The Semiotics of Smell

Fragrances have long been used in a variety of cultures to communicate or articulate perceptions of different types of people or personae (Classen, Howes, & Synnott; 1994); however, the meanings “articulated” by fragrances have rarely been studied through the analytical frameworks of indexicality, enregisterment, and materiality (Eckert, 2008; Johnstone, 2016; Miller, 2005; Silverstein, 2003). To do this, I first conducted a quantitative corpus analysis of user-generated reviews of popular perfumes on the fragrance database Fragrantica to identify differences in how reviewers of “men’s” fragrances and “women’s” fragrances describe their experience with the fragrances, and what these patterns indicate about how fragrance might be used to perform gender. I then qualitatively analyzed commentary about and from “fragrance bros” to explore the olfactory, linguistic, and embodied indexes salient in the perception and performance of this prevalent enregistered persona. This closer examination of the indexed qualities and enregistered personae co-articulated by language, smell, and embodied practices will ideally not only illuminate further the role that this sensory experience plays in our gendered performance and embodiment alongside language, but I intend to draw an analogy between the analysis of speech and smell and underline the importance of using the framework of materiality in the analysis of speech.