Semiotics the Basics by Daniel Chandler

Author:Daniel Chandler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

While theorists may find it analytically useful to distinguish connotation from denotation, in practice such meanings cannot be neatly separated. Most semioticians argue that no sign is purely denotative – lacking connotation. Valentin Voloshinov (1973, 105) insists that no strict division can be made between denotation and connotation because ‘referential meaning is moulded by evaluation . . . meaning is always permeated with value judgement’. There can be no neutral, literal description or depiction that is free of an evaluative element. Structural semioticians who emphasize the relative arbitrariness of the sign and social semioticians who emphasize diversity of interpretation and the importance of cultural and historical contexts are hardly likely to accept the notion of a literal meaning. Denotation simply involves a broader consensus. The denotational meaning of a sign would be broadly agreed upon by members of the same culture, whereas no inventory of the connotational meanings generated by any sign could ever be complete. Connotation is looser, more subtle, more ambiguous, and less conventional than denotation. Certain connotations are widely recognized at an unconscious level. A striking example of this was revealed in a study in which some familiar oppositions were listed and for each one subjects were asked which of the poles ‘went with’ a square and which with a circle (Liu and Kennedy 1993). The list of oppositions included: light–heavy, soft–hard, happy–sad, love–hate, alive–dead, mother–father, good–evil, and bright–dark. Since the reader may care to check their own responses to this task, the results of the study are summarized on a subsequent page as Table 4.7.

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