Chapter 33: Semiotics of Roland Barthes: A theory about communication

Semiotics

Overview: 

• Interpretive theory

• Semiotic tradition 

Background:

• verbal and nonverbal signs (verbal side is linguistics)

• Letters alone have no inherent meaning when put together to form a word it does 

• Words don't have inherent meaning the people saying them do

About Semiotics

• The relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary one of the correlations rather than cause and effect 

• Semiotics is concerned with anything that can stand for something else 

• The sign systems of a culture lock in the status quo 

About Signs….

1. The sign is the combination of its signifier and signified 

2. A sign does not stand on its own it's a part of the system: 

• Interrelated signs 

• They all function the same way despite their apparent diversity 

Semiotics fulfills _____

five of the criteria for a good interpretive theory

Types of signs: 

Iconic signs, Indexical signs, Symbolic signs

Iconic signs

• have perceived resemblance with objects they portray 

• Ex: Shadows, cartoons & icons 

Indexical signs

• directly connected to referents (connected to the thing the sign is referring to) 

• Ex: Smoke and fever

Symbolic signs

• bear no resemblance to objects to which they refer 

• Ex: most words, math symbols, and traffic signals 

Semiotics

The study of the social production of meaning from the sign system; the analysis that anything can stand for something else

Myth

 The connotative meaning that signs carry wherever they go;  a ____ makes what is cultural seem natural 

• ____ are deceptive 

Sign is…

the Inseparable combination of the signifier and the signified

Signifier

the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses: an image 

Signified

 the meaning we associate with the sign

Denotative sign system

A descriptive sign without ideological content

Connotative sign system

a mythic sign that has lost its historical reference; form without substance 

Deconstruction

The process of unmasking contradictions within a text; debunking

Ideology

a cluster of socially constructed ideas presented as natural, normal, or just common sense,  that reinforced society's power structures