Roland Barthes: Semiotics

 

Roland Barthes: Semiotics

• Our actions and thoughts - what we do automatically, are often governed by a complex set of cultural messages and conventions, and dependent upon our ability to interpret them instinctively and instantly. 

•  For instance, when we see the different colors of a traffic light, we automatically know how to react to them. We know this without even thinking about it. But this is a sign which has been established by cultural convention over a long period of time and which we learn as children, and requires a deal of unconscious cultural knowledge to understand its meaning.

•  Everyone is a semiotician, because everyone is constantly unconsciously interpreting the meaning of signs around them, and signs don't only need to be visual - they can be aural or sonic signs too, such as the sound of a police siren, usually heard before the vehicle is seen.

• There are three types of signs in the study of semiotics:
1. Iconic signs - icons are signs where meaning is based on similarity of appearance.
2. Indexical signs - indexical signs have a cause-and-effect relationship between the sign and the meaning of the sign. There is a direct link between the two. 
3. Symbolic signs - these signs have an arbitrary or conventional link.

Enigma code - limiting the information the audience has to draw them in. 

Action code -  an event in the text that pushes the story forward, or in still images, creates the feeling of movement. 

Denote - what is visible to the audience e.g. a red rose.

Connote - the meanings we give to the things we see e.g. a red rose means "love".

Indexical meaning - the words we associate with an image or representation. These have been taught to us throughout our lives and over generations.