In semiotics, the commutation test is used to identify the value or signficance of any of the signifiers used in the material to be analysed. Semiotics is the study of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems, and includes the study of how meaning is transmitted and understood. ... In semiotics, the value of a sign depends on its position and relations in the system of signification and upon the particular codes being used. ...

Discussion

The first stage of development in semiotics related to the spoken and/or written form of language. Later, it was expanded to cover all sign systems that have an informational content. As Umberto Eco says, "A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else." (1976) In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity (Marcel Danesi and Paul Perron, Analyzing Cultures). It may be understood as a discrete unit of meaning. ... Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, instruction, communication, representation, and mental stimulus. ... Photo of Umberto Eco by Robert Birnbaum Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian novelist and philosopher, best known for his novels and essays. ...

Semiotics studies the relationship between the form of the sign (the signifier) and the meaning expressed (the signfied), and thereby attempts to reveal the process of communicating understanding. In each case, a message is to be sent by an addresser to an addressee. For this to occur, the addresser and addressee must use a common code, Hence, language evolves dynamically. The community will identify a lexical thing that needs to be referred to in their language. By common agreement, a sign (sometimes called a signal) will be selected. Of the many possible shades of meanings that it can be used to convey, one or more will be selected and encoded, i.e. the chosen meaning(s) will be denoted or associated with the sign within the broader framework of syntactic and semantic systems available within the community. When the audience is exposed to the sign, the expectation is that they will be able to decode the meaning. As Roman Jakobson adds, there will also be an emotional element or value which represents the addresser's attitude towards the thing. This will either become a connotative meaning attached directly to the sign itself, or it will be communicated by the context in which the sign is used by the addresser. This article is about the meanings of the word form connected with shape or structure. ... Meaning is studied in philosophy and linguistics. ... Process (lat. ... Understanding is a psychological state in relation to an object or person whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to be able to deal adequately with that object. ... In semiotics, the concept of a code is of fundamental importance. ... A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. ... In the lexicon of a language, lexical words or nouns refer to things. ... In semiotics, denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ... In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... An audience is the/a group of people who participate in and experience or encounter a work of art, literature, theatre, music or academics in any medium. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Etymologically, the word emotion is a composite formed from two Latin words. ... In semiotics, the value of a sign depends on its position and relations in the system of signification and upon the particular codes being used. ... This article is about the psychological term attitude. ... In semiotics, connotation arises when the denotative relationship between a signifier and its signified is inadequate to serve the needs of the community. ... ConTEXT is a freeware text editor directed at programmers. ...

In lexicography, the fact that a neologism is used marks its acceptance into the language. This will not be a difficult process so long as each sign has a limited and immediately useful meaning. The problem arises when several possible meanings or shades of meaning become associated with the sign. This is a shift from denotational to connotational meanings. Rules of interpretation are required to resolve uncertainty. Within the community, such rules are, for the most part, experiential and applied unconsciously. Members of a community have a shared memory of language patterns and norms which, for the most part, are stable over long periods of time. Individuals are therefore able to build up a cognitive framework which identifies the possible meanings from any grouping of signs and selects one considered the most appropiate from the context. This intuitive system is continuously tested through the audience's responses. If the responses are satisfying, intuition prevails. If the responses are obviously inappropriate, the audience will consciously review the thought process and decide whether to modify the framework. Semiotics has developed a more precise methodology for this interpretive process, seeking to expose the unstated habitual practices for interpreting signifiers. Lexicography is either of two things Practical lexicography is the art or craft of writing dictionaries. ... A neologism is word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) —often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. ... A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. ... Memory is a function of the brain: the ability to retain information. ... A pattern is a form, template, or model (or, more abstractly, a set of rules) which can be used to make or to generate things or parts of a thing, especially if the things that are generated have enough in common for the underlying pattern to be inferred or discerned... Norms are a sort of sentences or sentence meanings, the most common of which are commands and permissions. ... In metaphysics and statistics, the word individual, while sometimes meaning a person, more typically describes any numerically singular thing. ... The term cognition is used in several different loosely related ways. ... Intuition has many meanings across many cultures, including: quick and ready insight seemingly independent of previous experiences and empirical knowledge immediate apprehension or cognition knowledge or conviction gained by intuition the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference. ...

The commutation test

This test is a metalingual subjective system for analysing textual or other material. It has evolved from a limited method for investigating the structure of individual signs (per Roman Jakobson). Its primary uses are to:

• identify distinctive signifiers,
• define their significance, and
• divide material into paradigmatic classes and identify the codes to which the signifiers belong (Roland Barthes).

The initial assumption is that the communication to be analysed represents both a cognitive use of the sign system and a statement that refers to the values of the addresser. The purpose of the test is therefore to illuminate the addresser's intention in using the code in this particular way. It works through a process of substitution, assessing the extent to which a change in the signifier leads to a change in the signified. The first step, therefore, is to exclude one signifier from the material to be analysed. This is a test of redundancy: to identify what meaning is lost (if any) by omitting that sign. It will be relatively unusual to find that one sign is completely superfluous, but more common to find that the contribution of the one sign to the whole meaning is relatively weak. The weakness or strength of its contribution can be calibrated more exactly by placing alternate (synonymous and antonymous) signs in the context. This will enable the analyst to make a judgement on the distinctiveness of the particular signifier chosen by the author/artist and of its value to the meaning, i.e. as more or less necessary for maintaining the meaning and/or rule structure in different occurrences. By changing the collocation between two of the existing signifiers, and so changing their original relationship, the relative significance of each signifier can be considered. Further, by also placing the original sign into different contexts, it can be seen whether the sign becomes more or less distinctive. Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher and semiotician. ...

The process

The nature of the process will be determined by the form of the media to be analysed. In textual or pictorial media where individuals are the theme of the content, this might involve a substitution of words that are synonymous, or of imagery parallel in classes representing age, gender, ethnicity, religion, ability, etc. to assess the extent to which overall meaning is affected. In visual media generally, substituting different mise en scènes or backgrounds may change the significance of objects or people in the foreground. Colour selections may affect the perceived attractiveness of the scene or of individuals whose clothing is changed. The presence or absence of branded or generic goods, of stylish or outmoded clothing, etc may help to suggest the contribution of the original signifier. In film theory, mise en scène [mizA~sEn] refers to everything that is to appear before the camera and its arrangement – sets, props, actors, costumes, camera movements and performances. ...

According to Daniel Chandler, the commutation test may involve any of four basic transformations which, to a greater or lesser extent, involve modification of the syntagm:

• Paradigmatic transformations
  • substitution;
  • transposition;
• Syntagmatic transformations
  • addition;
  • deletion.

An example

Take the phrase:

the man hit the boy.

Now substitute "boy" with "baby", "girl", "child", "pansy", "thief". Each of these alternates affects the implication of the phrase. A "man" rather than a father or parent randomly striking a baby or girl might be considered sexist and a crime. If the boy was a thief, this would explain but not excuse the man's behaviour as retaliation or revenge. If the boy is a pansy which has pejorative connotations of cowardice or homosexuality, the man may be intolerant or overly judgemental but the victim is also presented in a less sympathetic way. The use of child not differentiated by gender is a more common usage in the context of paedophilia. When the signfiers of boy and man are transposed, the relative inequality in strength is also reversed and the interpretation shifts to more playful and less threatening images. Hence, the subjective view may be that the phrase as originally conceived was the most neutral of the possible formulations given the original form. A word or phrase is pejorative or derogatory (sometimes misspelled perjorative) if it expresses contempt or disapproval; dyslogistic (noun: dyslogism) is used synonymously (antonyms: meliorative, eulogistic, noun eulogism). ...

If we now contextualise the image in a school, seminary, prison, training gym or home environment different sets of meanings emerge depending on the presence or absence of other signifiers demonstrating the relationship between the protagonists, the time the image was created (a Victorian image of corporal punishment in a school would have a different significance from a more recent image of judicial caning in Britain, Canada or Singapore), the nature of the activity (e.g. a boxing training session or a game of tennis in which the blow is struck accidentally, etc), the presence or absence of other people, etc.. The values are therefore added or subtracted according to the presence or absence of other signifiers.

References

• Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology (trans. Annette Lavers & Colin Smith). London: Jonathan Cape. (1967).
• Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge (2002)
• Eco, Umberto. "A Theory of Semiotics" (1976) (Original English version of Trattato di semiotica generale, 1975)