VISUAL SYNTAX, SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS

Question:    

Why is pragmatics an important consideration when examining visual communications? Provide

relevant examples to illustrate your point.

Answer:

Meaning is determined by pragmatics such as codes, modality, sender, receiver and context.
These pragmatics factors influence and change the meaning of the signifier and sign.

1. Codes

Codes are set of rules agreed upon by a culture and society.

For example in some cultures, taking off shoes is obligate before entering someone's house.

2. Modality

      According to Dr Chris Woo's lecture notes, the medium that transmits the information. "Medium is the message" (McLuhan, 2001). He argued, the medium, was just as important if not more important than the content.Television, radio, newspaper, etc are examples of medium. He believed that the medium plays an important role in capturing people's attention. For example an adverstising below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_UYx4vSPs

      In the advertising, the audience are being captured with the laughs of the people in the video. They will started to ask. Why are they laughing? Finally, they will wait til the last minutes of the video which is about Volkswagon.

      Another example is:

  Justin Bieber is famous among teenagers and even adults. There are approximately about 28
  million Beliebers on twitter following him. Beliebers are his fansclub's name. As McLuhan had
  agreed that medium plays a vital role in advertising. In the magazine above, Rolling Stone chose Justin bieber as their model for their magazine. By putting Justin Bieber wearing muscle T would attract readers or even buyers.

3. Sender and Receiver

The meaning of a text created by an author. Author intention and encoded message is transmitted. Receiver decodes text by using available cultural and technological resources. For example:

 

 The author of this blog is Perez Hilton. He wrote "Have Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart reconciled? The message had been sent to the receiver and decoded by them for example by assessing to the internet and it is normal for a couple to reconcile to the society.


4. Context

  Space and time in which the message is uttered. For example:

1. He thought his girlfriend is that innocent LOL
2. Oh my God! I didn't know that is her boyfriend. I thought..never mind. LOL
3. I mistaken someone today. I pat him on the back. It is so embarrassing LOL
4. Hahahaha LOL



References: 

- Dr Chris Woo's Lecture notes

      - McLuhan, M. (2001). Understanding Media. London: Routledge

SEMIOTICS

Questions: 

(1)    Provide examples of signifiers, signifieds, and connotations
(2)   What does “coded” meaning mean?

Answers:

1. Signifier: A P P L E S

2. Signifieds: 

3. Connotation: Sweet and healthy



From Dr Chris Woo's Lecture notes, codes are "set of rules agreed upon by a community". He mentioned that with the absence of rules, we cannot interpret things without study cultural code. 



References: 

Dr Chris Woo's Lecture notes

SEEING AND PERCEPTION

Question: 

Does culture and society affect perception? Why?

Different people have different perceptions. We cannot expect other people perceptions to be similar as ours. Some of the factors that may affect one’s perception include culture and society.

For example, look at the gifs below.

PICTURE 1:

In today’s culture and society, bullying is prohibited and considered as crime. "Bullying is use of superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what is wanted" (Warda, 2012)


What is your perception by looking at the gif above? Some people would say she is intending to hit her.  People will jump into a conclusion that the girl with the red scarf is bullying her. Some would say she is not intending to hit her. People's perception might be different from others. So how the picture have a connection to the questions above? The society we live in believe that bullying is a crime. However, we cannot judge people only by seeing the gif without watching the whole video. 

Another example:

People are bashing the girl wearing the white shirt because she put a rice cake into the red girl's mouth. People in Korea believed that it is rude forcing people to eat the rice cake and people may get choked by eating the rice cake with mouth full. First of all the two girls above are Korean girl's group T-ara. They were promoting their song is Japan and invited to a Japan TV show. They were playing a Japanese game called Batsu. According to Japan's culture, the winner of the game need to put a rice cake into the loser's mouth by force. Japan and Korea have different cultures. Culture can affect someone's perception about things.




References:


-Wardah, A. (2012). Bullying. Touro: Nevada University

-Dr Chris Woo's Lecture notes