Structuralism and Semiotics

STRUCTURALISM: Defined.

1.  a theoretical paradigm in sociology, anthropology and linguistics positing that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. - (Wikipedia) 
2. the name that is given to a wide range of discourses that study underlying structures of signification. Signification occurs wherever there is a meaningful event or in the practice of some meaningful action. Hence the phrase, "signifying practices." A meaningful event might include any of following: writing or reading a text... - (John William Philips) 
3. the doctrine that structure is more important than function

STRUCTURALIST FILM THEORY 

Basically, it emphasizes how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication. Structuralism looks at a film or any other "text" as a signifying system, a set of patterns or relationships within the work. The meaning of a work (or a body of work) comes not so much from inherent meanings of its individual elements, as from how they interrelate within a "formal system."

Ferdinand de Saussure & his contribution

 Structuralism first comes to prominence as a specific discourse with the work of a Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed a branch of linguistics called "Structural Linguistics." There Saussure sought to provide the foundations for a modern linguistics, but he also proposed that the conceptual framework he developed might be applied to a general science of signs—"semiology." According to Saussure, Structuralist Film Theory refers to how films convery meanung through the use of codes & conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication.

SEMIOTICS: Definition, Origin, Proponent

 According to French literary critic and semiologist Roland Barthes, semiotics isn't a theory, a discipline, a school, nor a science but an "adventure". It is all about deciphering and interpreting both verbal and non-verbal signs. Semiotics (or Semiology) is defined as the study of social production of meaning from sign systems and it is the analysis that can stand for something else.

Barthes described the Semiotic Theory as the explanation of myth. He said that myth is the connotative meaning that signs carry whenever they go. Myth makes what is cultural seem natural. Furthermore, Barthes said that social meanings could be classified through clothes, lifestyle choices, and advertisement.

SEMIOTICS as a form of Structuralism

Semiology uses the concept of codes to discuss conventional ways that things are done in texts. Codes are cultural phenomena because they are learned.

There are various categories of codes:

1. Cultural codes include the way that texts signify, for example, beliefs about gender, social class, and authority. 
2. Technical codes, in film, describe the ways we have learned to "read" visual information, include such things as continuity editing, point of view and reaction shots, cross-shooting and over-shoulder shooting, dissolves, and montage. Technical codes involve both techniques of making movies and, for viewers, learned ways of seeing them. Technical codes have thematic implications as well: for example, a dissolve suggests a connection between two otherwise-unrelated images; a tilted composition suggests undertainty or danger.

Genre, Plot, Film Techniques: Relevance to Structuralist Film Theory

Genre, considered as a set of conventional patterns within a basic formula, is a particular focus of structural criticism. Plot structures (storylines such as the thriller, the falsely-accused man, young lovers overcoming obstacles to marriage, or the search for hidden treasure) are recurring story patterns and are often a defining characteristic of a genre. Structuralist theorists have also analyzed plot patterns found in fairy tales and other traditional narratives (such as the heroic quest or the sleeping beauty) as these appear in contemporary narratives. Film techniques such as subjective (point-of-view) shooting can also be analyzed as structural elements.