This is semotics terminology.

The image forms part of the semiotic field; that is, it appears in a given spatial-temporal context (social, included) and simultaneously generates its own semiotic field. The latter is understood in its quality as a unit between the fields of representation, signification, and communication and can be defined in the terms of information theory, considering the contribution of information of each configuration in particular as well as of the whole. This was explored by information aesthetics, and the results obtained are well known (and described by the terms aesthetic measure, entropy, redundancy, and others characteristic of the syntactic level of art). Unfortunately, while information aesthetics opposes linguistically oriented sign models, it returns to the sign, instead of dealing with configurations (see Bense, et al).



The field of signification has been impressively described, but without any analytical method, semiotic or otherwise, having been produced and without any specific standards having been elaborated or adapted, as in the case of the field of communication. When s i g n i f i c a t i o n was i d e n t i f i e d w i t h t h e semantic field, some analytical methods were adapted (Montague, Greimas, Katz and Fodor, Eco, etc.) and representative units declared (semema, for example). But their validity corresponds to linguistic reality. Extending the method of generative grammars into the promising frame work of visual (pictorial) grammars succeeded in bringing about some progress. However, a main limitation to this approach is the belief that the structure of doubly articulated languages is universal (Nadin,1981).
http://www.code.uni-wuppertal.de/uk/computational_design/who...

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Note added at 10 mins (2009-03-01 13:09:12 GMT)
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It can be applied to anything that might be deemed a "text" - anything which can be read as containing signifiers, if you like.

Voice, music, and ambient sound (which includes both music and voice): this is a possible classification of sound in the cinema. It is this dual status of the voice (I do not consider music here) in cinema that I will try to explore in the context of popular Indian cinema. Under what conditions do voices function as ambient sound, i.e., as part of the image itself or the wider connotated field of which it is a (re)presentation? When do they function as elements of a field of signification? It would seem, of course, that they always do so. The question thus seems a little puzzling, because how can a voice, as bearer of spoken language, not signify?

It signifies, of course, but this is not the only thing it does, and in order to do this, some requirements must be met. When speech is embedded in text, is an element of the text’s weave, then it signifies along with the other elements. But speech can also function as a presentative, rather than a represented, element. Here we must learn to distinguish signification as that which is exhausted in the communication that speech and its hearing effects, from the readability of the material body of speech – voice – as a bearer of meaning.

http://www.jmionline.org/jmi6_2.html

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Note added at 21 mins (2009-03-01 13:20:02 GMT)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

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Note added at 28 mins (2009-03-01 13:26:30 GMT)
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http://books.google.com/books?id=seojamUQdEwC&pg=PA178&lpg=P...

But The Merry Widow is certainly a very incisive experimental commentary on the nature of art and the condition of painting (the raw canvas is a conspicuous signifier), of drawing, of photography, of linguistic naming and describing, of representation in general. The complex conventions and implications of titling, signing, dating and labelling – literally with a label in one case– are all wryly pointed up (to the extent that the details of title, date, medium, dimensions, ownership, location and copyright restriction, all of which this book dutifully prints below the reproduction, have their own particular absurdity revealed). The title, suggesting a loss that is really a liberation, of course may allude to painting freed (by photography, partly) from 'faithful' (or any) depiction. The ironies and ambiguities at work in all the possible relationships between all kinds of signs and what they signify – this is of course the very stuff of the work. The fact that the author – the signatory – is also (in one way, or more) the subject, further multiplies the puzzle. In how many ways is Picabia 'in' this work, we find ourselves asking. So much is so significant here: that he looks at the viewer; that he cannot have taken the photo; that he presumably did make the drawing (of the photo, of himself looking now at himself); that his intentions in the work are knowingly, inevitably, open-ended; that he is nevertheless firmly in the driving seat; that the car, as well as the photograph, 'dates' the work to the machine age, as much as the numbers '1921' at the lower right; that a rude horn features prominently (sounds can also be signs, and the double image here is a visual 'beep-beep' to get our attention); that the work is such that we cannot tell whether the small rectangular hole in the lower left of the canvas (patched from behind) is 'intentional', another authorial interrogation of the field of signification, or some later incidental damage; that Picabia smiles mischievously and saucily, not just at his own art games but as if he would make a widow merry, or even somehow be the merry widow (he looks like a sporty dyke); that the title could be pronounced 'la verve joyeuse'....
http://www.artcritical.com/james/MJPicabia.htm

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Note added at 22 hrs (2009-03-02 11:21:54 GMT) Post-grading
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Thanks for the points, Louise