Priority to Language or Thing 1st?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkAXsR5WINc

Click on the link :)

Continuing the study of language, my resource is not coming from black and white this time. I found a speech about Jacques Lacan in Theory which is given by Professor Paul Fry. Of course, I did not finish the whole video, but only the particular sections that I would like to emphasize on which are 'Language and the Unconcious' and 'Metonymy, Metaphor, and Desire'. (22.18 to 37.03) I keep listening to the same section so that I can make note of it.

Here are the bullet points I have made:

• The unconsciousness is structured like a language. The language can be defined as semiotic system. 
• Language is a rebus of number, drawing and other elements. It is a sequence of signs taken from different semiotic system that can put together to form a meaning.
• Signifier emerges as language, it is not foundational to language. (this point I feel a bit hard to digest >.<)
• Language expresses thought, constitutes thought and brings thought consciousness.
• Ideology and consciousness is determined by existing material circumstances, but existing material circumstances is not exactly produced by language.
• Giving priority to things, then give rise to language.  In Lacan's theory, however, he gives priority to language. Meaning of thing is expressed by language, language is brought into being to express.
• Levi Strauss said one day there is no language, another day has language. It is a way of conferring meaning on thing, and likewise, the way is arbitary. This is the nature of sign.

Priority to language or thing first? The last second point is quite controversial due to Lacan's theory is contrary to other psychologists. Thing is given meaning by using language to express, as well as, language can create meaning itself. Language is the core in this case. 

Have a nice day :)  

Resources:
Youtube (2009) Jacques Lacan in Theory. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkAXsR5WINc [Accessed: 31st July, 2013].

Language is so powerful!

I saw an interesting story of the Tower of Babel. It is talking about the mythical origin of language. During that time everyone could speak and understand each other by using a same language. For celebrating this, the citizens built up a tower to reach the heaven. God decided that this must be stopped. To do this the most effective way to fragment their language so that hierarchies would develop. The metaphor behind this myth shows how language can be an instrument of control.

Tower of Babel

Is this any relevance to my final essay? I can say that this is good start for knowing more about language. In Geroge Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four, he gives a deep analysis about the abuse and misuse of English, and also Newspeak. After studying the short article, I realize that language has a great influence on our thought. For example, Newspeak is the language that the vocabulary becomes smaller and smaller in each year. This is the method that goverment manipulate the thinking of people. Words are available for the purpose of communicating thought, when the words become limited, the way people thought will be restricted impactfully. It is not only narrowing the range of thought, but also shortening people's memories. Thus it can be seen that language can shape people thought and imagination. 

Official language~~

I have a rough ideas about language from a book called 'Visual Semiotics'. There are two kind of languages: official language and unofficial language. It is important to know what kind of language is used in different situation. 

Official language has a general codification that is sustained by creating institutional conditions which enable it to be recognised throughtout the whole jurisdiction of certain political authority. For example, our academic qualification like degree, master, phd and so on are all in the system of official language. However, unofficial language, dialect is not undergoing this institutional process of control, it is internally driven by its own independent logic. So, look at the figure above, it nicely depicts the thing I have mentioned.

Additionally, concerning about authorized language, the theatre, the lectern, the books are all instruments of on official discourse. For example, I am getting lecture from lecturers, every single word they say are just powerful to me. Why does it happen? It is because these messages are delivered by an authorized and licensed people (that's why I call them lecturers). Bourdieu calls it 'magical act'. 

In advertising field, we can see this magical act does exist, the semiotics of official corporation are employed to communicate the ideas of company. As the Colgate ads above, this brand's product becomes convincing due to the handsome portrait of the doctor on the left hand side. The 'OK' hand sign he does shows that this is product is undergoing scientific validation, and thus people will trust that this brand is reliable. The use of official and authorized language can be clearly seen. How about the unofficial language? As the older post 'Malaysia Dialect La', they are the case study of unofficial language. 

  

Resources:

Berkes, J (2000) Language as the " Ultimate Weapon" in Nineteen Eighty-Four. [Online] Available at: http://www.berkes.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html [Accessed: 31st July, 2013].

Crow, D (2003) Visible Signs David Crow: An introduction to Semiotic, Switzerland: AVA Publishing SA.

Salmon, A. E. (n.d.) The Tower of Babel: Language Formation Myths. [Online] Available at: http://www2.seminolestate.edu/asalmon/Language%20Creation%20Myths--The%20Tower%20of%20Babel.htm [Accessed: 31st July, 2013].

Representation of human

What is sign?

1. Sign is the basic unit of language.
2. Sign is a unit of meaning, semiologists argue that anything has meaning.

If paying more attention at those commercial magazine, print ad and billboard, most of them are actually using the photography of human. Gillian Dyer's book Advertising as Communication (1982) points out that photographys of many adverts depend on signs of humans which symbolize particular qualities to their audience. 
Signs of human can be categorized into four parts:

1. representations of bodies
2. representations of manner
3. representation of activity
4. props and settings

All these elements are usually can be seen in print ads, target audience can understand the meaning unconsciously via them. I will analyse the chosen print ads by using this powerful checklist accordingly.

Remember my last post? I did mention 'to be continued'. Here you go!

It is just simple reason that I choose these two print ads again, instead of others as I post in the previous blog, because this chapter is about representation of human! Does it make sense? Of course, it does. :)

Lets get start it!

LEFT

1.Representation of body

• Age: around 30, wisdom
• Gender: Man- weedy little man. Women- consistent uniform, sexy, attractive
• Race: Chinese
• Hair: Man- the orderly gelled hair, somewhat old style feeling. Women- brownish hair dye (k-pop hair style). I guess men likes this kinda of girl. 
• Body: Weedy little man is undesirable and unattractive. holding spoon and fork in awkward mood. Stewardesses are wearing short skirt with the elegant sitting and standing position.
• Looks:  Stewardesses- close-fitting uniform shows the beautiful 'enterprise line' of women. In Mandarin, enterprise line is so-called 事业线, this is a terminology for those modern women to show their beauty.

2. Representations of manner

• Expression: Man has an inflexibly complacent smile, he is served like a king. Smile lit up the stewardesses' faces and serve him attentively.
• Eye contact: Stewardesses are looking at the man and being submissive to the man. The man makes an connection to viewer, he is looking at you, imply that you can be like me also. (design dialogue: You wouldn't know how excited I am now, you cannot be like me =P) Take it easy, this is just for fun. 
• Pose- One stewardess is on her knee, two stewardesses are standing, and another two are sitting in various poses. At the same time, the man is sitting in the middle. It shows that the man is pedestalled like a king. 

3. Representation of activity

• Touch- 3 is holding various foods and two holding handkerchief. Girls- surrounding him on all sides, like his minion feeding him. just lack of spoon feeding only.
• Body movement- Women are the active obviously.
• Positional communication: In term of spatial arrangement, the man is surrounded closely by stewardesses. it looks a bit compact in the central of this print ads. Their hands are moving toward the man to show they are the active one.

  
4. Props and settings

• Props: spectacle give me this kind of impression of intelligence, yet pedant and nerdy. The spicy Malaysia popular food does have two meanings which are the wide selection is supplied in AirAsia plane, and the hotty/ stewardess. The symbolic red handkerchief connotes AirAsia‘s service is attentive.
• Setting:  setting of the ambience is apparently inside aeroplane with AirAsia symbolic red color.

RIGHT

1.Representation of body

• Age: around 30. wisdom, men are at the prime of their career.
• Gender: In this case, men are active, and woman is passive and femininity
• Race: Chinese
• Hair: Woman- K-pop hairstyle again.
• Body: standard figure. desirable stature to most men and women. I think this has become the criteria of being welcomed people and celebrity. 
• Looks: Look at those 'TOP' votes can show what is the criteria of 'beautiful' and 'handsome'. Hope you know what I mean.

2. Representations of manner

• Expression: the girl is enjoyable to all happen around her
• Eye contact: More or less same with the LEFT print ad. 
• Pose: 2 men standing, 1 man sit beside the girl. the girl is prone.

3. Representation of activity

• Touch: Woman is wearing a headset. One man is holding the red rose to propose, another two men are taking liberties with the woman. 
• positional communication: Different with LEFT, the men are active and woman is passive.

4. Props and setting

• props: luxury dormette is contrasting with the normal seat, also the normal seat is blocked by the luxury dormette. It connotates the high class and comfortable seat is supplied in AirAsia. The symbol rose means love. The arrangement of props is wisely done.
• Setting: Comparing to the LEFT, the space is much wider, it is the particularly huge space for the girl. The connotation of huge space usually give people an impression of comfortable, owning private space. 

Resources: 
Rose, G (2007) Visual Methodologies: An introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, 2nd edition, Great Britain: MPG Books Group.

Ideology of advertising

In this post, I talk about the theory of ideology. Ideology is playing the main role to embed advertising in everyone's life. font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.8125px;">Before going further to my topic, I have found out some definition of ideology.

• a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. (Oxford)
• archaic the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature. (Oxford)
• a scientific knowledge that is constructed in such a way to legitimate unequal social power relations.

It can be seen that ideology is reflecting the interest of power in political or economic field. However, Judith Williamson (1978) is contrasting her use of 'imaginary' social position produced by ideology with the actual social relations produced by capitalism as revealed by scientific knowledge.  Semiotic is then mainly concerned with the social effects of meaning. 

Why did I explain so much about ideology? Of course, it does make connection with semiotic and  advertising. Williamson argues that one of the most influential ideological form in contemporary capitalist societies is advertising, means advertising is playing a huge role in economic. So, how about the exposure of advertising nowadays? How many ads people see per day? Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today. About half the 4,110 people surveyed last spring by Yankelovich said they thought marketing and advertising today was out of control. (New York Times, 2007) 

Besides that, Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive at the Kaplan Thaler Group, a New York agency claims that consumer is going to be at any point in time, so what companies do is to find a way to be everywhere. In a few words, ubiquity is the new exclusivity. Williamson (1978:11) also says that advertisements are ubiquitous, so they have 'a sort of independent reality that links them to our own lives'. Now, I associate with Jean Baudrillard's simulation theory, human being is embedded in the world which is full of SIGNsss. 

Back to advertisement of AirAsia (the final two are still uncertain), the two chosen ads above is pretty similar, but they are in English (left) and Mandarin (right). The ads are creating the ideology of being attractive to opposite sex, also getting all-rounded and great service from AirAsia. The target audience will try to imagine themselves as the main character in the print ads (I has somewhat imaginative thinking on that as well! Laugh!). This is the 'imaginary' which appears in Williamson's theory as I have mentioned before. Who doesn't like it?? Being impressive and attractive to opposite sex!

Comparing both of them, the nerdy look of the man, the hair gel style and the thick frame of glasses is the sign to reflect nerd. Furthermore, his face expression makes him look proud of himself like a peacock, but a bit unexpected in the moment. However, the power of ideology is mainly come from the RED sea. The exact emperor level of service as what kings got in the past, but just lack of spoon feeding. In contrast, the main object in the left print ad is the pretty girl. Those handsome men stand around her, obviously they are not steward, but why do they come to the girl? There are a few possibilities:

1. she is pretty, they want to know her.
2. she is rich, because she is in the grand seat of airasia. So, they want to know her.
3. AirAsia has a lot of handsome boys. 
4. A lot of professional persons, such as business men choose AirAsia. So girls have the chance to know them.

Well, I am not sure which one of them is the inner meaning of this ad. Overall, I can say that AirAsia is a cheap but luxury flight you have ever takan, you will have memorable moment in the flight, just as the imaginary scene in the print ad.

Additionally, the another point I would like to run through is the method of depicting the message. Comparing to Chinese version ad, the English one is much more audacious, but mandarin one looks a bit conservative. I will talk more about this in the following post. 

TO BE CONTINUED...

Resource:

Louise (2007) Anywhere the Eye Can See, It's Likely to See an Ad

[Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/media/15everywhere.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [Accessed: 20th July, 2013].

Oxford Dictionaries (n.d.) The Definition of Ideology in English. [Online]Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ideology  [Accessed: 20th July, 2013].

Rose, G (2007) Visual Methodologies: An introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, 2nd edition, Great Britain: MPG Books Group.

Williamson, J (2005) Decoding Advertisement: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, Great Britain and United States: Marion Boyars Publishers LTD.

Malaysia Dialect La!

Well, this time I gonna talk about the feature of Malaysia Language, perhaps you will find out a lot of grammar and structure mistakes in this post. But, no worry, keep going la! Majority of Malaysian has the slang which is pretty distinctive, it is so called Manglish. Mieke Bal and Norman (1991:174) says about the semiotic 'the study of sign', 'human culture is made up of signs. each of which stands for something other than itself, and the people inhabiting culture busy themselves making sense of those signs'. Therefore, the text and image in Malaysia's advertisement only can be encoded by Malaysian. I will show a few classical examples to show how 'busy' is Malaysian making sense with those SIGN. haha!

This P1's advertising campaign is selling Wireless Fidelity, giving up old style telephoneline. This campaign is using Malaysia's dialect, 'cut already or not?' The polysemy, a sign has more than one meaning. It is powerful to position its viewers in a specific imaginary social place. It produces a familiar preferred meaning and become preferred reading to Malaysian. Why do I say 'familiar? The another meaning of cut is cutting male's prepuce. As you see, either the print ad or tvc, the main character is MALE. It is hard to avoid that it makes people feel misunderstanding. If you know what I mean. >.< Since Malaysia's cultural background, people get familiar with this dialect, advertisement plays with the text in order to speak effectively to target audience.

                                             

                                           

 

Secondly, this is SUPER Ipoh coffee, same method it used as the P1, 我叫你试 (I want you to try!!!!) has permeated through the people. My dad kept saying that to me during that time, it is quite annoying but pretty funny. Haha! I couldn't find the original one, but this campaign shows how busy is Malaysian making sense with this sign. The language is impressive enough, not because of the fantastic text it uses, but the dialect and the slang that local people familiar with.

Last but not least, this Myvi advertising campaign I heard from radio last year, this is very impressive to me because of the terminology 'jikdak-logy'. At the first time, I was curious about the special noun until I see the TVC. 'Jikdak' is the Cantonese pronunciation, '值得' in Mandarin, means worth. I can say that I experienced  this signifying process to know what the sign actually stands for. Judith Williomson (1978:40) said, 'all signs depend for their signifying process in the existence of specifc, concrete receivers, people for whom and in whose systems of belief, they have meaning'. 

Conclusion, knowing the construction of society as knowing the culture of one place and the people is how advertising making meaning socially and effectively. 

Different language of AirAsia's print ads

Malaysia has 3 main races, Malay, Chinese, and India. I am so proud to know Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, English and Thai (I learn by myself actually :D). According to the topic I have chosen, it does mention the different language editions, and thus I would like to compile some print ads through online and print medium.

ENGLISH

Well, English is the international language, so English version print ads can be largely found in whatever medium.

The interesting but somewhat controversial print ads I have analysed a bit last time.

An AirAsia's billboard which promote how valuable is their flight ticket for a journey.

AirAsia's print ads which was derived from newspaper.

MALAY

In term of Malay version, it is somewhat hard to find in internet or newspaper. AirAsia had spat with Utusan due to political and racist agenda. News from Star Online, AirAsia X's CEO, Azran makes his own comment/ critique on the racistissue of ‘Apa lagi Cina Mahu?' .(translate: 'whatelse chinese want?' Detailedly, this headline printed by Utusan is about the post-election) At last, Utusan and AirAsia boycott each others, therefore, I think AirAsia's print ads is hardly found in Utusan anymore.

The print ad of AirAsia from Berita Harian (left) and internet (right).

     

MANDARIN

Print ads from Sinchew daily newspaper (星洲日报)

These few print ads are slight different with those I have found in newspaper. They are published in China. The way it plays with the text is more creative than Malaysia's mandarin version. Further and detailed analysis will be post in the following blog. Have a nice day :)

Resource:

The Star (2013) AirAsia's Spat with Utusan Widens. [Online] Available at: http://www.thestar.com.my/story.aspx?file=%2f2013%2f6%2f13%2fnation%2f13232107&sec=nation [Accessed: 17th July, 2013].