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Ferdinand de Saussure
Sign OPEN
Signifier: the word OPEN Signified concept: that the shop is open for business
The magazine is therefore a complex collection of signs that can be extensively decoded and analysed by its reader.
1.
She selects signs from three paradigms (i.e. sets of possible signs - upper body garments, lower body garments, and footwear). Each paradigm contains a possible set of pieces from which she can choose only one. From the upper-body-garment paradigm (including blouses, tee-shirts, tunics, sweaters), she selects one.
2.
She combines the selected signs through rules (i.e., hot pants go with flats, not high heels), sending a message through the ensemble - the syntagm.
Our interpretation of an individual shot depends on both paradigmatic analysis (comparing it, not necessarily consciously, with the use of alternative kinds of shot) and syntagmatic analysis (comparing it with preceding and following shots).
Roland Barthes argued that 'an important part of the semiological undertaking' was to divide texts 'into minimal significant units... then to group these units into paradigmatic classes, and finally to classify the syntagmatic relations which link these units' (Barthes 1967, 48)
Paradigm
If we think about paradigms as sets of possible signs e.g- upper body garments, lower body garments, and footwear. Then a set of possible signs could be a various range of shots that could have been used to present the subject. In film, the same shot used, within another sequence of shots, could have quite a different preferred reading.
Paradigm
Another paradigm is the use of typography in the copy of the magazine. The different choices for example of typeface are examples of the possible set of pieces which influence the syntagmatic meaning .
Syntagym
So the syntagymatic analysis considers the combination of the selected paradigmatic signs sending a message through the ensemble - the syntagm.