What is a Signifier?The signifier is the part of any sign which is directly in contact with our sensory organs and carries the convened meaning.
How it works?
Each signifier is designed to be captured by especial parts of the receptor designed for that function. For example, the eyes are designed to receive the light that revotes in the surfaces of things, which can be visual signs; speaking of robots or machines, they have sensors that register impulses that activate functions; if we refer to some animals each one has special organs created to detect chemical messages.
What is it for?
The function is similar to that of the communicative vehicle; the main difference is that the signifier is a much smaller particle and the latter one can be seen as a combination of signifiers. In other words the signifiers, subject to certain rules of the language, help make up the communication vehicles.
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We Recommend:
ED PLUTH, Signifiers and Acts: Freedom in Lacan's Theory of the Subject.
CHRISTIAN METZ, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema.
