BuInspiration

THE SIGNS OF A HERO - THE SUPER SAIYAN

Semiotics is the study of signs but also of anything which stands for 'something else'. My understanding , sign is form by signifier (physical form) and signified (mental concept) . Whereas signification is the process of signs being made noticed and understood. I did a little research online for more info about semiotic analysis in different media form. This is one of the journal article i found that is interesting by David Sutton, Ph.D in Texas Christian University,Fort Worth, Texas writing on the signs of a hero , the Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball anime. In his writing said that "Within a piece of rhetorical discourse, such as anime, semiosis provides those who watch and observe with information which can help the person understand far more than the superficial aspects of a story. In the case of Dragon Ball anime , Akira Toriyama (the author) uses the study of semiotics within his anime to provide the audience with logical justifications for the events. Through the voyeur, Toriyama provides the audience with access to signs which can help the audience reach the steps of logical progressions with a full understanding of the validity of the sequence of events while causing greater immersion in the anime and increased likeability because not only is the piece entertaining, it is interactive and valid. All the reader must do for excitement and mental stimulation is watch for the signs. " -David Sutton, Ph.D – Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas

source : http://www.animesutton.com/uploads/SWPCA_Graphic_Novels_-_Sutton.pdf

"For Barthes, a denotative sign existed within what he called the first order of signification. In this framework connotation is a further sign (or signs) deriving from the signifier of a denotative sign." - Image theory . For myth is the world-view it contains or implies - the ideological or political meaning of the thing.

This is the example i found in Dragonball series anime based on my own observation

The picture above show that a full moon appear behind the great ape.

The first signification : In Dragon ball , the appearance of full moon is a sign to audience that no longer Goku or any other Saiyan like Gohan will 'transform into a great ape"(signifier) by looking at it. This is a process of a Saiyan to become a Super Saiyan." (signified)

The picture above is Gohan who transform into a Super Saiyan .

The denotation will be as picture shown below , a guy with spiking yellow hair and sparkling light around him.

The connotation, a tough strong and powerful Super Saiyan transformed.

Myth is the legendary of Saiyan.

In additional, i studied the sign based on iconic or arbitrary in class .

iconic is how close a sign is to ‘the real thing’, how constrained it is by the thing it represents, e.g. a photographic portrait is typically iconic, a doodled caricature less so

arbitrary (aka symbolic) is how far away a sign is from ‘the real thing’, how unconstrained it is by the thing it represents, e.g. a person’s name bears little physical resemblance to them, but is less arbitrary than an employee number.

This is the few images examples i found online and categorise them into arbitrary or iconic group

syntagm and paradigm

there is often a set of signs that could be used in an act of communication – these are alternative signs that have similar or related meanings, or whose meaning can be subtly modified by context – and the actual sign used is selected from this collection

that selection is itself meaningful because it contributes to the sequence or combination of signs

constructing a ‘sentence’ creates a syntagm from within the paradigm of all the ‘words’ available – the paradigm provides a set of ‘associated’ signs from within the code - sometimes a sign from another paradigm may be used and this may give ‘additional meanings’ to the sign

paradigm: a set of signs available to be used in a context

The paradigm in Dragonball series anime will be

p1 : The Location/ venue

p2 : The event

p3 : The weather/ day

p4 : The opponent / the castes

..... others.

syntagm: the particular selection of signs (from the paradigm(s) which are available

Example based on my paradigms :

p1: Martial Art temple

p2: World Martial Arts Tournament

p3: Morning

p4: Vegeta who fight against Goku

This four paradigms provides a set of associated signs and form a syntagm.

Binary Opposition

"Binary opposition is the way a word has meaning, and how these meaning are associated with them, the positive and negative connotations evoke how a word is understood. It is used in the media and in literature and is often used in poems to demonstrate controversy and conflict in ideas, a theory introduced by Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes. In filming, it is a common dramatic technique used to bring 2 ideas together and using the difference to suggest possibility or conflict.
The meaning assigned to a word is ‘culturally constructed’ and so a word has more meaning when you consider its opposite, and the connotations of the word, brings more meaning than the word itself.

For example ‘hero’ and ‘coward’ these words are binary opposites and using one with the other provides some of the core meaning, and each meaning is ‘shaped’ by the opposite lexis, for example the way the youth is viewed and represented in a film, changes dramatically through how the idea of old age." - Media Studies Thriller blog

Just like in Dragonball anime , there is always the good side (Heroes) and the evil side (Cowards).

The good side of course will be Goku and his friends and the bad side always from the Red Ribbon Army.

Another example

Signifier = 7 dragon balls

Signified = summon of the Shen Long

The 7 dragon balls together gives a sign to audience that the Shen Long will appear