Page 26 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Analysing Media Sport • 15

For Saussure, the identity of any signifier or signified is established through the

ways in which it differs from all the other signifiers and signifieds to which it can be

compared. The meaning of a sign, therefore, resides not in what it is, but in what it
could be and is not. Saussure said that signs enter into two kinds of relationship with
each other: paradigmatic relationships and syntagmatic relationships. A paradigm is
a group of signs whose relationship to each other is one of similarity or compara-
bility. Paradigmatic relationships can be illustrated by words that are synonyms or
antonyms—for example, advertisements for opticians might use the term eyewear to
give their products a distinctive meaning which is reliant on this term being chosen
from a range of more mundane but similar terms like glasses or spectacles. A syn-
tagm, on the other hand, is a rule-governed combination of signs in a determined,
chain-like sequence. Syntagmatic relationships can be seen in the rules governing the
order of words in a sentence, a series of shots in a film, garments of clothing worn

together, or a combination of dishes in a meal. Every syntagm is the result of a series
of paradigmatic choices. As Seiter (1992) observed,

in a given syntagm, the individual signs are ‘united in absentia’ with others of the
paradigm that were not selected. The meaning of a given syntagm derives in part
from the absence of other possible paradigmatic choices. (p. 46)

We can think about the various signs of sport in these ways. There is a range of
physical movements people can do—they can jump, run, catch, dodge, hit, carry
or throw objects. A particular sport, such as basketball or tennis, involves a para-
digmatic choice: out of the range of possible movements—the paradigm of sport
moves—only some are selected. For example, tennis involves hitting a ball with an
object, but not passing to a team member. Basketball involves throwing a ball at a
target, but not hitting a ball with an object. During a game, certain movements follow
others—a whistle is blown, and a body moves, catches or jumps. The series of events
in the game can be seen as a syntagm. The rules of the game connect the combination
of movements in a particular formation.
This example makes it clear that there may be other kinds of signs beyond words.
For Peirce, a sign was to be understood as something that stands for something, its

object. Peirce identified three types of signs which allow the semiotic domain to
extend beyond language. Visual or iconic signs, such as photographs, paintings, cin-
ematic images and graphs, signify by resembling something in the world. The con-
nection between the sign and its source is something we can directly see. Indexical
signs have a causal connection to the thing that they stand for, for example, the way
a symptom (red spots) stands for a disease (measles). There is a conceptual link,
but we must still fi gure out the meaning of the sign. Convention is all that connects
symbolic signs, such as words, numbers and flags, to the things that they signify,

and to decode them, we need to learn the system. There is no obvious connection
in a symbolic sign like a flag, and we must learn that particular patterns of shapes