Roland Barthes: Semiotics

Roland Barthes : Semiotics 

Roland Barthes, a semiotician - researched how audiences' interpret their view/perspective of different elements. The theorist argued that an audience looks for signs to benefit their interpretation of a narrative - those signs are significantly rooted based on the social norms and expectations the audience are knowledgeable about prior to the narrative; of old tales or myths. Moreover, he believed that there is a dividing line between the reality and the symbols use to represent a narrative, enhances cultural forms.  His ideas differentiated from a range of areas and he influenced the development of education and schools of theory. One of Barthes central themes were avoiding the confusion of nature and culture or the people’s social experiences.

Semiotics is the study of signs and signals that convey a purpose/meaning. For example, lighting, props or font and the colour of a specific brand. It discusses the importance of communication with terms to semiotics - of which an individual is automatically driven to know the answer, such as the denotation of the colour red on a traffic light connotates the driver to stop their vehicle. 

Barthes also distinguishes between readerly and writerly texts. Readerly texts, he argues, have pre-determined meaning and adhere to the status quo both in style and in content. In contrast, writerly texts have a proliferation of meaning and a disregard of narrative structure which places the reader in an active position of control. 

Barthes identified five codes which have a different meaning in a text; highlighting the aspects in a narrative. Hermeneutic reveals a meaning that is present in the text, yet hidden from the reader. The story appears mysterious or is not immediately explained, remaining tension as there are hints and posing questions which propel a story. The code ‘Proairetic’, concerns the action elements in the narrative and how there is deliberate restriction of what is revealed to the audience. Purposely to create suspense and interest; for example in a music video with the use of flashbacks. The voice of the person is a sematic code which refers to elements in a text that is used by connotation from which the story suggests. So, an individual can interpretate from a long sentence of a female being rich shortened into her name and a luxury item – they can imply the same meaning. 

A 'Symbolic' code displays what is beneath the surface of what we observe such as an character's actions show you how the character is feeling. The ‘Cultural’ code relates to bodies of knowledge that are typically known externally from text.