SHINDY LEONG

Week 5 - Semiotics

SHINDY LEONG

Week 5 - Semiotics

24 october, 2018

For today's lecture we had discussions activity and semiotics which is sign of meaning and symbols. The discussions activity was to create a game that begins with a character, which will describe their first day at university.

Task 2 was to create a a game that begins with a character, which will describe their first day at university. We decided the character would feel nervous, sick and anxious. The theme should be a horror game/survival due to fighting the social anxiety. When it comes to the semiotics the atmosphere will be dark, the groups of people will be in dark and blue, and empty areas will be warm. As empty areas, it is more as a safe area while public areas will be loud and demonic sounding. The phone will be used to receive notifications on phone for the next class, chat groups etc. For the character he/she will wear a dark hoodie, as the character level up he/she will gain more confident and be able to change their dresscode.

Image source taken from Google [24 october 2018] ¹

In the 1800s Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand De Saussure studied semiotics for language separately. Saussure came up with an idea of a sign being made of a signifier of a sign being signified, basically the word tree and an actual picture of a tree. Peirce had a third concept involved which was interpretant, referent and representamen/signifier. Interpretant represents signs, referent refers to the object and signifier is the sense made of the sign. Other examples can be tyre tracks which represent the sign, the object is a vehicle which is a referent and interpretant that explains the vehicle was here.

In art, films, and games there are semiotics as well. A few examples can be barrels and bricks, the player will get the sign to destroy the objective. Semiotics games use are user interface such as health bars, narrative where a symbol pops up, so you can gain more information and user experience and gameplay.

Study task - II The semiosis in video games by by Frederik Seraphine ²

In this II chapter the Seraphine focus on Semantics and Pragmatics. As I mentioned earlier from today’s task the three concepts: interpretant (sign), referent (object) and representamen (sense made of the sign) such as the objective was here. Representamen signifies the objects in three categories: the icons, the indexes and the symbols. Peirce’s explains that the icon is the sign that looks like the object. Indexes describes the relationship between the sign and object. And symbols represent conventions or rules.

Peirce also defines objects intrinsically in three trichotomies of signs, the first-, the second and the third trichotomy. The first trichotomy are in terms qualisign (sign), sinsign (actual connection with reality) and legisign (a sign existing as a convention/rule). The second trichotomy are three objects mentioned before: icon, index and symbol. And the third trichotomy is based on the interpreter’s understanding of the signs. The rheme serve all possibilities of analysis. Dicisign or proposition contain a rheme as a part of it. Lastly the argument, which represents another sign as its objects.

Same signs can belong to various semiosis. As example if someone is crying the person might be happy or sad. This is why semantics and pragmatics should be identified within games to understand the semiotics.

There are two different game types: Ludus and Paidia. Ludus is a game based on rules while Paidia is a game without an achievement. An example could be poker, it can be both Ludus and Paida. If there is a bet involved the players will fight to win and if there is nothing involved the player will only play for fun.³

Charles Sanders Peirce (2011) ⁵

Reference

1 Unknown, Tree semiotics, Google, Image [24 october 2018] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=semiotics&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAko2m_Z7eAhWgOsAKHeHnAc0Q_AUIDigB&biw=1440&bih=679#imgrc=I1oO6eCaDhnCMM

2 Seraphine, F. (2014). The intrinsic semiotics of video-games: In search of games' narrative potential. https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=nKmJ9LsAAAAJ&hl=en]

3 Alex, (2007), Paida and Ludus, http://alexblakiston.blogspot.com/2007/10/paida-and-ludus.html

4 Jacqui Edwards, (2018), The semitics of Video Games, Prezi, https://prezi.com/view/WQm1ZtmqxV2hTUCVrOuR/

5 NOAA Office of NOAA Corps Operations, (2011), File:Charles Sanders Peirce theb3558.jpg, Image, Public Domain, [28 october 2018] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Sanders_Peirce_theb3558.jpg

Google Sites

Report abuse