Myth and Ideology Roland Barthes Theory of Denotative and Connotative Meaning
example in French at the barber shop on Paris-Match magazine Barthes read and knew that a black person been colonized but on Paris-Match magazine was not
happen anything by saluting a French flag.
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In the definition of Barthes concept about myth which is in Kris Budiman, Kosa Semiotika, is a part of speech that taken to be read in advertisements for
example as something, something natural, or the way to conceptualize something.
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In his work, Mythologies essay, Barthes said that myth is from secondary sign system process which connotation is stable or to be dominant on a
community convention. He opened up that what has been natural in French is the connotation process, showing black person saluted a French flag, to be myth
then, it seemed there was no a question about black person, all was under controlled by French as a great colonial Empire.
Furthermore, Barthes added that what he had written Mythologies essays is to criticize the cultural phenomena in French. His theory is to dismantle
something that has been dominated. However, he wrote that what has been nature in a community is produced by a connotation process the extension of
contentsignified C
2
in a community, if a connotation stays alive or to be fixed, it is going to myth, and in other time it would be ideology.
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In other words, myth which is used by a sign users community is a connotation process which is the
deepest meaning that produced by a convention of community to naturalize
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Ibid., p. 122.
28
Kris Budiman, Kosa Semiotika, Yogyakarta: LKiS, 1999, p. 76.
29
Benny H. Hoed, Op. Cit., p. 18.
something, even it transforms history to be nature, in attempting to strengthen or to give a message, a foundation, in nature to a community.
A connotation and myth are operated in secondary sign system which is the place of the interaction sign users with gender, emotional, psychological,
religion and cultural. They are the ways of sign core and live on a community. They follow a period of time and will be changed if it could not be needed again.
But how if the difference community operates or wants to interpret a sign that given by to sign users; Barthes in his great book, SZ 1970, explained that there
are five codes, hermeneutic, semantic, symbolic, narrativeproairetic and cultural codes in which everything that could be read as meaning is based on codes.
A code is the combination of signs which is agreed as social convention to give chance that transformation of messages sender and receiver is understood;
it is like the system mind or paradigm.
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To understand a sign, a code should be applied. In simply definition a code is to get sameness perception. After
interpreting a sign as denotation, connotation or myth process, Barthes classified those codes into a next interpretation. The five codes are defined as below:
Hermeneutic code is a code that follows to interpret any argument, question, or something that would drive to arrange, deny, or even to answer it. To interpret this
code, it should check every detail of a sign that shown in order to gain the answer that informed. Semantic code is something that contains a position which is a
connotation is built such as masculine, feminine, or it is arranged to give a masculine connotation, feminine, and so on. Symbolic code is a grouping code via
30
John Fiske, Op. Cit., p. 126.
any ways and textual elements to recognize something easily. Narrative code is a code of action which is based on a capability to attempt a result or to determine a
result from what has done rationally or it contains a story. And the last code is Cultural code, it is a reference code; it seems collective acceptance of morality,
wisdom, history, knowledge, art, myth or any representation as common.
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In addition, Barthes in his book, SZ 1970, redefined the denotation meaning. He said that denotation is what is exactly shown the level of explaining
the relation R
1
between signifierE
1
and signifiedC
1
or it is a sign in which refers to a reality. It would produce the meaning explicit, and direct as social
convention. But there is something case here, as what Barthes intention to criticize phenomena in the world especially in French, denotation is not what is exactly
shown, literal meaning or natural a sign; it tends to naturalize as definitional, commonsense and literal. Denotation is as the final result of a connotative process
as what Barthes said: Denotation is not the first meaning, but it pretends to be so; under this illusion, it is ultimately no more than the last of the connotation.
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