The above statement comes from semiotician Göran Sonesson (in his 2003 work, and frequently quoted in discussions of visual and cultural analysis, such as studies of Che Guevara's image).
It captures a crucial shift in how
semiotics is understood—moving away from a simplistic "dictionary"
view of meaning toward a dynamic, process-oriented perspective.
The
common (but limited) misunderstanding
People often think semiotics is
basically "the study of what signs or symbols mean":
- Red light → "stop"
- Rose → "love or romance"
- Cross → "Christianity"
- Nike swoosh → "performance / just do it"
This is mostly semantics —
asking, "what does X refer to or stand for?" (It refers to the 'what'
question).
The
semiotic shift: focus on "how"
Sonesson (and many contemporary
semioticians) argues that this "what" approach is too static and
reductive. The real work of semiotics lies in investigating the mechanisms, conditions, and processes
through which meaning emerges.
In other words, semiotics studies:
- How something becomes able to mean anything in the first place
- How the relationship
between signifier (the form: sound, image, word, gesture…) and signified (the
concept or meaning) is established and maintained
- How that relationship can change depending on context, culture,
historical moment, medium, or user
- How entire sign systems (codes, genres, discourses)
organise and constrain possible meanings
- How meaning is produced, negotiated, contested,
naturalised, or denaturalised
It treats meaning as a verb
(a process) rather than a noun (a fixed content).
Examples to illustrate the
difference
|
Object
/ Sign |
"What
it means" approach (simplistic) |
"How
it means" approach (semiotic interest) |
|
Red traffic light |
Means "stop" |
How do the colour red + circular
shape + position in sequence + legal code + cultural habit produce the almost
automatic command to stop? |
|
Che Guevara's face (Korda photo) |
Means "revolution /
rebellion" |
How can the same image
produce a revolutionary hero in Bolivia, ironic T-shirt fashion in the West, a spiritual icon in Nepal, and a capitalist logo in advertising? What processes
allow it to slide between these meanings? |
|
A national flag |
Means "the nation /
patriotism" |
How does a piece of coloured cloth
become able to trigger intense emotion, willingness to die, or protest —
through what historical, ritual, institutional, and bodily processes? |
|
The word "live" |
Can mean "alive" or
"in concert" |
How does context (concert ticket
vs biology textbook vs live-stream button) instantly flip the meaning—what
rules of combination and situation make disambiguation possible? |
Summary: the core distinction
What it means
→ looks for a relatively stable,
correct content or reference (often the domain of semantics or basic
dictionary lookup)
How it means
→ investigates the machinery
of meaning-making: the codes, conventions, contexts, interpretive labour, power
relations, historical sedimentation, material supports, perceptual processes,
and social negotiations that allow any "what" to appear at all.
Semiotics, in this stronger sense,
is less interested in handing you the "correct" translation of a sign
and more interested in reverse-engineering how the translation machine
itself works—and why it sometimes produces dramatically different
"translations" of the same sign.
That's why Sonesson insists the discipline should be processual rather than merely explicatory or reductive.
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