Choose one of the following Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Choose one of the following - Assignment Example In other words, this essay attempts to explore how an advertisement in the printed media can illustrate Umberto Eco’s assertion that the medium as well as the message can be â€Å"charged with cultural signification† (Eco, 1976: 267). To add, the analysis of the perfume advert will focus on the photographic imagery that provides iconic representation of the product along with what it is supposed to stand for. It will also center around how the aforementioned imagery produces relevant signified concepts or, in other words, certain emotional overtones that serve to promote the item’s image. First of all, let us define semiotics and discuss concepts related to it. David Chandler, the author of â€Å"Semiotics: The Basics†, defines semiotics as â€Å"the study of signs† (Chandler, 2002: 1). The definition that is broader in scope was given by Umberto Eco, who assumed that â€Å"semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign† ( Eco, 1976: 7). Wray (1981: 4) further explained that semiotics is a study of â€Å"the way any sign, whether it is a traffic signal, a thermometer reading of 98.6 F, poetic imagery, musical notation, a prose passage, or a wink of the eye, functions in the mind of an interpreter to convey a specific meaning in a given situation†. ... With reference to signs, two notable theories should be mentioned – that of Ferdinand de Saussure, a famous Swiss linguist, and Charles Pierce, a U.S. philosopher. For Saussure, semiotics was some kind of science that studies signs’ role within social life. For Pierce, semiotics was rather â€Å"a formal doctrine of signs†, inseparable from logic. While both approaches are considered essentially important for the modern understanding of semiotics, there is a major difference between them: as Leeds-Hurwitz points out, Pierce studied logics, while Saussure focused on behaviour (Leedz-Hurwitz, 2012: 6). The theory of semiotics posits that making meaning is a complex process within the text, and encompasses both signification and address. Signification is a word used to describe the overall process of signs’ reading. Semiotics understands ‘signs’ as something that denotes the elements of language, for instance, words. All languages are complex sig n systems. However, there may be found sign systems that are less complex. These are, for instance, colours. Through the use of specific colours, a message may be transmitted, based on their meanings in various cultures. For instance, the red colour is widely used to signify either a warning or passion in the cultures of the western civilization, while green is believed to be a colour of nature and the colour of harmony. Garments and accessories can serve another language that conveys things about individuals. Therefore, meaning gets formed not just by purely linguistic signifiers, e.g. written words, but also through images as well as different non-linguistic sounds. With reference to this, images function as