‘Semiotics is not only the key tool in understanding perform

Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist who has been hailed the “founder not only of linguistics but also...semiotics”#, based his theory on a linguistic model that has been employed by most structuralists. The basic linguistic model, composed of ‘signifiers’ and ‘signifieds’, is an effective tool in approaching performance analytically. Saussure placed specific emphasis on the role of language as the most effective form of signification. Text, and the communication of it, is intrinsic to many theatrical genres, making the breakdown of the language used integral to understanding the meaning of perform

Having originally employed semiotics to encourage this exploration of cultural connotation, it only strengthens my view that the study of signs provides a vital key in interpreting performance. As performance is, in many genres, a direct reflection of reality it is impossible to separate performance and culture. For example, Shakespeare’s London was a direct representation of life in Jacobean/Elizabethan England in terms of the ideology inflicted upon the characters and expressed through the text. Religion formed a central structure and set of rules for members of the state to follow, as is reflected throughout much of Shakespeare’s work. The downfall of the perturbed son of a “murdered” king is complicated by the religious implications involved in Hamlet's death. To Jacobean/Elizabethan audiences, the severity of the threat of religious repercussions would have been taken as a blatant warning for them to take heed to.

Having explored the use of semiotics in both a linguistical and ideological sense, I have determined that whilst it is undoubtedly a key tool in understanding a performance, its value lies more specifically in its inseparable relation to culture. It is this aspect of the study of signs that provokes deep understanding of performance as a genre its separate constituents.

The Saussurean emphasis placed on the linguistics of a performance is limiting, as different signs and meanings have varying connotations to separate cultures and social groups. Whilst Saussure defines the signified and signifier as ‘psychological’#. He focused on the linguistic sign and “phoncentrically privileged the spoken word”#. He accepted that the entire system of signs existed in a personal understanding or interpretation of sound-images and their concepts, yet felt that this was arbitrary. Never did he broach the field of sociology whilst determining the cultural inflictions that formed the arbitrary relationships between signifieds and signifiers, yet it is this that fellow semioticians highlighted when protesting that concepts were controlled by indivi

Some topics in this essay:
Political Theatre, Doll’s House’, Saussure Swiss, Whilst Saussure, Notting Hill, Torvald Nora, Jacobean/Elizabethan England, , Repressive Apparatuses, Shakespeare’s London, culture performance, understanding performance, culture performance takes, ‘a doll’s, linguistic model, study signs, doll’s house’, social implications, individual experience, ‘a doll’s house’, performance performance, meaning performance,