## Activity 1.1 — Sign Safari ★

Fieldwork → Pair 45–60 min Phone camera

Practices: a sign is perceptible and points beyond itself (§1.1); the three areas where signs matter: language, culture, cognition (§1.2).

Walk through a familiar Thai public space, such as a market (talat), a temple (wat), a BTS/MRT station, a night market, or your campus, and **photograph ten different signs**. Try to make them varied: not ten shop signs, but a mix of words, images, objects, gestures, sounds (photograph the source), smells (photograph the source), colors, and behaviors. For each photo, fill in one row of this table: | # | What I photographed | Its perceptible form (what my senses detect) | What it stands for | How I learned to read it | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Red light at a crossing | A red glowing circle | "Stop / do not cross" | Traffic code, taught as a child | **Steps** 1. Individually, collect your ten photos before class (or in the first 20 minutes). 2. In pairs, swap phones. Try to read your partner's signs *without* their table, then compare with what they intended. 3. Mark any sign where you and your partner disagreed about "what it stands for." These disagreements are the most interesting: they show that meaning depends on shared conventions and context.

Instructor notes

- The goal is range, not quantity. Push students beyond written shop signs toward **indexical** signs (smoke, wet street, a queue), **iconic** signs (a pictogram, a photo), and **symbolic** signs (a *wai*, a red traffic light). - The last column previews **convention and code** (Ch 6). Signs that "just look like what they mean" (a fork-and-spoon for a restaurant) preview **iconicity** (Ch 4). - Disagreements in step 3 are the payoff. Use them to make the point that a sign is not a private link but a **shared, learned** one and that context changes meaning (a whistle at a football match vs. in a library). - Good exam-style follow-up: "Choose one photo and explain, in a paragraph, why it counts as a sign using the definition in §1.1."

## Activity 1.2 — A Morning in Signs

Individual 30 min (writing)

Practices: the ubiquity of signs and the shift from passive perception to active interpretation (§1.1).

The book imagines "a typical morning" full of signs. **Write your own version** (250–350 words) narrating the first two hours of a real morning where you live (waking up, commuting, arriving at work or campus) and **underlining every sign** you pass through. For at least **five** of the underlined signs, add a footnote saying what it stands for and whether you are interpreting it consciously or automatically. **Prompts to notice:** the alarm sound; the notification icon on your phone; the amulet (phra khruang) you or someone wears; the offering at the spirit house (san phra phum) you pass; the color of the shirt you chose for the day of the week; the smell of food from a street stall; the monk collecting alms (tak bat); the BTS "doors closing" jingle.

Instructor notes

- This mirrors §1.1 but forces personalization. Reward students who notice signs they normally ignore (the day-of-week shirt colour is a Thai-context example of a fully coded but near-invisible sign). - Use it to introduce the idea that semiotic activity may be seen as a kind of internal dialogue mediated by signs (§1.2, "Cognition and thought"): most morning signs are read automatically, which is exactly why semiotics has to make them visible. - Pairs well as a first entry in the term-long **semiotic field journal** (see [capstone](/into-semiotics/chapters/capstone/)).

## Activity 1.3 — "Everything Can Be a Sign": One Object, Many Meanings

Group (3–4) 30 min

Practices: signs as culturally mediated; meaning varies across social groups (§1.2, "Culture and society").

Each group takes **one everyday object** and lists as many things as it can that the object "stands for," for different people and in different situations. Suggested objects: - a **phuang malai** (jasmine garland) - a **500-baht note** - a **school or university uniform** - a **colored shirt** - a **lotus flower** (dok bua) - a **bottle of a particular energy drink** Draw a simple mind-map: object in the centre, meanings radiating out, each labelled with *for whom* / *in what context*. Then answer together: *Does this object have a single "true" meaning, or does its meaning depend on who reads it and where?*

Instructor notes

- The intended discovery is that **meaning is not a property of the object** but of the relation between sign, interpreter, and context (a key idea of the whole book). - The garland is rich with meaning: a welcome, a religious offering, a mark of respect to a teacher or elder, a taxi-mirror ornament, a market commodity. The 500-baht note previews §1.2's point that money is worthless paper except as a **sign of value within a system**. - Bridge forward: the different meanings of a single object are its **connotations** (Ch 6) and, when naturalized, they can work as **myths** (Ch 6.7).

## Activity 1.4 — Do We Touch Reality? A Structured Debate

Whole-class 30–40 min

Practices: the claim that we access reality only through signs (§1.1); why semiotics matters (§1.3).

The book makes a strong claim: *"we do not have direct or unfiltered access to reality."* Split the class in two. - **Team A** defends the claim: all our access to the world is mediated by signs (perception, language, memory, images). - **Team B** challenges it: some experiences (pain, hunger, the taste of som tam) seem immediate and pre-semiotic. Give each team 10 minutes to prepare, using examples. Run two short rounds, then hold an open vote, not on who "won" but on **where the line between mediated and immediate experience should be drawn**.

Instructor notes

- There is no settled answer, and that is the point: this is the deep question behind Ch 4's *interpretant* and Ch 8's *Umwelt*. Keep it exploratory. - A useful move: even "immediate" sensations become **signs the moment we name, remember, or communicate them**. For example, hunger becomes a sign ("time to eat"), pain a sign (symptom) of injury (medical semiotics, §7.7). - Connect to §1.3: this is *why* studying signs matters; it changes how we understand knowledge itself. - Keep it philosophical, not political.

## Activity 1.5 — "Ten Signs on My Street" Micro-Video

Individual → Whole-class Homework + 20 min share Phone video

Practices: identifying and narrating signs across modalities (§1.1–1.2); first practice of the vocabulary.

Record a **30–60 second phone video** walking along a street, a soi, or a corridor. As you film, **narrate the signs** you pass in English: "This is a sign: it's a [word / image / color / gesture / sound] and it stands for…". Aim for at least **eight** signs and try to include more than one modality (something visual, something auditory, something spatial). Upload to the shared class folder or play from your phone. **Optional challenge:** include one sign that most people walk past without noticing, and explain why it is easy to miss.

Instructor notes

- This is the reviewer's "video exercise" in its simplest form. Speaking the analysis aloud forces students to commit to an interpretation in real time. - Low-tech is fine: no editing required. Assess for **range of signs** and **clarity of the "stands for" statement**, not production quality. - Screen two or three in class and let the group add readings the narrator missed: a live demonstration that one sign supports many interpretants. - Can be reused at the *end* of term: students re-record with the full vocabulary (icon/index/symbol, code, function) to see how far they have come.