Elements of Semiology Roland Barthes
Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. First American edition, Hill and Wang, 1968
“Semiology therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their sub stance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification.” 9
“the language is always socialized, even at the individual level, for in speaking to somebody one always tries to speak more or less the other's language, especially as far as the vocabulary is concerned” 21
“In the linguistic model, nothing enters the language without having been tried in speech, but conversely no speech is possible (that is, fulfils its function of communication) if it is not drawn from the 'treasure' of the language.” 31
“The classification of signs: The signified and the signifier, in Saussurean terminology, are the components of the sign.” 35
“sign which he (Saussure) defined as the union of a signifier and a signified” 38
“signifier and signified, the union of which forms the sign.” 39
“emphasizing the fact that the signified is not 'a thing' but a mental representation of the 'thing'” . 42
“the signified of the word ox is not the animal ox, but its mental image” 43
“The nature of the signifier suggests roughly the same remarks as that of the signified: it is purely a re1atum, whose definition cannot be separated from that of the signified” 47
“The signification can be conceived as a process; it is the act which binds the signifier and the signified, an act whose product is the sign.” 48
“units which have something in common are associated in memory and thus form groups” 58
“language is, as it were, that which divides reality (for instance the continuous spectrum of the colours is verbally reduced to a series of discontinuous terms).” 64
“The system constitutes the second axis of the language. Saussure has seen it in the shape of a series of associative fields, some determined by an affinity of sound (education, saturation), some by an affinity in meaning (education, upbringing).” 71
