Paradigmatic Analysis - Definition of Terms

Definition of Terms

In semiotics, the sign is the fundamental building block out of which all meaning is constructed and transmitted. Meaning is encoded by the sender of the message and decoded by the receiver recalling past experience and placing the message in its appropriate cultural context. Individual signs can be collected together to form more complex signs, i.e. building up from linguistics, groups of sounds (and the letters to represent them) form words, groups of words form sentences, sentences form narratives, etc. The constructed signs are called syntagms (see syntagmatic structure) and each collection may be a paradigm. Thus, in the English language, the alphabet is the paradigm from which the syntagms of English words are formed. The set of English words collected together in a lexicon become the paradigm from which sentences are formed, etc. Hence, paradigmatic analysis is a method for exploring a syntagm by identifying its constituent paradigm, studying the individual paradigmatic elements, and then reconstructing the process by which the syntagm takes on meaning.