FALLEN PRINCESSES: A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

The semiotics proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, an analysis model used by different fields of knowledge, states that language organizes itself by means of signs.  According to this theoretical background, the apprehension of meaning occurs through the Semiosis, a process in which interpretant, object and representamen are in chain in a cycle of adjacent and distinct categories called firstness, secondness and thirdness.  Peircean semiotics is, therefore, the science of language that seeks to reveal the meaning carried by various types of linguistic manifestations, either imagetic, sonorous or verbal, amongst others.  In this paper, we apply the categories proposed by Peirce (2010) in an analysis of a picture from the Fallen Princesses photographic essay, produced by Dina Goldstein (2013).  We seek, after some theoretical discussion on the key concepts of Peircean Semiotics, to identify the elements in the picture that are responsible for the construction of meaning.