The Language of Cloth - Term Paper Example

Introduction Should dress be regardedas part of the body, or merely as an extention of, or supplement of it? This vital question helps in understanding the purpose of dressing. ‘Undeniably the language of clothes and bodily adornment generally experiments relentlessly with ways of defining and redefining the boundaries of self and other, subject and object, inside and outside.’ (Warwick & Cavallero, 1998 ) The conflicting idea is the perception that the body is both a boundary and not a boundary. This aspect of ambiguity creates a complex relationship between non-self and self. Cultural identity depends on ideological and psychological structures as boundaries designed to personalize self. In order to separate self from non-self, there is need to erect barriers with the intention to prevent defilement. However, one may ask. Where does the body begin and where does dress begin in ethical dressing. Dress is used in framing boundaries and functions as a wrapper. Generally, the language of cloth and bodily adornment revolves on the aspects of defining and redefining the boundaries between self and other elements within and without. The language may be intentional or non-intentional but the communication has a societal stands (Barthes, 1985). Therefore, it is impossible to dress without transmitting social signals to the immediate environment. Fashion may be used to obfuscate the distinction between truthfulness and deception. This leaves uncertainty between telling lies and telling the truth. Dressing is vital in portraying information to the community. There are a number of commonalities between language and dressings. Fashion can be made to speak to or about itself through fetishizing the object via drawing a veil of image, of meaning and of reason around it. Dress, in this respect, is a resultant interpretation of the unconsciousness at work. This is evident through the character of dress as both a personal and communal phenomenon that is unfixable. It can be used to quiz the relationship between depth and surface in a conventional understanding. There are a number of similarities between dressing and language in a broader view. To understand the similarities, it is essential to look into the basic principles of language and adorning. In terms of language, there are variations which include symbolic artistic and scientific forms (Jobling, 1999). Other available forms of language include specialized sector languages. Fashion system is analyzed in relation to linguistics and semiology. Fashion has specific language that they use to communicate as a corporate group just like other sectors. The sectors that have their own codes of communications are the military, legal, governmental and computer fields. These clinical languages are precisely for communication with members of the same department or filed just as having similar uniform my help in identity of the members of a similar group. Fashion system generally renews itself by majoring on different fabrics, style and color in accordance to seasonal changes. Examples In the geographic perspective, the existence of different languages is due to their formation under environmental influences. This gives reason as to why different cultures dress differently just as they speak differently. Language as form of communication has both recipient and sender. Therefore, it has counterparts who should be analogous with the elements of display. The elements involve the aspect of present-ability which relates to the public visa vie the dressing. In the 18th and 19th century, the common artistic designs used in clothing were common of gothic. The known style in the 18th century was known as Rococo. They were associated with the French regime due to its origin. The artistic designs were used in decoration of clothes and created the image of supremacy associated with the early French empires. Therefore, dressing on attires with its decorations gave the image of power and pride. Photography came later with the development of cinema from chronophotography. The images coined French words in their original meaning to a pictorial presentation. Communication and interaction manner is based on how we wear things and how we say things. Both dressing and conversation can be animated by the use of sarcasm, innuendo, vulgarity and irony. In gothic genres elicits fear by the presentations of the bodies, clothes and surfaces. Fashion circulation relies in the broad activity of transformation. There is conversion from the technological to iconic and verbal structures. Similar to all structures, the transition can be discontinued: the real garments can only be transformed into “representation” by means of certain operations known as shifters. (Jobling, 1999) Language and clothing may differ depending on the audience’s cultural and social education. The correspondence may be metaphoric. Martin Margiela, a fashion designer uses a conceptual creative mind for his fashion collection. He transforms the aspect that it plays a voiceless role yet still communicates message to the society and promotes personal interpretations in formed conclusions. The transformation is made possible by shifters or operators like in the commercial advertising in consumer culture and magazine editorials. In the photographic field, photos are used to give messages in magazines. This is referred to as image clothing. It may transmit information that is not evident in the photograph. Knowledge is the only language that adds to the image. The idea of symbolizing certain types of clothes to mean particular things leaves a thin line between truism and stereotype. The third system of fashion is realized in real clothing. This reveals the complexity of depicting dressing as a language. Fashion as a language can be termed as utterance series where meaning is established through both spatial linear or syntagmatic relationships of one word and another, and their paradigmatic values (Harvey, 1996). The system structures have three kinds of shifters. The shifters follow the cycle from the real to the image, from the real to the language and from the image to the language. Dressing language can send a meaningful message. For example ‘A blouse with a large collar’ or white braid and white button’ have attached message to the society culturally. Body adornment is similar to establishing words from their meaning into the lavish concept. Decoration and adornment are established to and designed to increase beauty. The beauty must be in line with what it conveyed. Dressing as a language, is vital to its own vocabularies and syntax. The syntax and vocabularies may not necessarily have plain mapping to the resembling components of cloth language. Themes that are common for simple mapping are quite a number. The language code concept has comparison with the protocol and dress code concept. The real code is the garment itself. It is not the actual garment that creates meaning to fashion but the way in which they are articulated in iconic and verbal form for presentation. Acceptable dressing styles for an office or restaurant are generated through a set of rules. Some social and ethical constrains determine the parameters in which dressing and language are subjected to for operations. However the environments can be manipulated successfully depending on different meaning and context. The relationship of time to dressing and language reveals a clear difference in their relationship. Verbal messages occur over a period of time whereas dressing is a message of a specific moment in time (Hunges, 2006). The premise of semiology science as developed linguistically is on the nature of language and structure models. This applies to the wider range of cultural system significantly. This science cans the derived from literature and drams and applied in fashion. The driving idea is the using culture as a constructed system. Some dressing styles are a presentation for things such as marking of passage rites and courting rites. These presentations find their counterparts in the personal and visual world of clothing. Judith’s book that decodes advertising states sign as simply a thing, whether picture or object word with a particular meaning to a group or individual. It is not the meaning or thing alone but the two together create the corporate meaning. They both form part of the system meaning that the existence of the dynamics gives the empirical evidence of the system existence. There is need to differentiate the degree of measurement and context in the view of the baseline of logic. The logic helps in ascribing the purity of articles. It is essential to ascribe fixed notions in relation to parameters that explain communication. In the algebraic proof of language and dressing comparison object, variant, and support compose the body of the equation. A clear relationship must exist between the object, the variant and the support. The description of dressing can be parameterized such that the object indicates the blouse, variant the size either large or small and support to be like the components of the blouse like the collar. The combination of such an equation leads to an algebraic derivatives or proofs which can be equated to unuttered garments (Mahawatte, 2009). This strategy is applied to magazine genres and psychological readership traits. Dressing style and fashions have influence over time have a code-like constitution. The language rule of writing and speech is also different from cryptography. Dressing codes are semantically low. We learn how to use gestures, glances in voice tone and glances as auxiliary communication as devices to emphasize your speech. These cultural bond techniques are learned through observation and imitation. The scientific theory of language is broad. Burroughs view this language as a biological entity that replicates itself and blends, assimilates and merges with cultural context, people, references and places (Burroughs, 1992). He relates dressing to a degree- when the craze of fashion spreads like flu. He terms language to be like a virus. Factually, the use of music that relate to the happenings in movie scenes, sends a clear message to the viewers of the weightiness of the action. The verbal communication and the clothing give the rights atmosphere for the action. The atmosphere created must be culturally viable to the society for easy reflection and contemplation. It is prudent to look into the characteristics of virus to get the clear relation of dressing and language. The genesis of virus can be from something small that can rapidly take over an area by self-propagation. Looking at the dressing in this context, a good example is the miniskirt craze. In film setting it is very easy for the observers to relate a lady on a miniskirt to prostitution and unethical behaviors. Culturally this is the understanding of unethical dressing and its association. On a more organic and biological level of things, one would offer an insight on commonality between dressing and language. There is also the experimental aspect of “cut-ups” in terms of tape loop. This experiment provides the idea of using materials from the past like recorded sounds. The materials are cut and mixed with sound from the present. This experiment is analogous to the cyclic nature of fashion. Just as words, fashion too can have a new meaning breathed in it when referring to its historical cultural sampling. Dressing is context dependent in the same way that language is. Dressing emphasis will highly depend on the wearer, the mood, the location or the company. Conclusion Human anatomy reveals that a person is a mass of atoms. Human being is a combination of a mind, a physiology and an object having a shape that can be painted. He is a cognitive machine, a voter and lover among other traits. Such amount of desperate realities requires a rich lexicon to effectively communicate. Dressing and language form part of the wider communication sense (Brown, 2003). The complexness of human existence is reflected in the multiple ways in which man displays himself and the societal to personal communication. Dressing and language are of high context dependency. They may be different semantically over time and being an external depiction of internal ego and sense of self. The best metaphor is the correspondence with language. However, it is the metaphoric concept that links languages in reflection irrespective of their nature. The nature may be visual, textual, worn on the body or painted. Metaphors exist in some forms at the base of all expressions and languages. Metaphor provides a firm connection between what we ‘show’ and what we ‘say’. Although one can change what he dresses, the origin of his communication comes from semiotics of his culture. Bibliography Barthes, R., 1985. Economy of the system. The fashion system, Issue written Clothing, p. 20. Brown, B., 2003. Introduction: The idea of things and the idea in them. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Burroughs, W., 1992. El Hombre Invisibile. Virginia: Virgin Press. Harvey, J., 1996. Men in Black. Chicago: University of Chicago press. Hunges, C., 2006. Dressed in fiction. Oxford: Berg. Jobling, P., 1999. Written clothing and Image clothing. The fashion system in perspective, pp. 65-83. Mahawatte, R., 2009. life that is not clad in the same coat-tails and flounches. In: Womens writing special issues. s.l.:Silver Folk Novels, pp. 323-344. Warwick, A. & Cavallero, D., 1998. Fashioning the frame: bounderies, Dress and the Body. Oxford: Berg. Read More