Questions / Prompts

  • Using an example, define Saussure’s terms sign, signifier, and signified in your own words.
  • How are signs employed in visual communication? Provide a visual example from contemporary or historical advertising and explain why the example is considered an icon, index, or symbol in Peirce’s terms.
  • How are non-literal devices used to convey meaning in advertising and/or social media? Provide a visual example from contemporary or historical advertising and explain which type of non-literal device (simile, metaphor, metonym, synecdoche, irony, lies, impossibility, depiction, or representation) is being used and why.

Means This, This Means That

Hall, Sean. This Means This, This Means That : A User’s Guide to Semiotics, Laurence King Publishing, 2012 (Chapters 1 & 2) pgs 21-67.

Sign is made up of a signifier and a signified to create meaning; signifier is anything that triggers the mind to interpret, producing the concept, which would be the signified.

The ad above is an example of “sign” with the abstract depiction of a zebra (the signifier) that in turn makes the viewer immediately think of an actual zebra or the idea/concept of one (signified). This form of sign is what’s known as an icon because the signifier resembles the signified and doesn’t need a lot of interpretation or learned knowledge to decipher what it is.

Non-literal devices are used for the lasting effect and remarks that they leave when used properly. They invite the audience to engage with what is being presented. This ad uses simile to convey the message that the effect of hot and spicy Tabasco sauce is similar to an erupting volcano, suggesting it is very spicy for spicy lovers. The message is pretty straight forward but memorable nonetheless not only for how effective it is to get a message across without the aid of copy but for how clever it is, too.

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