ENGL309C Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Roland Barthes, Semiotics, Double Articulation
Document Summary
Based on structuralist dichotomies and binarities (meaning of one cannot exist without the opposite: e. g. Rich vs. poor: must think of presence and absence as part of the sign and signifying process (see paradigmatic alternatives as absences) Also looks at tri-dimensional structure of connotative signs: signifier (roses + signified (passion) = sign (passionified roses) Things and concepts are not characterized by some essential property, but by differences. Language/culture, then, has no center, but is always a system of differences (paradigmatic) and a series of substitutions. Differences are structured according to binary relations often with positive relations. Meaning is influenced by social values and unconscious mental structures. Semiotician"s task is to identify and describe the differences and the structures. Again picks up saussure"s idea that a sign consists of a signifier and a signified like the recto and verso of a sheet of paper. Myth is historically impoverished (not mythology, which is the assessment of myth)
