Preliminary Exercise 1: Barthes’ Theory of Denotative and Connotative Signs Semiotic Analysis Table

      The objective key concept of the lesson is semiotics. Semiotics is the study of signs and their meanings, the interpretation of messages in a text. Roland Barthes is a French literary theorist. He stated that there is more than one way to read a code and a text has multiple meanings. He studied the relationship between denotation and connotation and analyzed the signification process. Roland Barthes says anything in culture can be a sign and send a specific message. Signs are the smallest units of meaning. Denotation is the literal/primary/original meaning of a sign. The sign is also called a signifier. Connotation communicates meaning based on the context. This is when signs have multiple meaning(signifiers). The connotation is known as the signified. A sign could be a rose. The denotation of a rose could be this flower is a red rose. The connotation of a rose is love and romance. Love is an intense feeling of deep affection. Romance is a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love. Romance comes from Roman. It was usually for adventures of knights and that's how it become associated with love stories. Another sign is a black cat. The denotation of a black cat could be is the color of the cat is bat. The connotation of a black cat is witches and bad luck. Witches are women thought to have magic powers. In movies, shows, and stories, witches have a black cat as their pet. Bad luck is used to express sympathy or commiserations. In the Middle Ages people said black cats were the cause of sicknesses and plagues and are bad luck.

      The objective of the activity is semiotics. Semiotics is important because it could help decode symbols, pictures, or even scenes in movies and videos. The way you are supposed to interpret signs by denotating them first. That means find the literal meaning of the sign. Then connotate the sign. That means find the multiple means of the sign. Two students completed that task. I learned how do decode signs and a different way to look at things, like symbols, pictures, and anything, like a blanket or a car, just anything. Everything has multiple meanings; you just have to look for them or look more into the signs.