Representation &Roland Barthes’ Semiotics

After New Criticism &

Before Michel Foucault

Outline 0. Context: After New Criticism & Before Michel

Foucault 1. Representation – Discussion Questions

Representation and Production of Meaning Theories of Representation De Saussure Re-Considered: Contribution & Limitations

2. Semiotics: Major principles in semiotic readings Sign systems: fashion as an example Semiotic reading (1): denotation and connation Semiotic reading (2): first and second-order signification.

(literal language and meta-language) Myth today defined

3. Examples for Discussion: Images of Nature in some Landscape Paintings and Ads

What did we cover last week?After New Criticism & Before Michel Foucault

New Criticism: Major Views

A poem is autonomous, with an ontological status.

Intentional Fallacy, Affective Fallacy Poetry offers a different kind of truth

(poetic truth) than science. Heresy of Paraphrase (詩不可以被翻譯 )

New Criticism: Major Views

Organic unity

– with the parts interrelated and forming a wholeness;

-- “Form is content; content is form.”

“Text and the Text Only” Approach

Two different views of a literary work

1. A work: Autonomous, unified in meaning; the meaning remains stable and can be transmitted through time and space; New Criticism or Formalism

2. A text: textualized, interacting with the other texts around it in the historical context(s) it is written and read. New Historicism & Post-structuralism

A (historical) text as a signifying process.

Image source: http://valerie6.myweb.uga.edu/intertextuality.html

New Criticism Historicized: The theories after New Criticism: Five Main Points

Politics is pervasive (implying power relations), 任何事情都是政治的，

Language is constructive (but not reflective) of reality, 語言為建構，

Truth is provisional (or contingent, no universal, non-changing truth), 真理是臨時建構，

Meaning is contingent (context is important determinant of meanings), 意義是因時／地制定的，

Universal human nature is a myth 人性的普遍性是虛構的 .

Do you agree?

New Criticism New Historicism, or Cultural Materialism, Discourse Analysis

History is brought back to literary studies and literature de-centered. Both are in a network of text.

The assumptions of history – influenced by Michel Foucault.

New Historicism: principles

(2010 Spring textbook) 115

Every expressive act (speech or text) is embedded in a network of material practices (production of texts or other types of productions); participate in the economy they describe.

Language as context: Every act of unmasking, critiquing, and opposition uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes; (e.g. The Tempest, Midnight’s Children, etc.)

Literature de-centered: That literary and non-literary texts circulate inseparably;

Truth is provisional; human nature, a myth. No discourse,. . . gives access to unchanging truths, nor expresses inalterable human nature (more later)

New Historicism: methods

Investigates three areas of concern: 1. the life of the author; 2. the social rules or power relations found within a text;3. The work’s historical situation (of production and

circulation) in the text. Blurring the boundaries between text and context.

Avoiding sweeping generalization of a text or a historical period, a new historicist pays close attention to the conflicts and the apparently insignificant details in history as well as the text.

What is Representation?

Not Re-Presentation (原音重現，身歷其境 , 歷史現身 )

“Representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to people.” (15)

1. Using language (system of representation);

2. To produce meanings (another system of representation) about (make connections among) things, and

3. To communicate them to some people.

What are the two systems of representation in representation (meaning production)?

Codes (pp. 21-22)

Referent

What’s hidden in this stereogram

Conceptual System

Shapes formed because of 1) two-eye differences (wall-eyed; cross-eyed); 2) the gestalt laws of organization (e.g. figure and ground)

What’s hidden in this stereogram

ANSWER: BUNNY!

http://www.billybear4kids.com/stereogram/bunny.html

Different Perspectives = Different Conceptual Systems

1. Conceptual System = the Context of a sign, which determines its meaning

2. Sign system– image or English letters (liar)

Two Systems at Work in Representation: What kind of room is this?

A restaurant or a tea house? Signs: Red color, paper lantern, floor-to-ceiling

windows, sofas, pillows, wood desk, ‘bamboo room,’ etc.

What kind of room is this?

The Lava Room

From Star Nightclub http://www.creamnyc.com/

Representation=Meaning Production

What makes the difference?

Different conceptual

frameworks, or

conceptual

systems.

Different Languages

Are these meanings absolute or relational? Why?

signifier

signified

Meaning – Essential or Relational?

God Loves Me

I Teach/Contribute to Society

I Fuck/Produce Children

I Shop

I’m Happy

I Think

I AMI AMI AM

生命的意義在創造宇宙繼起的生命。

生活的意義在增進人類全體的生活﹔

1. “I” – no essence? 2. Meanings – one truer/better than the other? –produced by ourselves or a system?

1. “I” – no essence? 2. Meanings – one truer/better than the other? –produced by ourselves or a system?

* Note

Note: Relativism Is there an essential definition of our selves? e. g. 生為中國 / 劉家／輔大人，死為中國／劉

家／輔大魂（鬼﹚。 Self(-Definition) –not essential nor

unchangeable; -- is relational (“I am A” implies “I am not B”). (i.e.

binarist thinking may be at work.) -- is usu. determined by our value systems, if not

given to or imposed on us by our society. -- can be contradictory, with so many conceptual

systems we live in. Relational view of meaning is not relativism.

Relativism: Everything is ok and nothing matters.

Theories of Representation Reflective approach –

Some truth and functions to it (in communication, in knowledge acquisition)

Representation as “Re-Presentation” Intentional approach – Can we decide the meanings

of what we say? (p. 25) Representation as Self-Expression (得意而忘言；言止於心意深處 )

Constructivist approach – Things don’t mean; we construct meanings about them by

using different systems of representation. Representation as Construction: We don’t speak language;

language speaks us. (Activity 4)

De Saussure: Contribution & Limitations (pp. 32 – 35) Contributions to the Constructionist Theory of

Representation Arbitrary relations between signifier and signified Meanings in language can never be fixed; they are open to

changes by ‘context’ (historical, social or personal). Langue vs. parole the social part of language

Limitations: too exclusive focus on language; Language is not a closed system. semiotics –the study

of signs (languages in a broader sense)

Semiotics & Roland Barthes

Major principles

1. All the cultural products and activities read as process or results of signification. No meaning is inherent or natural.

2. There are more than one (arbitrary) relations between signifiers and signified.

(iconic --resemblance, indexical --cause, symbolic – arbitrary p. 20).

3. There are more than one level of meanings. denotation and connotation.

What kinds of signs are they?

Iconic

= airport

= Church

= crossroad

Symbolic

indexical

Sign System: Fashion as an Example Fashion codes (signs + concepts)

(Textbook pp. 37-38) Fabric: Silk= feminine, denim= masculine,

casual, cotton = comfortable, khaki= military, formal.

skirt (+ silk)= feminine; jeans (+ cotton T-Shirt) =casual or masculine

Sign System: Rules of Selection and Combination All social practices as sign-systems and thus are

open to cultural interpretation (or de-mystification). e.g. the meaning of a jacket defined by its contexts. e.g. the “langue” of clothes (selection & combination)

System:

a. blouse, shirt, T-shirt ;

b. skirt, trousers

sentence:

1. blouse + skirt + high heeled shoes X snickers

2. blouse + jeans + snickers X not for concert

Fashion and Myth: from denotation to

connotation; description to prescription “. . . Mist gold, pure gold, and black gold are

all flashing in full glamour since most collections are heavily weighted toward evening cloths with an ostentatious dressing chic.

If gold is too much for you, don’t worry, for here comes the backup that makes you in style as well, the color of camel! As usual, camel has always been playing its role of warming up the winter, which has been so elegantly carried out by the blazing gold as it is this year. “ (Sophie Ko)

Fashion: from language to myth “Leather, of course, is something that can’t

be left out in each winter.”

“Fur, for sure, is a must, especially for collars, ”

“As for trousers, they really do need to be slim-fitting and skinny-legged to be chic this season! ”

myth: 紫醉金迷、世紀末的華麗(Sophie Ko)

Semiotic reading (1): Denotation and Connotatione.g. Panzani pasta (p. 40)1. Denotation: “the real objects in

the scene”The signifiers: “these same objects

photographed.” 2. Connotation: “half-opened bag”

spilling out onto the table freshness, the domestic

3. Italianness (red green white)4. ‘a total culinary service” 5. Arrangement like “still life”

painting

a signifier + signified =

Semiotic reading (2): Different levels of signification: primary signification & secondary signification

primary signification:

Secondary signification

sign (full)--denotation

Sign (empty)/ Form+ content = sign --connotation

Signifier + signified =([home])

Semiotic reading (2): Different levels of signification: primary signification & secondary signification

primary signification:

Secondary signification

sign (full)--denotation

Sign (empty)/ Form+ content = sign --connotation: Homepage, country cottage, etc.

Barthes’ examples:

rose, black pebble.

Signifier + signified =Young negro, in uniform, saluting,With eyes uplifted, fixed on the tricolor

Myth

primary signification:

Secondary signification

sign (full)—denotation([Black solider saluting

a French flag]) Patriotism/submission

Sign (empty)/ Form+ content = sign --connotation: France as a

Great empire, loved by all her “sons.”

colonialism militariness

“Myth”: distortion, naturalizing The form(on the secondary level) does not

suppress the original meaning, it only impoverishes it, it puts it at a distance... myth hides nothing: its function is to distort, not

to make disappear Target: Myth has an imperative, buttonholing

character: ...it is I whom it has come to seek. ... For this interpellant speech is at the same time

a frozen speech: at the moment of reaching me, it suspends itself, turns away and assumes the look of a generality; it stiffens, it makes itself looks natural and innocent