Mariano Marcos State UniversityCOLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Laoag City

THE THEORY OF SEMIOTICS/SEMIOLOGY

IN LITERATURE: A Study Guide on the Poem,

A LOVER’S WORDS by Rafael Zulueta da Costa

BACKGROUND OF THE THEORY OF SEMIOTICS/SEMIOLOGY IN LITERATURE

Semiotics/Semiology is the theory of sign systems. It comes from the Greek word “semeion” which means sign, and is used to describe a systematic attempt to understand what signs are and how they function.

Semioticiana person who studies or practices semiotics.

DIFFERENCE OF SEMIOTICS AND SEMIOLOGY.

"The terms semiology and semiotics are both used to refer to the ‘science of signs, the only difference between them being that semiology is preferred by Europeans, out of deference to Saussure’s coinage of the term, and semiotics tends to be preferred by English speakers, out of deference to the American Peirce."

THE GENERAL PRECEPTS OF

SEMIOTICS

General Precept Line/words Evidence of the General Precept Justification

1. Semiotics involves the study not only of what people refer to as 'signs' in everyday speech, but of anything which 'stands for' something else. It is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign.

Words must be luminous, shininglike the chromatic chorusof some great center –songringingly bright

But words cannot be luminous , aflame,

unless the lover be himselfa song

It can be seen in the excerpt that all the words are underlined because in semiotics ALL WORDS CAN BE TAKEN AS A SIGN.

General Precept Line/words Evidence of the General Precept Justification

2. A semiotic analysis of a literary text deals, instead of themes and general meaning, with the way in which meaning is produced by the structures of interdependent signs, by codes and conventions.

In accordance to the semiotic triangle, it has:

a signifier (the sounds / letters),

a signified (the meaning related to it), and

a referent (the reality it points to).

The signifier of the poem is Chorus which means most interesting part of a song. And it is related to the signified, SONG, because based on the definition, chorus is a part of a song. And lovers words must be likened to a chorus that will make him interesting but he needs to be a song to be luminous and aflame.

Song

lover’s words

ChorusSIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED

REFERENT

General precept Line/words evidence of the general precept Justification

In peirce's theory of semiotics there are three

kinds of signs:

Icons, which communicate by resemblance;

Indexes, which com- municate by logical connection; and

Symbols, which are purely conventional and whose meanings have to be learned.

Icons: words --- chorus

In the poem, the “words” is likened to chromatic chorus.

Indexes: words --- chorus --- lover --- song

These three words are logically connected to each other because the words of a lover must be a chorus but the lover must be greater than the chorus and that is the song.

Symbols: word It symbolizes feelings, vows and promises

THE SEMIOTIC FORMULAWORDS CHORUSLuminous

Shining

Great center song

Ringingly bright

LOVER

SONG

= lover must be a song that is greater than a chorus.

=

THE GUIDE QUESTIONS

1.What words in the literary piece can be dominantly considered as signs?

2. Do the three types of signs (icons, indexes, and symbols) present in the literary text?

3.Do the signs used in the literary piece appear in a threefold process, which includes syntax (the study of the relationships among signs), semantics (dealing with the relationships between signs and the objects signified), and pragmatics (dealing with the relationships between signs and their interpreter?

4. Is the meaning of the literary piece produce by the structures of interdependent signs ?

5.Can the signs be interconnected to derive on a universal truth?

This PowerPoint presentation THE THEORY OF SEMIOTICS/SEMIOLOGY IN LITERATURE: A Study Guide on the Poem, A LOVER’S WORDS by Rafael Zulueta da Costa was formulated to address the needs of the students as well as the teachers in studying literary criticism. Furthermore, this could be a useful guide for the Literary Criticism students for it serves as an avenue for them to learn the theory of semiotics as well as to facilitate in analyzing different literary pieces using this theory. Moreover, this presentation includes a Philippine Literary poem which will be helpful for the Filipino Students since there is a shortage of published Philippine Literary Pieces.

This PowerPoint presentation THE THEORY OF SEMIOTICS/SEMIOLOGY IN LITERATURE: A Study Guide on the Poem, A LOVER’S WORDS by Rafael Zulueta da Costa was created by John Jufel Simpliciano and Neil Patrick Nolasco with their consultant Professor Jahnese Asuncion.

This presentation is one of the collection of presentations about the different trends and theories of Literary Criticism by the BSE Junior students of Mariano Marcos State University – College of Teacher Education major in English, taking up Literary Criticism subject.

ABOUT THE WRITERS

JOHN JUFEL VALDEZ SIMPLICIANO is currently taking up the degree of Bachelor in Secondary Education with English as his field of specialization at the Mariano Marcos State University – College of Teacher education (CTE), Laoag City. At present, he is the lay-out Editor of the CTE Bulletin, the official school paper of the college.

ABOUT THE EDITOR / CONSULTANT

Jahnese Domingo-Asuncion is a professor at the Mariano Marcos State University – College of Teacher education (CTE), Laoag City. She finished the degrees of Bachelor in Secondary Education, major in English and Minor in Social Studies; and Masters of Arts in Education, major in Language and Literature at MMSU. She is currently enrolled in Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics. She teaches Language and Literature courses in the collegiate level. She was also involved in training Korean and Chinese students in the English Crash Course Program for foreign students of CTE. She is currently the co-adviser of CTE Bulletin and the Coordinator of Student Activities.

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