Semiotics and Film Language Research

When referring to particular readings of the texts, such as a dominant reading or an aberrant reading, you also have to be aware that a piece of text can get many different meanings from people. When one person takes meaning from a text, another could understand it in a totally different way.

Semiotics is the study of signs, and a sign can convey meaning to the audience. A sign is made up of two parts;

The signifier- the sign itself for example a picture of words in a text.

The signified- the meaning taken from the actual sign.


A piece of text can be polysemic, which means the text has multiple meanings. The meaning each indiviudal takes from the text is influenced by many different factors. This depends on our age, gender, ethnicit, the context of viewing and many other factors.

Film Language

Denotation- This is the first order meaning. It is the first obvious meaning of the sign that we understand.

Connotation- This is a deeper, less obvious meaning. A feeling or idea that is suggested by a particular word object or situation, although it doesn't need to be part of the meaning.

Syntagmatic- Syntagmatic connotation is the meaning signs make when they work together.

Didactic- Didactic texts have denotive meanings and aren't often open to interpretation.

Media theorists have produced examples of the different types of signs that can be presented in various texts:

• Iconic Signs- The signifier is connected to the signified through the principle of resemblance. These type of signs accuire their function through similarity to what they signify. E.g. A photo is an iconic sign as it resembles what it refers to.

• Indexical Signs- This is when the signifier makes you think of the signified becuase they are physically connected in the real world. For example smoke is caused by fire, so the smell of smoke (signifier) makes you automatically think of fire (signified)

• Symbolic Signs- This type of sign such as language are purely artificial as it is a human-imposed convention. There is no physical connection or natural resemblance between the word and the concept. E.g. The English word 'dog' and the concept 'dog'.

Media producers prefer they're texts to avoid being polysemic as they want they're audience to understand the one sign from it; to get the dominant reading. To get this producers achor the meaning of the text to prevent signs being polysemic. The signs then work together syntagmatically and prevent any polysemic meanings.