A Study On Roland Barthes’ Culture Criticism And Influence From The Perspective Of Semiology

In Barthes’ works,whether the analysis of literary texts or the interpretation of social and cultural phenomena,all involves Barthes’ criticism of ideology and cultural environment.According to the interpretation of Barthes’ works in the early and later stage,it can be seen that semiology is theoretical weapons of culture criticism for Barthes from beginning to the end.Therefore,with the clue of time,this paper taking Barthes’ thought of semiology as the entry point tries to analyze how skillfully Barthes uses semiology to dissect cultural phenomena in different periods,then to criticize social and political culture.At the same time,this paper analyzes the influence and practical significance of it in the field of cultural studies.The first chapter mainly analyzes culture criticism during Barthes’ structuralism.Mythologies is Barthes’ preliminary work when studying popular culture.And The Fashion System is a study of popular fashion when structuralism is drawing to a close.So these two works can fully and completely reflect the characteristics of the cultural studies of Barthes’ entire structural period.Therefore,this part mainly focuses on his two works.Although Barthes analyzes French social and cultural phenomena with the guidance of structural semiotic during this period,we can still feel the differences between them.In Mythologies Barthes’ analysis of popular culture phenomenon has not yet completely escaped the influence of other methods such as sociology,and in the research,Barthes’ focus point is the construction of symbols,that is to say,his ideas is in terms of object-symbol.But,in The Fashion System,Barthes has established a relatively complete system of semiotics theory and discovered deep operating mechanisms in the exploration of cultural symbols.Therefore,Barthes more focuses on the conversion of symbols to objects.That is he analyzes how the bourgeoisie transforms symbols into living things,thus realizing the ideological rule of the masses.Based on the first two sections,the third section summarizes Barthes’ understanding of popular cultural phenomena and ideological criticism.The second chapter is divided into three sections.It mainly talks about the causes of the deconstructionism trend of thought in the late 1960 s and the internal and external reasons why Barthes turned to deconstructionism.That is to say,the reasons are the influence of the "May Storm" on the social status of France at the time,the enlightenment of Deconstructionists’ Theory and Barthes’ reflection on his theory.The second section mainly focuses on characteristics of cultural analysis influenced by deconstruction semiotics according to Empire of Signs created by Barthes when he turns to deconstruction.Empire of Signs is created after Barthes’ visit to Japan.In other country,Barthes perceives the empty,nonessential and randomness of Japanese culture and shows his preference for Japanese culture in the contrast of Chinese and Western cultures.In the third section,based on Barthes’ exposition of Japanese culture,this paper analyzes the strategy that using foreign cultures to develop Western culture criticism.First of all,influenced by deconstructionism,Barthes analyzes Japanese culture through new semiology and discovers the difference from western cultural symbols,and finds “antidote” for western-style cultural symbols in this process.Secondly,Barthes uses fragmented writing methods to elaborate Japanese culture,thereby subverting the linear and logical methods of narration and tradition of Western society,which achieves their own resentment and resistance to Western civilization.The third chapter is mainly about the value definition of Barthes’ cultural criticism with semiotics,which mainly includes two major aspects.One is the influence of culture criticism to Western cultural studies developed by Barthes.Based on the effect of Barthes’ research on cultural theorists with a certain status in the field of popular culture and consumer culture,this paper explains the value.In addition,the second part is the practical significance of Barthes’ cultural studies.This part is mainly composed of two subsections.In the first subsection,Barthes’ semiotics analysis provides the public with the ideas and perspectives to examine the social and cultural phenomena.That is the perspective of defamiliarization.In another section,with the different analysis methods in two periods,he provided a reflection on the creation of ecological cultural symbols from another perspective to human beings those in the real world of symbolic alienation and symbolic temptation.