Semiotics: what is a code?

Calling all practitioners of #semiotics. How to identify #codes. Here's an extract from "Using Semiotics in Marketing", your how-to guide which aims to make semiotics easier for you AND your clients. This extract includes three of the most-highlighted quotes from the book.

Codes are not the be-all and end-all of semiotic analysis and they are not relevant to every project. However, they make an appearance in most projects in one form or another, so it’s important to know what they are.

*The simplest description is that a code is a sum of semiotic signs which regularly occur in the same place, at the same time.* At many places of work, there is a dress code. It is composed of numerous items such as ties for men, shirts with collars, dark-coloured suits. The same dress code may specify that women may (or even must) wear skirts but the skirt cannot be too short. It may specify that women may (or even must) wear make-up, but only in subdued, ‘natural’ colours, so no glitter eyeshadow or false eyelashes. The code may specify that hair must be short or tied back, it may prohibit nail polish, it may prohibit or require high-heeled shoes. The people who work there attend other locations outside of work. They go to farmers’ markets at the weekend, they go to nightclubs and discos. At these places, very different dress codes apply and their work uniform will earn them the disapproval of others and perhaps even exclude them from entering.

*In semiotics, codes are exactly like this. They are clusters of semiotic signs which have no necessary or natural connection, but which are conventionally grouped together to achieve some effect.*

That last bit is important. In just the same way that ‘a picture of something’ is not a semiotic sign until, by common agreement, it is loaded with meaning, a group of items is not a code until the code is working to achieve something. Codes tell people how to understand the world around them and how to behave. Codes are not in themselves ‘norms’ but they are normative. ‘Normative’ means that an expected understanding or behaviour is set up, which individuals deviate from at their peril. The office dress code is normative in the sense that if you show up in a ball gown or a swimming costume, there will be trouble. A ‘health’ code in food packaging is normative insofar as it tells consumers how to understand the food and when to use it. Eat this if you are trying to lose weight or look after your heart. Maybe don’t serve it at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner because your family will be upset.

*Codes can be regarded as containing sets of instructions for consumers about how to understand what is on offer and how to behave. Your job as a semiologist is to detect the meaning of signs and the normative function of codes.* These are not casual distinctions. When semiotics fails, it often fails because the researcher has failed to distinguish their activity from any focus-group pack-sorting exercise. All over the world, consumers show that they are perfectly adept at grouping items based on their appearances. If you give them eight or ten packs of tea, they will have absolutely no trouble grouping them into packs that are merely functional versus packs that are decorative. Please do not repeat this behaviour and try to pass it off as semiotics, because clients will not take you seriously. They may not be experts in semiotics, but they know what focus groups are capable of and they are relying on you to do better. Moreover, ‘signs’ that lack meaning and ‘codes’ that lack a normative effect will leave you struggling when it comes to making business recommendations later on.

"Using Semiotics in Marketing", Lawes, R. 2020, Kogan Page. Available worldwide: Amazon, koganpage.com and all good bookstores.

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