Barthes theory

 Barthes' Semiotic Theory broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies. According to Barthes, signs had both a signifier, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified or meaning that is interpreted. Barthes identifies five different kinds of semiotic elements that are common to all texts. He gathers these signifiers into five codes: Hermeneutic, Proairetic, Semantic, Symbolic, and Cultural. In his book states that the cultural code is the code that ‘everyone knows’ what the author means of established and authoritative cultural forms. Therefore, the cultural code is the code that is taken from the authoritative cultures which are known by everyone.

The term codes can be misleading. Rather than a set of rules for how a text should be interpreted, Barthes’s codes are a perspective from which you can view a text. Reading a text with the five codes in mind is like looking at an image through a series of colored lenses. The image remains the same but your impression of it changes. Another way to think of the five codes is as a set of voices speaking at the same time. Barthes advises us to “. . . listen to the text as an iridescent exchange carried on by multiple voices, on different wavelengths”. In some texts there will be one or two dominant voices.

The Hermeneutic and Proairetic codes dominate what Barthes refers to as classic texts. Often these are texts that have been read and criticized to such an extent that they have an accepted meaning. Lexias from these texts must be read in order if the narrative is to make any sense. Barthes would classify many of the poems and novels we think of as canonical in this group. Some genres rely more heavily on one code than the others. Mystery novels are dominated by the Hermeneutic Code because they rely on the reader’s desire to learn the answer to the question Whodunit? by the end of the story. n other texts, the five voices speak all at once. Tuning in to each voice lets us hear what the text is trying to tell us. Texts in which the Semantic, Symbolic, and Cultural Codes dominate are closer to Barthes’s idea of the writerly text. Because elements of these codes are connotative rather than denotative, they do not have to be read in order. They give you a sense of what the narrative is like rather than tell you what happens. n other texts, the five voices speak all at once. Tuning in to each voice lets us hear what the text is trying to tell us. Texts in which the Semantic, Symbolic, and Cultural Codes dominate are closer to Barthes’s idea of the writerly text. Because elements of these codes are connotative rather than denotative, they do not have to be read in order. They give you a sense of what the narrative is like rather than tell you what happens.