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

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.

Response

A signal is a symbol or object that portrays something particular, by warming or directing someone. Signal message to the person is clear and precise. A good example is a traffic signal or a stop sign. A signifier is almost like a message that the signal is trying to impart onto a person, whether it be color and something in the signal. For example the color red in sign could impart to someone to stop. The signified is the individual who is perceiving the signal and interpreting the signal in our own way.

As briefly explained from above. Signal is given the precise information in directing the signified, while with the signifier that imparts a message to the signified which the signified then takes that and translates in their way to understand. 

Non-literal devices are used in advertisement more creatively to attract attention and give the signified a non-literal message, but in some way signal a clear message about the product that signified is interested in. Looking at a honda advertisement where we can see two different types of cars, one used for racing and one used a family car. We see the race turning into this family friendly safe car which is a shot in the dark that a family car could be as fast as a car built for racing.