Visit to HMS Belfast!

Today my research group (Max and Lucia) visited HMS Belfast on the Southbank. The fourth member of our group Josh is dropping out of the course so it was just the three of us today. It was a really interesting trip, and the ship itself was pretty amazing. We managed to get a lot of information, including some from a lovely man called Brian who used to serve on the ship. He now volunteers once a week giving information to visitors and answering questions. It was lucky we decided to visit on the day he was there! We learnt a lot about the conditions the sailors and marines had to cope with and it makes you grateful for the people who made sacrifices and endagered their lives to serve their country. We also took some really good pictures which will go into our slideshow we are planning to make on Friday Morning.

Later we had our Contextual studies lesson with Vishua. A new girl called Nur was asking people if she could join their groups for the research project and I said she could join ours seeing as we had lost a member. So she is going to help us with our presentation on Friday and she's gone to the trouble of researching into the ship.

So in the lecture we learnt about semiotics. It was a bit of a confusing lecture to say the least but none the less interesting. I learnt that there are different types of images; icons, symbols and indexes. A symbol represents something through convention, an icon is something that doesn't need explaining and an index is a symbol that has come about through causation. So for example a flag is a symbol. Take the flag of France. It is something that has been made up to represent France and through convention we have all grown up being taught that it is the flag of France therefore we know it as so.

An example of an icon is the image of France on the map. The shape hasn't been made up, it is there naturally and we know that it is France by looking at it.

Thirdly there is the Eiffel tower, something that people will often say is a symbol of France. It is not. It is an index. It is only representive of France because it is in France. Because of this it is an index as it has become an sign of France through causation.

So yes, confusing but informative and I will be buying 'an Introduction to Semiotics' from Amazon.....