ANT100: Lecture_3&4

Signifying Reality §

Dive under the surface, and ask question about the “obvious”

Readings §

• All languages appear to have nouns and verbs
• Humans are programmed to easily process certain kind of language rules
  • Need not be spoken
  • Its independent of the way we express it
• Language need not to be communicated (internal speech)
  • Reflects the way we speak with others
  • Other understanding of the world is aided by both the internal speech & social understanding
• Linguistic and semiotic anthropology are disciplines that study the role of signs in human cultural and society

How signs represent our world (semiotics) §

• Human’s reality is constructed by our use of signs

• Signification(verb) - making sense, making signs

  • Linguistic and non-linguistic signs

• Homo sapiens - “human that knows” (making sense == to signify)

• Semiotics - study of signs (signifiying)

  • Linguistics - study of language (part of semiotics)
  • Other signs (semiotics proper)

The form fo signs (signifier and the signified) §

• Classic (”Saussurean”) View of Signification (Ferdinand de Saussure)
  • Signifier - has some physical property(audio, visual, writing)
  • Signified - in material (not in semiotic language, ordinary language)

Sign = Signifier + Signified (3 quality of signs, a sign can have more than one qualities) §

• ==Icon== - share some of their physical form (shape, sound…

  Ex. Picture of a person -> person

• ==Index== - do not share any of their form(sound/look) with the referent - has existential relationships with its referent

  Ex. Moose poo -> Moose

  Ex. “Smoke” and “Fire” is neither arbitrary(pure convention) nor iconic (has no image)

• ==Symbol== - have arbitrary relation to signified (referent) - no existential relationship [暗喻]

  Ex. Cross -> signifies England

  • Connected only via systems of signification (eg. Language)

  • Arbitrary is opposite of motivated（icons & index is motivated)

  • Most words are arbitrary

  • Index has existential relationship while symbols don’t

Differentiating between it §

• Would you get the meaning without learning the a code or a language? (No -> symbol)

• Can you say in ordinary talk that the sign is what it stands for? (Yes -> Icon)

• The sign indicates but isn’t what it stands for (Index)

Denotation and Connotation §

• Denotation - what a sign (including linguistics signs like words) means literally
• Connotation - what it means not literally, what it implies
  • Linguistic sign is a type fo connotation (eg. Word, phrase, sentence)
  • Connotations vary more from person to person than denotation
  • Connotations are powerful but not easily open to argument
  • “What cannot be said is greater than what can be saide”

Reality and The Real §

• ==Reality - how we understand The Real (in social science jargon) - we are well advised to live in it==
  • Reality is socially constructed - Its what’s verifiable and makes sense to us
    • Constructed by society (most reality come acres through the finer of signs and language)
  • The concept might be very real, but could be false
  • Reality vs irreality (truth from lies / falsehood / false news)

Colour as social construct §

• Green and blue has no distinction in old Chinese and English
• The colour spectrum is continuous, it’s language that divides it into units

Alternate Realities §

• Content creators could manipulate “reality” with what they were presenting

Whorf Hypothesis §

• Benjamin Lee Whorf (not possible to prove it)
• Each language decisively influences the way its speaker think (different language construct different realities) - linguistic relativity

Ex. Pasted tense represents cultural’s view of time

Self as construct §

• Theory: Our concept of having a self (ego) is not entirely given by nature
  • Constructed in society, by sings, especially language
  • There is a continuum our of which language delineates a distinguiable “self”
  • Experiences and actions are united in the one distinct whole we call “I”

Jacques Lacan reinterpreted Freud stages of the development of self §

• Real -> Imaginary (mirror stage) -> Symbolic (accomplished through languages)

• Real (ego not yet formed) - the real is undifferentiated, no signs, uncategorized experience

  • No boundary between self and the world (does not know where she begins and ends)

• Imaginary (ego forms) - world is perceived without words, ego image is supported by society

  • Corresponds to the icon (image rather than words, icon is the most typical image sign)
  • Image vs. The word

• Symbolic (language appears) - the world is differentiated into categories marked by signifiers

  • Gets a system that has thousands and categories that separates the reality
  • Ego learns to understand “I” as part of a society, in relation to “you”
  • Characteristics (systematic, socially constructed and sanctioned(approved), not given by nature, is not THE REAL, but its the reality)

• We are both “I” and “you” to ourselves

  • One party coaches the other, it represents society