Lecture (05)CODES

Code

• Code : is a set of practices familiar to users of the medium

operating within a broad cultural framework.

• When studying cultural practices, semioticians treat as signsany objects or actions which have meaning to members of thecultural group, seeking to identify the rules or conventions ofthe codes which underlie the production of meanings withinthat culture.

Types Of Codes

• SOCIAL CODES

• verbal language (phonological, syntactical, lexical, prosodic and paralinguistic subcodes);

• bodily codes (bodily contact, proximity, physical orientation, appearance, facial expression, gaze, head-nods, gestures and posture);

• commodity codes (fashions, clothing, cars);

• behavioural codes (protocols, rituals, role-playing, games).

Types Of Codes

• TEXTUAL CODES

• scientific codes, including mathematics;

• aesthetic codes within the various expressive arts (poetry,drama, painting, sculpture, music, etc.) including classicism,romanticism, realism;

• genre, rhetorical and stylistic codes: exposition, argument,description and narration and so on;

• mass media codes including photographic, televisual, filmic,radio, newspaper and magazine codes, both technical andconventional (including format).

Types Of Codes

• INTERPRETIVE CODES

• perceptual codes: e.g. of visual perception (Hall 1973, 132;Nichols 1981, 11ff.; Eco 1982) (note that this code does notassume intentional communication);

• ideological codes: more broadly, these include codes for‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ texts – dominant (or ‘hegemonic’),negotiated or oppositional (Hall 1980; Morley 1980). Morespecifically, we may list the ‘-isms’, such as individualism,liberalism, feminism, racism, materialism, capitalism,progressivism, conservatism, socialism, objectivism andpopulism; (note, however, that all codes can be seen asideological).

Types Of Codes

These three types of codescorrespond broadly to three keykinds of knowledge required byinterpreters of a text, namelyknowledge of:

• 1. the world (social knowledge);

• 2. the medium and the genre (textualknowledge);

• 3. the relationship between (1) and(2) (modality judgements).

Types Of Codes

Another taxonomy:

• 1. Perceptual Codes

• 2. Social Codes

• 3. Textual Codes

Perceptual Codes

Fredric Jameson declares that ‘all perceptual systems arealready languages in their own right’ (Jameson 1972, 152).

• figure vs. ground

Perceptual Codes

fundamental and universal principles (‘laws’) of perceptualorganization, including:

• proximity – features which are close together are associated;

• similarity – features which look similar are associated;

• good continuity – contours based on smooth continuity arepreferred to abrupt changes of direction;

• closure – interpretations which produce ‘closed’ rather than ‘open’figures are favoured;

Perceptual Codes

fundamental and universal principles (‘laws’) of perceptualorganization, including:

• smallness – smaller areas tend to be seen as figures against alarger background;

• symmetry – symmetrical areas tend to be seen as figures againstasymmetrical backgrounds;

• surroundedness – areas which can be seen as surrounded by otherstend to be perceived as figures.

Perceptual Codes

We are rarely aware of our ownhabitual ways of seeing the world.We are routinely anaesthetized toa psychological mechanism called‘perceptual constancy’ whichstabilizes the relative shifts in theapparent shapes and sizes ofpeople and objects in the worldaround us as we change our visualviewpoints in relation to them.

Social Codes

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis can be described as relating twoassociated principles: linguistic determinism and linguisticrelativism.

Applying these two principles, the Whorfian thesis is that peoplewho speak languages with very different phonological,grammatical and semantic distinctions perceive and thinkabout the world quite differently, their worldviews beingshaped or determined by their language (Sapir 1958, 69;Whorf 1956, 213–14).

Social Codes

A controversial distinction regarding British linguistic usage wasintroduced in the 1960s by the sociologist Basil Bernsteinbetween so-called ‘restricted code’ and ‘elaborated code’(Bernstein 1971).

Social Codes

• ‘restricted code’: was used in informal situations and wascharacterized by:

o a reliance on situational context,

o a lack of stylistic variety,

o an emphasis on the speaker’s membership of the group,

o simple syntax

o and the frequent use of gestures and tag questions (such as‘Isn’t it?’).

Social Codes

• ‘elaborated code’: was used in formal situations and wascharacterized by:

o less dependence on context,

o wide stylistic range (including the passive voice),

o more adjectives,

o relatively complex syntax

o and the use of the pronoun ‘I’.

Social Codes

• ‘codes of looking’

• The duration of the gaze

• ‘identity’: the self

Social Codes

Textual Codes

• Codes transcend single texts, linking them together in an interpretive framework which is used by their producers and interpreters.

• In creating texts we select and combine signs in relation to the codes with which we are familiar.

• We interpret signs with reference to what seem to be appropriate codes. This helps to limit their possible meanings.

• Usually the appropriate codes are obvious, over-determined by all sorts of contextual cues.

Textual Codes

One of the most fundamental kinds of textual code relates togenre.

• Traditional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them.

• fiction vs. non-fiction genres

Textual Codes

• Traditional rhetoric distinguishes between four kinds of discourse: exposition, argument, description and narration(Brooks and Warren 1972, 44).

• These four forms, which relate to primary purposes, are often referred to as different genres (e.g. Fairclough 1995a, 88).