Visual Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics : Structure, context and meaning.

Semiotics as we know from the last lecture is the study of signs. We have learned how to perceived things with our senses such as see, touch, hear, taste and smell. We have seen signs, pictures, images all of our life, we also have heard multi languages and words, but did you ever questioned how a certain sign have been declare as an object or a word to define them? I guessing not, because all of the sign or words that we seen or heard we have known it all for our entire life. For a simple example; children knows all around them by memorizing all the things that they heard or seen, that is why in kindergarten or nursery, they taught the kids with singing songs like Alphabets song

Whenever they see the word of “A” they will be automatically thinks about the word "Apple" or "Ant" as the picture describe in the alphabets chart, as Saussure (1983) quote “Semiology was a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life”. Moving on to the branches of the semiotics, we will starts from Syntactic then Semantic and lastly Pragmatics.

Syntactic is the grammar of the visual image which according to Lester (2006), "Syntactics is the study of the ways signs are combined with each other to form complex messages". These means that syntactics have the signs that have mixed or combined to create an image and also hidden messages. Take look at this advert for example:

This is the anti-smoking advertisement against cancer. The advertisement shows a child crying while there are clouds of smoke covering his face which also showing the boy is suffocated. The background of the image is black and seems very dull. This image uses black background because the color symbolizes death and the boy showing an expression of sadness and if the signs are combine all together then the message that send to the viewer will be delivered which is smoking will not only killing yourself but also killing your love ones. Even though the image doesn't have any words saying that by smoking you can kill a child but because you have the ideology of a certain perspective on smoking then you can read the message from the image, as according to Saroyan, "One picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, but only if you look at the picture and say or think the thousand words".

Moving on to Semantics, Semantics is the study of meaning or interpretation of sign from the views of certain cultures, which according to Lester (2006), “Semantics is an area of semiotics in which the researchers attempt to determine the significance of the signs within and throughout various cultures”. Look at the image below:

When we see this image, the first thing that pops to our mind is luxury, rich and the perfect paradise vacation to everyone dreams. Others might think a glass building located near the sea shores, some might says that this image is one of expensive hotel with a great sea view that located somewhere in this world. According to Barthes, “The text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral and imagination” and also according to Morris (1938), "Semantics deals with the relation of signs to … objects which they may or do denote". Different people have their own perspective for every image they see depends on their culture influences or imagination to create the description of the image.

Lastly for not least the Pragmatics, which according to Lester (2006), “Pragmatics is the study of the origin, common uses and communicative effects of the signs” which means that it refers to the study of context to meaning such as social context that refers to the relationship from sender and readers. The readers decodes the texts using their spoken language or other technological resources. As according to Davis (1991), "Pragmatics will have as its domain speakers' communicative intentions, the uses of language that require such intentions, and the strategies that hearers employ to determine what these intentions and acts are, so that they can understand what the speaker intends to communicate". For example:

This advertisement of Calvin Klein Jeans has been banned by the Australia's Advertising Standard Bureau because the image has created the idea of rape. This ad has received more than 50 complaints from women's advocates who claimed that this ad has promoted gang rape and violence. This ad also has been claimed if this type of ad keeps on created in the future then it will giving the idea of open sex, rapes and the violent to women and child will be rapidly high. This is the idea of the people that have the knowledge of a certain situation and the body language in their society but to others this will be just a picture of a girl laying with three mens.




References:

Chandler, D., Semiotics for Beginners. Retrieved August 27, 2011 from 

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html

Pragmatics. Retrieved August 27, 2011 from http://www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30Sp2002/pragmatics.htm

Korta, K., and Perry, J., Pragmatics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Z., (ed.), Retrieved August 27, 2011 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatics/

Lester, P.M. (2006). Syntactic theory of Visual Communication. Retrieved August 27, 2011 from

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html

Photos:
http://lifeisreallybeautiful.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/calvin-klein-banned-advertisement-featuring-lara-stone-590bes10211
http://www.hotels.com/13/hotels/1000000/530000/527500/527498/hcom_527498_37_b.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRX8rGDIVuzRQb-VhrhgPw5nG10dtaevskfBLaGBAvnITSm2VSKPKJE22x53b2xIxLr8VaTB1P3FGSBqge9Uz4A2D6sdjsDob8SjX7dTdzxloHzZezax97gfDBKCKH1iOk05qWgh9cXLk/s1600/41.jpg