SEMIOTICS

Roland Barthes

        •   He is a remarkable essayist; as a philosopher and semiologist, a keen observer of the society and an incisive critic of its cultural text.

•   His thinking was strongly influenced by the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who coined the term semiology and advocated its study.

•   He was highly influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology throughout his life and thus, began to develop his own complex theoretical concepts that became central to a number of schools of thought in France and Europe.

SEMIOLOGY (SEMIOTICS)

•  “the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie, because if something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth; it cannot, in fact, be used to tell at all.”

•   Anything that can stand for something else.

•   Study of signs, symbols, and signification.

•   MYTH – the connotative meaning that signs carry wherever they go.

•   Barthes initially described his semiotic theory as an explanation of myth.

Jollibee is an example of semiotic theory.

Let us admit that when we see this picture from above, we come think of a fast food restaurant instead of a literal bee.

          •     A Sign is a combination of a Signifier and Signified.

          •     SIGN – the inseparable combination of the signifier & the signified.

       

          •     Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, 

                   but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we 

                  invest them with meaning. (Chandler, D. Semiotics for Beginners).

          •    SIGNIFIER – the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses;

                   an image.

          •    SIGNIFIED – the meaning we associate with the sign.

     

          •   Barthes’ description of a sign as the correlation between the signifier and the 

                   signified came directly from Saussure. 

                                                                                                           

                                                                SIGNIFIER

        

   SIGNIFIED

SIGN

DENOTATIVE SIGN SYSTEM

   •    A direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it.

   •    A descriptive sign without ideological content.

   •    Denotation is literally what you see (description)

   •    What the sign stands for.

CAR denotes a VEHICLE.

TWIN TOWERS denotes NEW YORK.

CONNOTATIVE SIGN SYSTEM

            •     A mythic sign that has lost its historical referent.

 •     A form without substance.

 •    The associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its 

            explicit or primary meaning.

 •    Represents the various social overtones, cultural implications, or emotional    

            meanings.

CAR denotes FREEDOM

RED denotes PASSION, DANGER, 

COMMUNISM, LOVE, BLOOD

DECONSTRUCTION

   •   The process of unmasking contradictions within a text.

   •   Debunking.

   •  Contradictions can be identified within texts.

  •   Texts do not 'mean what they say'.

  •   Does not seek to destroy, rather it points out the limitless instability of language.

  •   Complex process because meaning is contextually determined and since contexts are always changing meaning becomes indeterminate.

GOOD IS GIVEN THE PRIORITY OVER EVIL

BUT THE FACT IS THERE CAN BE NO "GOOD"

IF THERE IS NO "EVIL" OR VICE VERSA.

IDEOLOGY

    •   Knowledge presented as common sense or natural, especially when its social construction is ignored or suppressed.

   •   Constructs people as subjects through the operation of codes.

   •   Understanding the meaning of a text involves taking on an appropriate ideological identity.

  •    A system of representation involving 'transparent myths' which functioned to induce in the subject an 'imaginary' relation to the 'real' conditions of existence.

CHRISTIAN FAITH as an ideology.

We find the bible stories presenting moral values as goals to be achieved.

CHARLES PEIRCE: 

TRIADIC ALTERNATIVE TO SAUSSURE & BARTHES

•   Developed his triadic model of signs

•   Suggested that a sign has three components

•   OBJECT: Something beyond the sign to which the sign refers.

•   REPRESENTAMEN: The sign vehicle or the form that the sign takes.

•   INTERPRETANT: The sense of the sign made in mind of the interpreter.

Posted by:

Renz Cristina Garbin