Roland Barthes's Theory Of Semiotics Through Digital Advertising

Symbolism, symbolism the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Throughout the book, The Other Side, the author uses symbolism. In the book Anne, a young white girl, says, “Someday somebody’s going to come along and knock this old fence down.” She does not mean the fence itself, she means the boundary between blacks and whites. The fence in the book is a boundary between the houses in the neighborhood.

“you don’t have to dread all of this” (p 229) You don’t have to fear this.

explicitly. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. At the end of Chapter 9,

Maze (p.26-27) - This is important because it is where the Gladers live. Denotative - a network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has to find a way. Connotative - The home of the Gladers, the place they need to escape.

Small frame is put into a slot (wanted to scare people in the audience without having them know what scared them)

Throughout the chapter Tomas Foster, the author of the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor consistently mentioned that symbolism was relative and it is different for each reader. There is no debate on whether something is a symbol or not because in most cases it is. Foster mentions that the meaning of the symbol differs between readers because each person has a different perspective on the story. He also presents the idea that if a symbol can be reduced to have meaning that it actually isn’t symbolism being used, but allegory. Foster presents that a symbol has multiple possible meanings and that it changes between literary work and even between reader. He states that if a person wants to figure out the meaning of a symbol they have to look deeper, use their previous knowledge, and question what is happening in order to crack the code on the meaning of the symbol. These are new ideas because most casual readers usually believe that symbols have one specific meaning in each novel. By having Foster say that there are a limitless amount of interpretations for a simple it blows the door wide open. Symbols are used throughout novels of all genres, and sometimes even ironically. Foster’s belief in the importance of intertextuality shines through throughout

Symbols are determined by the reader. The writer does not just have one set meaning for a symbol. A readers depiction of symbols are based on their own personal experiences.

Today’s quick-moving world of technology has media texts such as advertisements to make sure that people understand with just a glance. Having adverts on magazines, social media and billboards allow them to use tools such as semiology, genre and narrative because it makes their messages clear instantly. These signs allow us to carry meaning through advertisements, connotations and the signification process. These tools let brands, mainly celebrities, and the option to produce and create a myth of the product such as “Be daring. Be an inspiration” to sell it to the world. We are in a time where advertisers use ‘simplicity’ in their adverts; there are no more paragraphs. It is mainly down to the person and the few words shown in that advert.

Symbolism is a literary technique that is used to clarify the author's intent. Sometimes it is used to great effect, while other times it only seems to muddle the meaning of a passage. In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne uses objects and people as symbols to allegorically reveal his message to the reader.

Susanne Langer examines and differentiates symbols from signs and says that the word “meaning” is ambiguous. The word has different meanings according to different sentences that can be structured differently. The word “mean” has different functions and was never able to be correctly identified and clarified. Langer suggests that meaning has different functions such as a logical and a psychological senses, in which the logical meaning has to do with an object and the psychological meaning has to do with a symbol. According to Langer, signs are referred to objects and symbols are referred to ideas, and humans and nature are signs. However, signs created by humans are called artificial signs and natural signs. Langer believed that the terms sign subject, and object exist and are related to a ‘sign’, and in a symbol, there are four functions such as conception, object, subject, and symbol. Langer also believed that the word ‘meaning’ has three meaning which are connotation, denotation, and notable.

Commodity signs are assembled through advertisements, using already existent meanings and turning them into modified meanings to suit their purpose. As consumers we

In literature, connotation is a style used by authors to suggest an additional meaning of a particular word or phrase as used in the context of the narrative. It is a strategy that authors use to stimulate the thinking of the reader as the latter relates to the cultural and emotional aspects of the literature under study. Imagery, on the other hand, is the style where the author uses figurative language to describe the objects, activities, and ideas that relate to the five senses of the reader. The wording in the literature creates a visual representation of the item under description, allowing the reader to form a mental picture that fits the description. These two styles are commonly used in many literary works

In his essay The Rhetoric of The Image, Roland Barthes explores the relationship between image and meaning. He centres his discussion around the advertisement as advertising is a medium in which there is an intended message being sent to the viewer. Barthes puts forward that if an image contains signs, in advertising the signs are ‘full’, as these signs are formed with the viewer in mind so that the intended message is not missed.

Originally, Barthes termed connotation as myth because he believed that connotation is a product of society. Connotation is not the true meaning of the sign but a meaning that society has decided to give that sign and is a shared meaning (Griffin, 2012). Barthes wrote that connotation makes what is cultural seem natural (Barthes, 1985/1988). Connotation is what makes habit become ritual. To better understand these two aspects of signs, we have to understand how the system of what makes up a sign affects its meaning.

The term ‘Semiotics’ refers to the study of signs and symbols, the relationship between written or spoken signs and of the meanings that are created. The essay will first of all try to give some definition a review of the main terminology used in the study of Semiotics and will then apply these to a series of texts, relating to advertising for Coca Cola.