Code (semiotics)

In semiotics, a code is a set of cultural conventions, contemporary sub-codes, and themes used to communicate meaning. The most common is one's spoken language, but the term can also be used to refer to any narrative form: consider the color scheme of an image (e.g. red for danger), or the rules of a board game (e.g. the military signifiers in chess). Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) emphasised that signs only acquire meaning and value when they are interpreted in relation to each other. He believed that the relationship between the signifier and the signified was arbitrary. Hence, interpreting signs requires familiarity with the sets of conventions or codes currently in use to communicate meaning. Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) elaborated the idea that the production and interpretation of texts depends on the existence of codes or conventions for communication. Since the meaning of a sign depends on the code within which it is situated, codes provide a framework within which signs make sense (see Semiosis). To that extent, codes represent a broad interpretative framework used by both addressers and their addressees to encode and decode the messages. Self-evidently, the most effective communications will result when both creator and interpreter use exactly the same code. Since signs may have many levels of meaning from the denotational to the connotational, the addresser's strategy is to select and combine the signs in ways that limit the range of possible meanings likely to be generated when the message is interpreted. This will be achieved by including metalingual contextual clues, e.g. the nature of the medium, the modality of the medium, the style, e.g. academic, literary, genre fiction, etc., and references to, or invocations of, other codes, e.g. a reader may initially interpret a set of signifiers as a literal representation, but clues may indicate a transformation into a metaphorical or allegorical interpretation diachronically. Distinctions of class or memberships of groups will be determined by the social identity each individual constructs through the way the language is spoken (i.