In the Course material we are told that "the examples make the meaning of Barthes' thesis clear".
The first example is of a pupil who is in the second form in a French lycee. He is faced with the sentence "quia ego nominor leo". He recognises that the phrase has a simple meaning "because my name is lion". He also feels that the sentence is there to signify something else to him. The narrative continues:
In as much it is addressed to me, a pupil in the second form, it tells me clearly: I am a grammatical example meant to illustrate the rule about the agreement of the predicate.......I am faced with a particular, greater, semiological system, since it is co-extensive with the language: there is indeed , a signifier, but this signifier is itself formed by a sum of signs, it is in itself a first semiological system (my name is lion). Thereafter the formal pattern is correctly unfolded: there is a signified (I am a grammatical example) and there is a global signification, which is none other than the correlation of the signifier and the signified; for neither the naming of the lion nor the grammatical example is given separately. (p 54 visual culture: the reader. eds jessica evans and stuart hall Sage Publishing 2010)
It could be argued that the 'grammatical example' is not given at all. It is construction of the writer who applies his personal knowledge and situation to the Latin phrase. It is a unique construction that may or may not be right (there is no objective way of establishing the truth of the construction). It is a subjective view that is only valid in the circumstances outlined.
Let us move to the second example provided. In this we are shown a front cover of Paris Match. It shows a young black boy in some form of uniform saluting with his eyes gazing into the far distance. Barthes describes it slightly differently and in more emotive language: "...a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour". There is no evidence whatsoever in the picture that suggests that he saluting the French flag and the tern 'uplifted' is suggestive of an emotive response in the boy. It would appear to be an attempt to pre-condition the reader to Barthes' conclusion that reads: "......I see very well what it signifies to me (my underlining): that France is a great Empire,that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so called oppressors...." (ibid p54).
Barthes goes on in almost exactly the same language as in the Latin grammar example to see this as being faced with a 'greater semiological system'. Given what was happening in the French Empire around this time there is a temptation to simply say that Barthes was talking rubbish. However the important element for me is that once again we have a subjective view that cannot be shown to be true or false by objective reasoning.
Both these examples highlight the difficulties semiology, as followed by Barthes and others, faces. What is the signifier, signified, sign and signification not only depend upon at which level you begin the analysis but that in the end it is wholly a matter of personal interpretation as to what each term means in any particular situation. In the examples given there is no doubt that the writers see their analysis as personal interpretations. If this is the case then it follows that there are likely to be many other other interpretations that are equally 'valid'. There is no right answer.
Do the examples make Barthes' thesis clearer. Yes in that both reveal the weakness of the methodology.
Are we not left therefore with a practice that certainly cannot be described as scientific or indeed something that stands in its own right as an academic discipline? All we discover when reading the products of semiological thinking are the personal interpretations of the individual analyst. They do not provide any framework that can be applied successfully to the analysis of other texts even those that appear superficially to be similar. Moving from text to images produces even greater problems of interpretation because there is not even the underpinning of a common written language to at least give a starting point.
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