Today I'm going to trip the wire in your head that you likely did not even know was there, unless you are in PR, marketing, or some other field where you seek to influence the target of your communications in a professional manner.
I am writing this post to call your attention and mindfulness forward to better understand a process that you invoke multiple times a day without ever recognizing it. You even do this when you are dreaming. This process by itself is not necessarily a good or a bad thing – I raise it for your consideration to determine if the meaning you invoke automatically is actually useful or helpful. It is these automatic thoughts/beliefs that sometimes hid in plain side as limiting factors we are not mindful of, thus they keep spinning as limiting boundaries that we sit within…let me point out your automatic meaning machine here…
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is all about studying the process of our meaning-making ability, the study of semiosis (which is all about a process that interprets signs as referring to their objects), and meaningful communication using the signs. Semioticians study what a symbol implies, but also how it got its meaning and how it functions to make meaning in society. Symbols allow the human brain continuously to create meaning using sensory input and decode symbols through both denotation and connotation.
Denotation is all about translating the symbol down to its literal meaning.
Connotation is all about translating the symbol down to its cultural or emotional meaning.
Originally, I had intended to write about communication models, and in doing some research on the topic – I uncovered this new-to-me topic of meaning making. Make no mistake, there is a strong relationship between symbols being used to create meeting and our ability to communicate using a variety of models.
Semiotics is not concerned with linguistic signs and symbols – this is what we call linguistics. Semiotics is closely related to psychology as well.
Semiotics is concerned with the following elements:
- indication – pointing towards something
- designation – the action of choosing a place for a special purpose, giving it a special status, or an official position
- likeness – a resemblance
- analogy – transferring information or meaning from one subject to another
- allegory – it is a method of using metaphor in which a character, place or event is used to deliver a broader message. If you read the Bible – Jesus uses allegory many times when conveying his points to increase the uptake of the message.
- metonymy – a substitute for reduction |the substitution is based on some understood association or linkage between one another
- metaphor – a substitute for perspective | it is a figure of speech that directly refers to one thing by mentioning another for rhetorical effect, Shakespeare was incredible with this
- symbolism -a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship
- signification – the representation or conveying of meaning
- communication – the process of transferring data and-or meaning from a source to a receiver
- the signs themselves
- and the sign process used to associate the signs to the objects they refer to
We interact with symbols every single day and night. The relationships between the symbols we employ, the meaning we ascribe to them, and how we internalize both of these elements is something that underpins many default mindsets. This is true even in our dreaming lives when we are in bed. Amazing that we we have such fundamental things in play during all hours of our existence, and yet this is something I bet you have not really thought about before.
I know that this is the case for me…
I can tell you that I am very conscious about the words I use, the tone I employ, the body language invoked, and the way in which the other person typically receives information – when I’m attempting to get something across. This was the original topic for today, yet I find myself attracted towards this notion of default usage of symbols in our day to day life. The symbols and associated meaning are hidden right there in plain ‘sight’ in the language enveloping them. Fascinating.
So how can we use this newfound awareness of semiotics in our day to day lives to further ourselves and to help those around us? Now I’m not talking as a hardcore psychologist or coach – I’m speaking in layman terms – as a coworker, as a family member, as a friend.
Check this out.
Semiotics as a discipline is used in a variety of fields to speed meaning creation and conveyance.
Marketing is a great example where symbols are utilized to represent a brand. The process of having the brand pop into your head automatically is when the branding guys and gals have achieved their mission.
Cognitive semiotics is the study meaning-making by employing and integrating methods and theories developed in the cognitive sciences. This is literally how we create meaning and how we convey it ever more effectively. The Nordics are leading the charge in this field at the moment – likely an area of further research for me.
Computational semiotics is all about human computer interaction, simulation of cognitive semiotics, or mimicry of human cognition to further reach of artificial intelligence… Until this article, I had never even considered the ability to abstract meaning making in a computer program that could be built upon. I bet the research in this space could have far reaching effects.
There are other fields where meaning creation and assignment is conveyed via symbols, many of which are cutting edge fields that have just begun to understand how symbols are used to convey meaning. Law, film, music, pictures, urban, ethics, and even organizational semiotics all exist in various emerging forms of study and research.
The point of today’s article is to get you to raise your consciousness level when it comes to the tripwire of conditioning we have all been lead into when it comes to symbols.
I’ll throw a couple of symbols down here that do not mean anything, except for what you bring to the symbol and then apply to it in a default manner. Much like the Apple logo.
