Cresswell- The Genealogy of Place - part I

The beginning of the second chapter seems again to inquire broadly about place. After the first introduction we move the definition of place down through history. First talking about Regional and Humanistic Geography and their influence on place. "In each case the focus was on differentiating once clearly defined region (place) from the next and explaining the logic of the definitions. While Herbertson looked to nature for this logic, Fleure looked to human characteristics." Next was the idea of home as the all important place that one can relate all place to. "he considers the house/home as a primal space that acts as a first world or first universe that then frames our understandings of all the spaces outside." Moving away from place as a concept it was next analyzed as social construct. "Place was not simply an outcome of social process though, it was, once established, a tool in the creation, maintenance and transformation of relations of domination, oppression and exploitation." Seeing it from a different angle, place can also be considered as human just being-in-the-world. "humans cannot construct anything without being first in place - that place is primary to the construction of meaning and society. Place is primary because it is the experiential fact of our existence." This first half of the chapter covered a lot of different ideas about place. What I found most interesting was the idea of place as non-place, where is place? " In other words there was no 'place' before there was humanity but once we came into existence then place did too."

Cresswell- Defining Place

"So what links these examples:?... One answer is that they are all spaces which people have made meaningful. They are all spaces people are attached to in one way or another. This is the most straightforward and common definition of place - a meaningful location."

This first chapter is all about introducing the idea of place and it's many meanings. Cresswell gives different examples of place, introduces them to us, and talk about how those spaces are "places" in their own way. Reading this first chapter helps us to shed the idea of place as a general word and gets us used to being more curious about it's definition. Moving toward the specific in the second half of the chapter, Cresswell talks about the relationship between space and place, landscape and place, and place as a way of understanding the world around us. 

"When we look at the world as a world of places we see different things. We see attachments and connections between people and place." 

Chandler - Semiotics for Beginners - Denotation, Connotation, and Myth

Denotation, connotation, and myth are analyzed in our second reading by Chandler. Denotation and connotation are terms describing the signifier and its signified talked about in our first reading. A denotation is definitional and a connotation is a personal or cultural assoication. Chandler spends time discussing the relationships between the two terms, the ideas behind them, and how they relate to semiotics as a whole.

"The first (denotative) order (or level) of signification is seen as primarily representational and relatively self-contained. The second (connotative) order of signification reflects 'expressive' values which are attached to a sign. In the third (mythological or ideological) order of signification the sign reflects major culturally-variable concepts underpinning a particular worldview - such as masculinity, femininity, freedom, individualism, objectivism, Englishness and so on."

Chandler - Semiotics for Beginners - Signs

The sign was discussed comparing and contrasting the ideas of the linguist Saussure and the philosopher Peirce. Saussure saw the sign as formed out of two parts the signified (concept) and signifier (form). Peirce, however, favored a triadic model with the use of the representamen, an interpretant, and an object.

a lot of questions and examples with varying and endlessly twisting and expandable answers...

So I liked the discussion about analog and digital signs, it was the most interesting for me, with the talk about linguistics coming in second. I feel that the interest I had in both can be seen as connected

“Analogical signs (such as visual images, gestures, textures, tastes, and smells) involve graded relationships on a continuum. They can signify infinite subtleties which seem ‘beyond words’. Emotions and feelings are analogical signifieds. Unlike symbolic signifiers, motivated signifiers (and their signifieds) blend into one another. There can be no comprehensive catalogue of such dynamic analogue signs as smiles or laughs.”

Personally I’ve found language and writing in general to feel limiting and simply less interesting

“Reality is divided up into arbitrary categories by every language and the conceptual world with which each of us is familiar could have been divided up very differently.”

Why then are there so many rules invested into language? 

“every sign acquires a history and connotations of its own which are familiar to members of the sign-users' culture. Saussure remarked that although the signifier 'may seem to be freely chosen', from the point of view of the linguistic community it is 'imposed rather than freely chosen' because 'a language is always an inheritance from the past' which its users have 'no choice but to accept”

“the graded quality of analogue codes may make them rich in meaning but it also renders them somewhat impoverished in syntactical complexity or semantic precision.”

I think that I’m willing to make the tradeoff.