Analytical
Text – A logo of “Green Tomorrow”
To begin
with, sign generally implies something that intended to have a meaning. In other
words, there is a relationship between that something for example an object
itself and its meaning. An object could not be considered as a sign if it does
not entail a meaning. The question is where does sign comes from? Obviously,
sign is one of the creations of human being. It is human who provide meaning to
that particular object. However, a sign can only be created if it is culturally
acceptable because that particular sign need to be understood by people – which
is refer as a code.
For example,
a recent and well-known issue of global warming has raised the concern of
people throughout the world and thus many organisations attempt to conduct campaigns
to save the earth from pollution. In this case, the above logo of “green
tomorrow” can be used to analyse how far it can be understood and considered as
a sign.
Firstly, signifier and signified need to be identified
to form a sign in the logo. The signifier is everything that can be seen in the logo. Then,
a mental concept is created through the signifier called a signified. The signified
in this context could be save the plants, protect the earth from harms or
prevent global warming. Thus, the above logo is also seen as a sign because it symbolise
a step to prevent from global warming. The whole logo represents “Support and
Protect, Bio-degrade and Recycle, Green”.
Apart from that,
denotation could also form along with the sign or signifier – the factual
description of the object. Instead of just saying a logo, there is green round
shape, 2 hands holding a plant as well as a wording of “Green Tomorrow”. Once the
logo has been denoted, it can then be conceptualised depending on how
individual sees it – called connotation.
According to
Marcel Danesi (2004), a sign can be referred as referent. There are 2 types of
referent which are concrete referent and abstract referent. A concrete referent is something that can be
shown in real world but on the other hand abstract referent is only the
imaginary thing usually refers to ideas which can be easily perceived. Simply saying,
some logo can interpret the meaning of the sign in the picture directly but
some others have the ability to influence people to anchor the meaning of the
signs. In this context, it is believed that everyone can connote the sign
directly such as from the wording “Green tomorrow”.
However, as stated by Daniel Chandler (2002). Saussure
argued that signs refer to purely structural and relational rather than
referential. Saussure said that no signs can make sense on its own but it has a
systematic relation to each other. Instead of just analysing the whole picture
in the logo as a sign, the symbols in the logo can also be analysed into
details. In other words, the whole logo and the symbols are related. For instance,
the two hands holding a plant (signifier) represents that it is the
responsibility of the society to protect the ecosystems from further damage while
the green round shape indicates that save the earth and the ecosystem. The whole
logo implies the cooperation is needed to save the earth entirely and stop
destroying the ecosystem.
Finally, sign can only be interpreted if it has object
and meanings as well as widely accepted by the society. Danesi concluded that
sign is based on referential where sign can be seen directly or through
imagination. Nevertheless, Saussure stated that signs should be based on
structural and relational where signs must have relation with each other and it
cannot make sense of its own.
