Meaning What? - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 136

sign
signified
signifier
Figure 10.1 Characterization of the sign. (Courtesy of Daniel Chandler, Aberystwyth University.)
(See color insert.)
So in essence semiotics is trying to make a link between the real world and the
worlds of our individual minds and imaginations. The signifi er can be anything we
can come to be aware of in the world around us: it can be words, pictures, or facial
expressions. It could be sounds we can hear that we might recognize as voices and
words. It could be sounds that we can hear that we might recognize as birdsong and
even a species of bird, if we are knowledgeable in that way. It could be a light switch
we are feeling for in a darkened room. It could be a smell that we associate with
Christmas at a grandparent's house long ago. Signifi ers can be just about anything
that we can perceive in the world around us.
Figure 10.1 is a classic characterization of the sign. The blue arrows are intended
to mean that signs can be read in both directions. The signifi er can lead to the signi-
fi ed, the meaning being conjured up in our minds, or various components of the
signifi ed can together lead us to the signifi er. But in order for a signifi er to be part
of a sign it must have a signifi ed; it must enable our minds to make a mental asso-
ciation of some sort. In semiotics, a sign is only a sign when it has both a signifi er
and a signifi ed.
Figure 10.2 shows two pieces of clip art. (In fact, this is the fi rst time Clive has
ever found a use for clip art.) We can see two trees: the fi rst is an image, a sketch
of sorts, which most of us would recognize as a tree; the second is a word with
which we associate the meaning “tree.” Both images are signifi ers and have the
same—or at least a very similar—signifi ed to do with “treeness.” Different signifi ers,
but the same signifi ed; two different signs. What about photographs of trees? Are
photographs signifi ers as well? Can photographs be parts of signs?
Figure 10.3 is, obviously, a photograph of a tree. We, the authors, don' t know
what kind of tree it is or where it is but it' s defi nitely a real tree. It's also a signifi er.
It signifi es the particular tree it is but it also signifi es the general notion of “ treeness, ”
of all the things we might know and associate with trees: leaves, branches, trunks,
roots, fl owers, birds' nests, timber, fi xing carbon, saving the planet, and so on. Pho-
tographs are just as much signifi ers as drawings and words and they can all signify
similar things, they can have the same or very similar signifi eds.