What's the difference between signifier and signified?

The signifier refers to the material form of symbols, which consists of two parts: sound and image. Such sound images are designated to be related to a concept in social customs, which can trigger the association of users with a concept. This concept is what it refers to.

Meaning is to study the relationship model of signifier/signified. This is also the overall view of signifier and signified. There are three main levels of the relationship between signifier and signified.

1, direct meaning: the signifier is both a meaning and a form. It is imaginary in form and real in sense. Because of emptiness, the relationship between signifier and signified is accidental and conventional. The so-called enrichment is to provide a kind of truth in reading style and feeling.

2. Implied meaning: Form-signifier does not completely swallow its meaning, but makes it barren. The meaning established at the first level loses some value at the second level, but maintains the activated life elements, preparing for accepting new meanings.

As far as form is concerned, meaning has always been preserved in the moment of history and partially transplanted in the rapid change. On the level of implied meaning, symbolic meaning is caused by the infinity of displacement it refers to. That is, after the first-level relationship between symbolic signifier and signified is determined, another signified is formed on the basis of the extended meaning of the first-level symbol.

3. Interaction between subjects: To understand the interaction between subjects, we first need to understand the characteristics of "intersubjectivity". If we admit that the existence of things is neither independent of human mind nor dependent on a single mind or subject (purely subjective), then the existence of things depends on the * * * identity of different minds, and this * * * identity is intersubjectivity.

Extended data:

Definition of signifier and signified:

Both signifier and signified are terms in Saussure's linguistics. Saussure believes that any language symbol is composed of signifier and signified, in which signifier refers to the sound image of language and signified refers to the concept of things reflected by language. For example, the pronunciation of the word "tree" in English is its signifier, and the concept of "tree" is its signifier.

The signifier and the signified are inseparable, just like two sides of a coin; However, Saussure believes that the connection between a specific signifier and a specific signified is not inevitable, but established.

For example, the word "tree", the concept of tree and the specific pronunciation of "tree" are not necessarily combined. The pronunciation of "tree" in English is obviously different from that in French and Latin, but both of them can express the meaning of "tree". This is the principle of arbitrariness of symbols. The principle of arbitrariness of symbols is an important principle in Saussure's linguistics, which dominates the linguistic system of Saussure's whole language and has the first-class importance.

On the one hand, it is a language symbol representing concrete things or abstract concepts; On the other hand, it is the concrete things or abstract concepts represented by language symbols.

He called the language symbol used to express concrete things or abstract concepts in signified as signifier, and called the concrete things or abstract concepts represented by language symbols as signified, that is, the meaning to be expressed in signified.

Can refer to the form or sound of words, the object or meaning represented by words. For example, the word "table" as a language symbol refers to energy, and the table as a concrete thing also refers to the meaning of this language symbol.