaning of an ‘expression’, after being manifested gains the stature of ‘signification’.

The author also probes into the role of semiotics in the exploration and exploitation of the concept of ‘clarity’. Clarity, characterized by spatial, temporal, intellectual, or all of these three dimensions, is continuous with significant and strategically allocated discontinuities. The author suggests a contour or delimitation of ‘clarity’ vis-à-vis its articulated design. The concept can take up the form of a narrative schema, with the inherent parameter of interpretation difficulties with respect to: 1) the production and apprehension of the intended meaning, 2) acceptance by the desired subject(s), and 3) success in establishing contractual relations between two subjects.

The elaboration on the ‘Classicisms of Clarity’ differentiates communication in terms of ‘Classical’ versus ‘Baroque’ modes of expression. The dimensions of expressiveness are compared as being:
1) Linear vs. Pictorial
2) Planar vs. defined over Depth
3) In a Closed vs. Open form
4) Multiplicity vs. Unity oriented
5) Clear vs. Obscure
The ‘Classical’ mode takes up the entire depth and space in a single breath, as if it were ‘a unique reality’, leaving very little scope for the ‘third dimension’ of the imagination of the beholder. It outlines clearly and exactly the elements which the communicator intends to attach to the formal totality of the ‘expression’.

Symbolic systems are defined as bi-planar languages, whose two planes, viz. expression and content, are in total conformity with each other. The author defines ‘semi-symbolic systems’ as the ones where there exist other relations between the two aforesaid planes, i.e. where one-to-one correspondence is missing. From this emanate the concerning dimensions of ‘euphoria’/ ‘dysphoria’, as well as ‘Thymia’. The author also elaborates on the twelve dimensions forming the framework for the analysis of advertisements.

The author further develops the structure of the ‘semiotic square’, a schematic representation of the interactive entities constituting any given semantic category. Developing from Hjelmslev’s thesis, semiotics is defined as the study of ‘a system of relations’, and not one of signs. Taking into consideration all the existent differences among relations, the semiotics square has the dimensions of ‘differences or ‘contradictory terms’ defined by an ‘operation of negotiations’, vis-à-vis an operation of ‘assertions’, inherent in the same set of relations. The square is laid out on an edifice of logico-semantic relations, over which all the inherent themes, images, concepts, and expressions are ‘positioned’, to provide ‘meaning’ to the ‘conceptual universe’ being depicted.

Hence, in the book, the author integrates all the dimensions of language and the related styles of expression, and formats the role of semiotics in understanding the implications of the different structures so formed. Semiotics, as a field of study, has immense implication, especially for marketeers and communication personnel, as it paves the understanding pathway to expressions and their deliverable intensions.