Elements of Semiology

Roland Barthes. Translated from the French by Annette Lavers & Colin Smith

ISBN 10: 0809013835 / ISBN 13: 9780809013838

Published by Hill & Wang, USA, 1981

About this Item

Paperback. 20x13cm. 111 pages. Flat spine. Clean & tight book. Inside front cover has a written name & address. No other inscriptions. Dispatched Royal Mail First Class with TRACKING boxed in cardboard. ref zx-crw.

Seller Inventory # 051821

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Elements of Semiology
• Publisher: Hill & Wang, USA
• Publication Date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809013835
• ISBN 13: 9780809013838
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: English Edition
• Printing: 7th impression
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

"In his Course in General Linguistics, first published in 1916, Saussure postulated the existence of a general science of signs, or Semiology, of which linguistics would form only one part. Semiology, therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance 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 . . . The Elements here presented have as their sole aim the extraction from linguistics of analytical concepts which we think a priori to be sufficiently general to start semiological research on its way. In assembling them, it is not presupposed that they will remain intact during the course of research; nor that semiology will always be forced to follow the linguistic model closely. We are merely suggesting and elucidating a terminology in the hope that it may enable an initial (albeit provisional) order to be introduced into the heterogeneous mass of significant facts. In fact what we purport to do is furnish a principle of classification of the questions. These elements of semiology will therefore be grouped under four main headings borrowed from structural linguistics: I. Language and Speech; II. Signified and Signifier; III. Syntagm and System; IV. Denotation and Connotation."--Roland Barthes, from his Introduction

About the Author

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and the classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980.