Semiotic vs. Discursive Approaches*

Semiotic approach: addresses the "how" of representation. Semiotics refers to the study of signs in culture, and of culture as a form of "language." This field draws in great part and in its tradition on Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1960).

The basic principle of the semiotic approach is that since all objects convey meaning, and all cultural practices depend on meaning, they must make use of signs; and in so far as they do, they must work like language works. Therefore, cultural practices should be amenable to an analysis which makes use of Saussure's linguistic concepts (e.g., the signifier/the signified and langue/parole; his underlying codes and structures, and the arbitrary nature of the sign).

[Note: when a sign is broken down into two further elements, we have the signifier and the signified. There is the form (actual word, image, photo, etc.) and the idea or concept in one's mind. Saussure termed the first, the form (word, image, photo) the signifier and the second, the concept in one's mind, the signified].

When a student of culture brings a semiotic approach to bear on a reading of culture, the objects and activities of culture are treated as signs, as a language through which meaning is communicated. In the semiotic approach, not only words and images but objects themselves can function as signifiers in the production of meaning. Clothes, for example, may have a simple physical function, to cover and protect the body from the weather. But clothes also double up as signs: they construct a  meaning and carry a message. An evening dress may signify "elegance";a bow tie and tails, "formality"; jeans and jogging outfits, "casual dress"... These signs enable clothes to convey meaning and function like a language, i.e., the language of fashion.

How is this done?

The clothes themselves are the signifiers. The fashion code in western consumer cultures correlates particular kinds or combinations of clothing with certain concepts ("elegance," "formality," "casualness" etc.). These concepts are the signifieds.

The discursive approach, in contrast, focuses more on the effects and consequences of representation. This approach considers more the "politics" of representation. Like the semiotic approch, the discursive approach explores how language and representation produce meaning, but in distinction to the semiotic approach, it analyzes how the knowledge which a particular discourse (medical, legal, psychological) produces. The discursive approach is particularly concerned with how discourse connects with power, to regulate conduct, construct identities, and define just how certain things (particularly subjects) are represented, thought about, practiced, and studied.

For example, it was only after a distinct definition of madness was put into practice that the appropriate subject, that is, "the madman" could appear. "The madman" is a function, in other words, of the psychiatric and medical knowledges that define this subject as such. What this means is that the discourses of psychiatry and medicine produce a subject who is "mad," and the subject himself embodies the particular forms of knowledge itself produces in discourse, in language.

In contrast to the semiotic approach, which tends to see symbols and signs in a more universal way, the discursive approach is more focused on how particular subjects and subject positions arise, and is historically and culturally specific in its analysis. The semiotic approach also tends to focus more on formal aspects of language and representation, more on how something is composed and put together.

Remember, there are similarities between the semiotic and discursive approaches; and the above explanation has served to highlight more the differences.

*Excerpted from Stuart Hall's "Introduction," Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications, 1997.