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Language: A Semiotic Analysis

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The concept that this paper will focus on is representation. According to renowned sociologist Stuart Hall (1997), representation refers to “the production of the meaning of the concepts in our mind through concept and language” (Hall, 1997, p. 17). This means that representation acts as a platform which connects things, concepts and signs, and by doing this, it allows people to refer to either real or fictional worlds (Hall, 1997). People use language, signs and images to understand, describe and define their environments and the things around them (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001). Thus its importance lies in the fact that it is the way in which people function, as we are constantly deciphering our surroundings through representation. With respect …show more content…

Within this approach, there are two models. I will be explaining the semiotic approach first. The semiotic approach was influenced by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, and following his theory of language, it states that “language is a system of signs” (Culler, 1976, p. 19). According to American logician Charles Sanders Peirce’s Theory of Signs (Atkin, 2013), a sign is made up of three parts that are closely related to each other: the sign itself, an object, and an interpretant (Atkin, 2013). The sign has a certain signifying element and it is not itself as a whole that signifies. Likewise, for the object, only some specific characteristics of an object enables a sign to signify it. As for the interpretant, it allows for a more in-depth understanding of the sign’s object through a translation of the sign. The relations between the three parts are as follows: the object determines the sign, the sign signifies its object, and the sign determines the interpretant (Atkin, …show more content…

Certain characteristics of some Asian people determine how media decides to portray them and even exaggerate and generalise those characteristics, and in turn these images of the media are automatically linked back to Asians and they influence a larger audience’s perception of how Asians are like. For example, one common portrayal of Asian men are that they are geeky and are afraid of speaking to women, like that of the character Raj from popular American television sitcom Big Bang Theory (Sreedhar, 2013), and due to him being Asian, the character is immediately linked back to Asians as a whole and thus this influences people’s understanding of

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