US-China Foreign Language, March 2017, Vol. 15, No.

3, 209-214
doi:10.17265/1539-8080/2017.03.008
D DAVID PUBLISHING

A Survey on Roland Barthes’ Myth Today∗

ZHANG Shu-ping
Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, China

Roland Barthes extended Saussure’s signified into denotation, connotation, and myth. Both connotation and myth
are ideological in culture semiotics; connotation is the rich and colorful exhibition of fashion, values, living
attitudes, life style and so on, whilst myth is the total of these connotative meaning—middle class ideology. Both of
them belong to the level of surface ideology, dominated by the deep ideology.

Keywords: Roland Barthes, cultural semiotics, connotation, Myth Today

Introduction
As a semiotician, Roland Barthes extended Saussure’s signified into denotation, connotation, and myth
and applied them into cultural semiotic studies. He attempted to exploit the way of meaning-making in his
cultural semiotics in order to search the deep meaning hidden behind the surface meaning in mass media and
foundthat the deep meaning, i.e., Myth Today was historical or cultural, which had close relationship with
ideology of the dominant class. Barthes claimed that the seemingly innocent posters, ads, and even all mass
cultural materials were not really innocent for they were designed to shape and reshape readers’ ideology and to
persuade them to accept the dominant ideology. Barthes’s demystification of mass culture and their
manipulatingprocesswere to uncoverMyth Today implied in mass media so as to remind people from following
myth and myth-effect blindly.

Denotation and Connotation

In semiotics, denotation, connotation, and myth all belonged to the concept of meaning. Meaning had
several levels and the first level was denotation. Denotation was obvious to its readers and referred to literal
meaning of a sign, which was similar to the definition given in a dictionary;whilst connotation indicated “the
socio-cultural and ‘personal’ associations (ideological, emotional, etc.) of the sign. These are typically related
to the interpreter’s class, age, gender, ethnicity and so on” (Chandler, 2007). Denotation was the surface
meaning and even people without same cultural background could recognize it at the immediate sight, for
example, when people from different countries see the sign of an apple, they must recognize the meaning it
conveys though they do not share the same culture. Whereas connotation was implied in particular culture and
could not be recognized easily by people from different places unless they shared the same culture. Connotation
was not simply personal meanings and its framework was shaped in a particular culture so that certain
connotations was taken for granted by all the members of this culture perhaps be incredible to people of other

∗
Acknowledgements: The project, A Semiotic Analysis on Nuo Culture of Baima Tibetan, is supportedby Humanities and Social
Sciences Foundation, Ministry of Education,China (Grant No. 16YJA850006).
ZHANG Shu-ping, associate professor of School of Foreign Languages, M.A., Lanzhou City University, China. Her research
field mainly focuses on cultural semiotics.

 
210 A SUR
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OLAND BAR
RTHES’ MYTH TODAY

cultures.Foor instance, reedness is regaarded as happpiness and lu

ucky in Chinaa, but the sam me connotation cannot be
found in Western
W culturre.
Saussuure focused on o denotationn at the expennse of connotation whilst Barthes devooted himself to studying
deep meanning in his cuultural semiottics. The most remarkablee thing that he h did in seeeking deep meaning
m was
that he fouund connotattion and the way of its generation
g in photograph because phootograph was commonly
regarded as
a the most objective
o and there was leeast deep meeaning in it. WhatW Barthes intended to o do was to
uncover thhe phenomenoon that deep meaning wass hidden in every e corner of o people’s ddaily life inclu uding those
seemingly most objectiive and innoccent things. In I The Photo ographic Messsage(1961) aand The Rheetoric of the
Image (1964), he anallyzed the denotative meaaning and co onnotative meaning
m expliicitly and deeclared that
connotationn can be disstinguished from
fr denotatiion in photog graphy. At thhe first glannce, the photo ograph was
denotative because of the identicall nature of signifier
s and signified, which
w made thhe photograp ph seem so
objective and
a natural ass if there weree no connotattion. In fact, connotation in i photographhy was activee, clear, and
implicit though invisible, which waas not graspaable “at the levell of the message
m itsellf, but it can
n already be
inferred froom certain phhenomenon which
w occur at the levels of the produuction and recception of th he message”
(Barthes, 1977, p.19). In short, denotation
d w what was photograpphed and coonnotation was
was w how it
wasphotoggraphed and accepted.
a Thee process thatt connotative meaning was produced inn photograph hy depended
on differennt levels of the production of the phhotograph su uch as trick effects, posee, and objectts in which
connotationn was “produuced by a moddification of thet reality itself, of, that iss, the denotedd message” (F Fiske, 1982,
p.91).
Connootation, ratheer than denottation, plays ana importantt role in ads and Barthes stressed its delicate d and
powerful function
fu in ads in Rhetoric of the Imagee (1964), heree is the extracct:

Figure 1.Paanzani ad (Barth

hes, 1977, p. 333).

Here wew have a Paanzani ads: soome packets of o pasta, a tin

n, a sachet, soome tomatoess, onions, pepppers, and a
mushroom, all emerging from a halff-open string bag, in yello ows and greenns on a red bbackground. LetL us try to
“skim off” the different messages it contains.
c
The image immeddiately yieldss a first messsage, whosee substance is linguistics.. Panzani giv vesnot only
simply thee name of thhe firm, but also, a by its assonance,
a ann additional signified, thaat of “Italian
nicity”. The
linguistic message
m is thherefore twofold: denotattional and co onnotational.P Putting aside the linguistiic message,
weare left with the puree image. Thissimage straigghtaway proviides a series of discontinuuous signs.Firrst, the idea
that what we
w have in thhe scene reprresented is a return from the market. A signified w which itself implies
i two
euphoric values: that off the freshnesss of the prodducts and thatt of the essenttially domesttic preparation for which
they are deestined. Its siggnifier is the half-open bagg which lets the
t provisionns spill out ovver the table, “unpacked”.
“

 
 A SURVEY ON ROLAND BARTHES’ MYTH TODAY 211

To read this first sign requires only a knowledge which is in some sort implanted as part of the habits of a very
widespread culture where “shopping around for oneself” is opposed to the hasty stocking up (preserves,
refrigerators) of a more “mechanica” civilization. A second sign is more or less equally evident; its signifier is
the bringing together of the tomato, the pepper, and the tricoloured hues (yellow, green, and red) of the poster;
its signified is Italy, or rather Italianicity. Continuing to explore the image, there is no difficulty in discovering
at least two other signs: In the first, the serried collection of different objects transmits the idea of a total
culinary service.On the one hand, as though Panzani furnished everything necessary for a carefully balanced
dish and on the other hand, as though the concentrate on the tin was equivalent to the natural produce
surrounding it; in the other sign, the composition of the image, evoking the memory of innumerable alimentary
paintings, sends us to an aesthetic signified: the “nature morte” or, as it is better expressed in other languages,
the “still life”; the knowledge on which this sign depends is heavily cultural (Barthes, 1977, pp.33-35).

Myth
Myth Today did not indicate the classical fables, but the dominant ideology of the current time and it was
the deepening of connotation, because the manipulating ways of the dominant ideologyof the current timewere
similar with the traditional myth, so Barthes addressed it as Myth Today. Hawkes (1977) illustrated Barthes’s
Myth Today as a complex system of ideas and beliefs constructed in society and meanwhile tried to maintain
and prove the rationality of its existence (Hawkes, 1977, p.85). As to the nature of Myth Today, according to
Barthes, myth was at once formal and historical, semiological, and ideological. As one part of semiotics, it was
a formal science because semiotics was a science of forms, whilst it studied meaning or ideas-in-form when it
was one part of historical science (Barthes, 1987). So mythology was a dialectical co-ordination of formalism
and meaning-orientation. The articles of Mythologies focused on mass culture and found out that rich and
varied forms of mass culture tried to reveal the single meaning-Burgensis ideology, which was permeated
everywhere in the French society and attempted to Burgensisize the proletariat ideology, and it did not solely
manipulate the ideology tendency of the whole society, but functioned as the unique soul of all forms in mass
culture, whilst the colorful forms were the various ways of expressing the meaning, i.e., advocating the
Burgensis ideology.
Barthes not only pointed out that Burgensis ideology was the final signified in mass culture, but also
exposed and criticized that the seemingly innocent forms of mass media were to impose the Burgensisideology
to all walks of people imperceptibly(Barthes, 1999, p. 3). Heelaborated Myth Today in“Myth Today” with a
notable example:

Figure 2.Saluting soldier (Barthes, 1987).

 
212 A SURVEY ON ROLAND BARTHES’ MYTH TODAY

I am at the barber’s, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is
saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But,
whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: 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 thisNegro in serving his so-called oppressors. I am therefore again faced with a greater
semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving the French
salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is a presence of
the signified through the signifier... In myth (and this is the chief peculiarity of the latter), the signifier is already formed
by the signs of the language... Myth has in fact a double function: it points out and it notifies, it makes us understand
something and it imposes it on us... (Barthes, 1987)

Barthes claimed that the gist of myth did not come from the message it carried but from the way it passed.
Here is its manipulating ways:
One must put the biography of the Negro in parentheses if one wants to free the picture, and prepare it to receive its
signified... The form does not suppress the meaning, it only impoverishes it, it puts it at a distance... It is this constant
game of hide-and-seek between the meaning and the form which defines myth. The form of myth is not a symbol: the
Negro who salutes is not the symbol of the French Empire: he has too much presence, he appears as a rich, fully
experienced, spontaneous, innocent, indisputable image. But at the same time this presence is tamed, put at a distance,
made almost transparent; it recedes a little, it becomes the accomplice of a concept which comes to it fully armed, French
imperiality... (Barthes, 1987)

Then he concluded the verynature of MythToday:

Myth is... defined by its intention... much more than by its literal sense... In spite of this, its intention is somehow
frozen, purified, eternalized, made absent by this literal sense (The French Empire? It is just a fact: look at this good Negro
who salutes like one of our own boys).

We reach here the very principle of myth: it transforms history into nature... In the case of the soldier-Negro... what is
got rid of is certainly not French imperiality (on the contrary, since what must be actualized is its presence); it is the
contingent, historical, in one word: fabricated, quality of colonialism. Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its
function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal
justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact… myth acts
economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all
dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions...
Things appear to mean something by themselves... (Barthes, 1987)

Barthes viewed myth as serving the ideological interest of bourgeoisie by making the dominant ideology
such as beliefs, values, and attitudes and all the other current systems seem natural, common-sense, and
necessary. For Barthes, myth was a speech of social reality and it functioned as a speaker that the existing
system was normal and should be accepted by all the citizens without any doubt. George Lakoff and Mark
Johnson outlined key features of the myth which was enveloped in Western culture—“a myth which allies itself
with scientific truth, rationality, accuracy, fairness and impartiality and which is reflected in the discourse of
science, law, government, journalism, morality, business, economics and scholarship”(Lakoff& Johnson, 1980,
pp.188-189). In this way, myths penetrated in our mind without being noticed and “the power of such myths is
that they ‘go without saying’ and so appear not to need to be deciphered, interpreted or demystified” (Chandler,
2007).

 
 A SUR
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OLAND BAR
RTHES’ MYTH TODAY 213

Three Orrders of Sig

gnification
Denottation, connootation, and myth m could be
b classified d as the diffeerent levels oof signified. Denotation
tended to indicate meaaning of the first level of o the signifieed, connotatiion second, aand myth third. Roland
Barthes addopted the nootion of Louiss Hjelmslev (1959,( p. 69)) that there were
w differentt orders of siignification.
The first order of signiffication calleed denotation in which a sign s consistedd of a signifiier and a sign
nified. Then
the signifieer and signifified composedd a new signnifier and attaached to it ann additional signified which was the
second-ordder ofsignification—connootation.If they were put in i the whole significationn system of the t signifier
and the siggnified, the reelationship off the threeordeers of significcation would become cleaar just as the left
l diagram
revealed:

Fig
igure 3. Three orders
o of signifiication (Barthess, 1987).

This tended
t tosugggest that denootation led too a chain of connotations
c and the marrriage of conn notation and
the ideologgy gave birtth to a new sign of whiich the signified was myyth, thus the third signifi fication was
produced.H Here one pooint must be stressed thaat Barthes himself h did not
n put forw ward the thirrd order of
significatioon definitely, but his claim
m that the first two orderss of significattion—denotaation and conn notationand
that the coonnotation coombinedthe cuurrent ideoloogy would prroduce MythT Todayindicated that there were three
levels of siignification. So
S his followwersdescribedd Myth Today y as the thirdd order of signnification, am
mong whom
Gaines (20001) designedd a distinct graaphic represeentation of hiss three orderss of significattion:
Hjelm
mslev’sSemiossis Extendedd to Analysis of o Myth
Denottative-First Order
O Significcation
Correelation of the Signifier or Expression
E (E
E)
In Rellation (R) to
The Siignified or Coontent (C)
(ERC)
C)
Connotative-Secon nd Order Siggnification
The Siignifier or Exxpression (E2) is the sum of o (E1R1C1)
The Connotativelev
C vel can be grraphically reppresented as
(E1R1C1R2C2) or (E2R2C2)
By exttending this formula:
f
Myth--Third Orderr Significatioon
Can beb analyzed ass: (E3R3C3)
The Expression
E E3 is derived frrom the Seconnd Order of Signification:
S
(E1R1C1R2C2) in Relation
R (R3) to the signifieed Content (C
C3) of Myth.
Or to more simply express the extended
e form
mula:
[(E1R1C1R2C2)] (R R3) (C3)
The Connotation
C o the Sign becomes the Signifier
of S of th
he Myth(Gainnes, 2001)

 
214 A SURVEY ON ROLAND BARTHES’ MYTH TODAY

It was clear that the constitution of myth had to experience three stages, denotation, connotation, and myth
and often the three levels of signifieds mixed and confused together, especially connotation and myth, so it was
difficult to distinguish them except for the elaborate analysis. Denotation came from the direct-viewing,
linguistic, or image, for instance, in the saluting Negro, the form was the image on the cover of the Paris-Match:
A young Negro in a French uniform was saluting and the denotation was the fact that the Negrosaluted the
French national flag. But it was not the end. The form and the denotation combined to produce a new form, of
which the meaning (connotation) was: Negro was also the people of France and they served faithfully under the
French flag just like white people did. At the same time, the new form and its connotation was given birth, the
denotation was exhausted and lost its existing point, though its form was still there, lifeless as a corpus. Then
the new form and its meaning (connotation) joined up to generate again a new form of which the meaning was
myth: French was a great nation and there was no ethnic discrimination in French society. This aimed at
replyingthe detractors of an alleged colonialismthat was prevalent at that time.

Conclusion
In conclusion, both connotation and myth are ideological in culture semiotics; connotation is the rich and
colorful exhibition of fashion, values, living attitudes, life style and so on, whilst myth is the total of these
connotative meaning—middle class ideology. Both of them belong to the level of surface ideology, dominated
by the deep ideology.

References
Barthes, R.(1964). Elements of semiology.(D. L.WANG,Trans., 1999).Beijing:SDX Joint Publishing Company.
Barthes, R. (1977).Image-music-text.London: Fontana.
Barthes, R. (1987). Mythologies. Retrieved October 11, 2007, from
http://www.blog.edu.cn/user4/caojinjin/archives/2007/1727819.shtml
Chandler, D. (2007). Semiotics for beginners. Retrieved October 1, 2007 from
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html
Fiske, J.(1982).Introduction to communication studies. London: Routledge.
Gaines, E. (2001). Semiotic analysis of myth: A proposal for an applied methodology. Semiotics, 17(2), 311-327.
Hawkes, T. (1977).Structuralism and semiotics. London: Routledge.
Hjelmslev, L. (1959). Essais linguistiques. Copenhagen. Paris: Minuit Publisher.
Lakoff, G.,&Johnson,M. (1980).Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Saussure, F. de.(2001).Course in general linguistics. London: Duckworth; Beijing: Foreign Language and Research Press.