Preliminary Exercise 1: Ferdinand de Saussure's Semiotics Theory Analysis

 Introduction

  Semiotics is the study of determining signs in our culture. It includes theories and analysis of signs in movies, films, tv shows and more. Ferdinand de Saussure was a Linguist that created a theory that a sign has a signifier and a signified. A signifier is a sign's appearance/ physical form. For example, an object, gesture or an action. Signified is the idea/ meaning of that signifier. For example, "A Red Rose means passion, intimacy, love and connection. This theory that Saussure has made impacted films by giving it a better understanding of how people want to convey their movies and what objects, gestures or action, would best represent what they are trying to demonstrate. 

    My objective was to find different signs and convey each sign with their signifier and the signified, as you can see on the table below.

slide 1

                          

                           
                                                                       slide 2

    As you can see, in slide 2 we used the signifier black cat, wine, and the sun. Next to each image, it has their message/ meaning behind each sign.

Reflection

    Me and my partner (Evan) had to create a presentation with two of the slides that dealt with Saussure's theory, one being an analysis of Saussure's theory and the meaning of signifier and signified and the other had to demonstrate our understanding of the topic by using different signs and describing what is it (signifier) and what is meant to us (signified). 

    We used a computer for this assignment since, we had to create a PowerPoint presentation. And I could say that I was intermediate with all the tools given in PowerPoint, I was quick to learn how to use those tools to get this assignment done. I've learned a lot during this assignment and the vocabulary to describe how to convey a sign and what two parts a sign is made of. I've learned that every sign has a message behind it, whether it is big and well known or not. They also have different words to describe/ label what each sign is. It was a fun activity to learn. Especially when you had to choose your own simple signs and let your imagination and experience determine what those particular signs meant to you and possibly other people too.

Work-Cited

Ferdinand de Saussure (2023) Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinand-de-Saussure (Accessed: 28 September 2023).