Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
As of late, I (Cathy) have been exploring semiotic linguistics to further my understanding of multimodality (Jewitt & Kress, 2003). Ferdinand de Saussure is considered to be one of two fathers of 20th century semiotic linguistics. He described semiotics a as a system of signs that are created within a cultural context. Sausuure defined a sign as being composed of:
- a ‘signifier’ – the form which the sign takes; and
- the ‘signified’ – the concept it represents.
On the internet I stumbled upon these diagrams which are intended to illustrate the meaning of signifier and signified. Do you think they are both correct?
Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education 