Semiotics: Syntagmatic Analysis
Daniel Chandler's Questions:
- Identify and describe syntagmatic structures in the text which take forms such as narrative, argument or montage.
- How does one signifier relate to the others used (do some carry more weight than others)?
- How does the sequential or spatial arrangement of the elements influence meaning?
- Are there formulaic features that have shaped the text?
- If you are comparing several texts within a genre look for a shared syntagm.
- How far does identifying the paradigms and syntagms help you to understand the text?
See Daniel Chandler's notes on syntagmatic analysis
Syntagmatic analysis has to do with order, sequence, or spatial arrangement. It deals with patterns in space or time. It includes things like narrative, argument, montage, layout, etc. Unlike paradigmatic analysis, in which we are comparing elements to what is not there (or what might have been chosen but wasn't), in syntagmatic analysis we compare elements to what is there, or other elements within the object under consideration. Often there is a relationship of primary to secondary, or dominant to recessive.
In modern works, there is a tendency towards "seamlessness", or the appearance that everything fits together perfectly. It is worth asking if that is really true. Is that appearance hiding the fact that things do not fit well together?
Temporal semiotics tends to be about what is before and after. Spatial semiotics is about: above/below, in front/behind, close/distant, left/right (which can also have sequential significance), north/south/east/west, and inside/outside (or centre/periphery).
Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale: Folk tales have essentially the same structure, in which seven “actants” (villain, donor, hero, helper, princess, dispatcher and false hero) pass through a set of six stages:
Preparation » Complication » Transference » Struggle » Return » Recognition
Does this work for TV shows or movies?
What's the syntagmatic structure of: - Disney movies
- romance novels
- news programs
- malls
- the typical undergraduate degree
- a fast food restaurant
- a reality show on TV
- UCF campus
- a pop song
- George W. Bush's account of the necessity for waging war on Iraq
- a city
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