Sign Signified
Signifier black
By Soyoon Lee
Am I really communicating with you?
What does it mean to communicate with another?
All forms of communication begin with a sign. A sign consists of a signifier and a signified. A signifier can be anything that is detectable with our five senses, anything that can be expressed. A signified is the thing that which the signifier wants to convey.
Signified
Signifier
black
When there is an idea that we want to convey to others, we require a means by which we can get that idea across. In other words, we require a signifier. There are several ways to convey a certain idea to others, to send a certain message to others. We could use the language of our hands, eyes, or body. We could leave behind a broken branch, put up a flag, or light signal fires. As for the most common way, there is language.
Yet, communication doesn’t always work. When signification occurs equivalently between the speaker, who must express his signified with a signifier, and the listener, who must decode the speaker’s signified with the given signifier—we say that a successful communication has been established between the two. However, signification occurs even in the cases of failed communication. This shows that a sign’s message is not restricted to one single meaning, but is polysemic. In fact, a sign that which functions as a symbol of something is essentially polysemic. Thus, communication, using polysemic signs as its medium, is always liable to the possibility of failure. Even when one tries to communicate with another via a direct conversation, the communication might not succeed because subjectivity gets factored in, and some people like to hear only what they want to.
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What did you mean
By Soyoon Lee