Barthes

Question 1

Who was Barthes?

Answer 1

-an influential French academic
-set theorist
-theories about media language

Question 2

What does Barthes argue?

Answer 2

-texts communicate their meanings through a purpose of signification
-all texts communicate through signs that need to be decoded by the audience
-signs can function at the level of denotation and connotation
-Connotations are influenced by culture and context
-constructed meanings can come to seem self evident , achieving the status of myth through a process of naturalisation

Question 3

What is status of myth

Answer 3

Connotations society have constructed through culture and context

Question 4

What is signification

Answer 4

The representation or conveying of meaning

Question 5

Hermeneutic code (HER) (enigma code)

Answer 5

-encourages the audience to ask a question
- delays the answer to a question
- Makes audience want to know what’s going to happen next
-set and solves puzzles in a narrative

Question 6

Proairetic code (ACT) (action code)

Answer 6

-signs that tell us something is going to happen
-‘shorthand’ ways of advancing the narrative

Question 7

Semantic code

Answer 7

-refers to the use of connotation to give the audience an insight and understanding of characters

Question 8

Symbolic code

Answer 8

-representing an object, idea or feeling by something else (a visual metaphor)
-used to symbolise opposition
-binary opposition can be themes , objects , settings , or any opposites

Question 9

Referential code (REF)

Answer 9

-culturally specific knowledge from outside the text which is used to make meaning in the text
-may be linked to reality or other texts (intertextuality)