The Semiotics of Love…and Other
Investigations
Applied Semiotic Analysis
Arthur Asa Berger
Professor Emeritus
Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts
San Francisco State University
Students at a lecture
If you shot off a gun at sporadic intervals and asked students what they
were thinking when the gun went off you’d find:
20%
pursuing erotic thoughts
7% described mood as “love.”
20 % reminiscing about something
20%
paying attention
12% actively listening
Rest of students: worrying, daydreaming, thinking about lunch or religion
20%
12%
68%
said they were happy
said they were sad
were neutral
Investigations into:
Semiotics of “Frenchness”
The meaning of facial expressions
Objects as a reflection of our personalities
Signs and symbols in a perfume advertisement
Love as a game (play song)
Conclusions: cartoons I’ve drawn
Saussure’s Theory
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Signs are sound/objects + concepts
Sound/object is Signifier
Concept is Signified
Relation between signifier/signified is
arbitrary, based on convention
• Concepts are relational
Semiotics: Science of Signs
Signs: Signifiers and Signifieds, icons, indexes, symbols.
Signs: Anything that can stand for something else.
Signs: Can lie or mislead.
We are always sending messages (signs) about ourselves
and interpreting signs others send about themselves.
We “read” everyone we see in mediated texts…but do we
read them correctly?
Peirce on Signs
Kind of Sign
Way Works
Icons
Resemblance
Photographs, Statues
Index
Cause and Effect
Smoke and Fire
Symbol
Must be Learned
Flags, Sacred Objects
Signifier/Signified Game
Secret Agent (Signified)
Frenchness (Signified)
Signifiers:
Dark Glasses
Revolver with silencer
Trench Coat
Sports Car
Slouch hat
Beautiful Women
Etc.
Signifiers:
Facial Expressions Shown
Seven Universal Emotions (Paul Ekman)
Determination
Pouting (show displeasure, disappointment)
Fear
Neutral (no emotion)
Sadness
Anger
Surprise
Disgust (repugnant)
Facial Expressions
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2
4
6
3
5
7
8
Paul Ekman on Facial Expressions
1.
Neutral
4.
Fear
6. Anger
2. Disgust
3. Sadness
5. Pouting
7. Surprise
8. Determination
Reading People in Mediated Texts
Applied Semiotic Analysis
Hair Color
Hair Style
Eye Color
Eye Pupils
Facial Structure
Body Type
Age
Gender
Race
Facial Expressions
Body Language
Makeup worn
Clothes worn
Eyeglasses/sunglasses
Jewelry
Setting
Occupations of People (guessed?)
Activities Suggested
Language Used, Dialogue
Music, Sound Effects, etc.
Interpreting Signs:
A Class Exercise in a Semiotics Seminar
Students brought object in brown paper bag.
Nobody knew who brought which object.
Qualities of person as reflected in sea shell
found by students in seminar:
Sterile
Empty
Dead
Lifeless
Interpreting Signs
What Student Who Submitted Sign Wrote:
Delicate,
Beautiful,
Natural,
Lovely.
MORAL: Signs you are sending about
yourself may be misinterpreted.
Fidji Perfume Advertisement
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Snake is a phallic symbol (Freud)
Flowers are sexual organs of plants
Myth of passion in Polynesian islands (Gauguin)
Adam & Eve (and snake)
Dark hair and ideas about sexuality
Perfume as magic (and like venom?)
Fidji and sophistication: cost and advertisements
Design of ad: leads eyes to perfume
Fingers grasping perfume in strange way
Sex found hidden in images
Power of Metaphors in Music
“All in the wonderful game called
love...”
Love is a Game
Love is Like a Game
Metaphor
Simile
Analogy is basic to metaphor, similes
Implications of “Love is a Game”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Love is a Game….
Games have winners and losers
Games have rules
People cheat at games
Trickery and deceit in games
Games end eventually
People aren’t serious about games
Games take place in certain spaces
Summary
Semiotics is one of the most important ways
to analyze texts and culture
Cultures can be read as texts
Semiotics sees itself as the master science
With some basic semiotic concepts one can
analyze just about everything
“The world is perfused with signs if not made
up entirely of them.” C.S. Peirce.