The Characteristics Of Roland Barthes' Semiotics Aesthetics

Roland Barthes(1915-1980), an important scholar in researches of the French culture and literature in the twentieth century, was also known as a philosopher, literature theorist, and critic. He was feted strongly as the pioneer in semiology and critical movements. Roland Barthes inherited and enriched Saussure’s semiology, and pointed out the critical idea that signifier was wider than signified, and he also stated that signs themselves involved a lot more cultural metaphors. His study of aesthetics of semiology enriched semiotics and he founded the cultural semiology later. This essay mainly discusses Roland Barthes’ s aesthetics of semiology in seven parts.Part one The introduction, illustrating the importance of the theory and the basic study on Barthes at home and abroad,then is pointed out the significance of the selected topic.Part two Demonstrates the concept of semiology, which introduces the origins and developments of the filed, focusing on the differences between Roland Barthes’ s theory and Saussure’s.Part three Analyses the relationship between signs and culture, which is the connotation and significance of Roland Barthes’ s theory.Part four: The metaphorical features of Roland Barthes’ semiological aesthetics. Barthes had discovered the connection of signs and cultural metaphors is discussed in part four. Barthes’ s discovery revealed metaphors are signs by comparing culture and metaphors.Part five The humanity features in Barthes’ s aesthetics of semiology. The social meaning of human as a sign are given creativity and wise. The religious meaning of God being the only explainer of meanings, the judge of human behaviors, and the giver of human thoughts. We should try to find the hidden meanings behind either the sign of God on the sign of human.Part six interprets the nationality of Barthes’ s aesthetics of semiology. By observing the meaning of nations and its undividable connect with the world,we can find nation and the world are unseperated from each other.Part seven describes the contributions of Barthes’ s aesthetics to semiology in five ways. The first is that he broke through Saussure’s theory, considering semiology is a branch of linguistics. The second is that he pointed out the connotation between signifier and signified. The third is that he introduced semiology into literature critics. The fourth is that he realized the construction of semiology. The fifth is that Barthes led semiological ideas to social problem criticism.Conclusion:The applications of semiology to analyze the phenonmenon of signs in order to discover the hidden meanings behind signs, will help us to find out the origins and roots of social problems, thus will keep us known and alert about the real intentions behind the cultural signs.