Shannon & Weaver Part II

Semiotics draws heavily on linguistic concepts, partly because of the influence of Saussure. Saussure referred to language (his model being speech) as 'the most important' of all systems of signs. Language is regarded closly as the most powerful communication system by far. It refers to a system of rules and conventions. Applying these notions to the semiotic system rather than simply to language, the distinctions are mostly between code and message, structure and event or system and actual usage. It can help us realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to complex codes of which we are normally unaware of. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through these signs and codes into which they are organized. Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs that are normally transparent are able to be read. Danielle
along with Rosalyn agree that Saussaure's semantics help us to understand the study of human communication better. Get a better understanding through visiting Suassure's theory. criticism of the classical structuralist position of Ferdinand de Saussure. Roman Jakobson was a socio-linguist who thought that Saussure's insight concerning sounds had an arbitrary relation to meaning; meaning being determined by their relations with other sounds which differed, was an overstatement. A collection of sounds can function as the vehicle for meaning, but how exactly do the sounds perform this function? There is a relation between sound and meaning within a word, and within language generally. In the end this comes down to the problem of identifying language. Like any verbal sign, there are two components. The sign has two sides: the sound, on the one hand, and meaning, on the other.