CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH

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© Lee Harvey 1990, 2011, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024

Page updated 8 January, 2024

Citation reference: Harvey, L., [1990] 2011, Critical Social Research, available at qualityresearchinternational.com/csr, last updated 8 January, 2024, originally published in London by Unwin Hyman, all rights revert to author.

A novel of twists and surpises

Semiological analysis sees a sign as any cultural symbol that conveys a meaning. The sign is made up of two elements, signifier and signified. The signifier is sound or image that signifies something. For example, the sound 'dog' is a signifier for a 'four-legged mammal that barks'. What is signified is the concept 'dog'. Hence the sign is the concrete relation between concept (signified) and sound/image (signifier). Signs are arbitrary. They have no intrinsic meaning but take their meaning from the relationship to other signs. [2] The meaning of signs comes from their difference from other signs. The key of semiological analysis is that signs do not have intrinsic meaning. Meaning is generated through the relationship of signs.

Barthes (1974) argues that signs are not innocent, self-evident, indicators but that they contain two meanings, the denotative (literal or face-value meaning) and connotative (underlying or interpreted message, the symbolic meaning). [3] Put simply, the denotative level is what is 'represented' by the sign, for example, 'rose' represents a flower that grows on a thorny stem; and the connotative level is the inference that can be drawn from it, for example, the connotation of 'rose' may be 'passion'. The first level sign 'rose' becomes a second level signifier for the signification, 'passion' (second level sign).[4]

Judith Williamson's decoding of advertisements clearly indicated how a secondary message operates beneath the surface of the ostensive message. She examined the text/image sign system that constituted the advertisement and showed how these related to wider structures through the appropriation of referent systems. For example, the naturalisation of nature to provide a common-sense framework for the encoding of the desirability of the 'natural'. Thus objects of nature depicted in advertisements (mountains, fields, fruit) transfer this taken-for-granted desirability and acceptability to the products with which they are juxtaposed.

The task of the semiologist, then, is to uncover the taken-for-granteds or myths that are implicit in the connotative level. This involves a constant engagement with apparently innocent denotations. The denotation is seen as a signifier at the connotative level, but this requires a totalistic perspective to reveal the transparent connotation. Connotations are rooted in common sense and can only be revealed if the structures of meaning that sustain common sense are specified and reconceptualised.

The second structuralist technique centres around the identification of binary oppositions and narrative sequences. The approach again draws on linguistics and presupposes that the structure of language is inherently dichotomous (Jackobsen 1962) and, consequently, that the symbolic meaning of an image is determined only by differences.[5] When, for example, two characters in a story are opposed in a binary structure, their symbolic meaning is virtually forced to be both general and easily accessible because of the simplicity of the differences between them. This binary structure operates to provide conceptual differences and each society has a system of such oppositions and it is through them that myths are (unconsciously) understood by members (Levi-Strauss, 1963).

A second aspect of this approach is the deconstruction of narrative into a set of functions. Propp (1968), for example, in analysing Russian fairy stories, identified a set of shared functions that recurred in the same order. This structuralist approach is transformed into a critical social research process when the binary oppositions and the narrative functions are related to the prevailing socio-economic and political structure. It is then that their social meaning becomes manifest. Wright's analysis of the Western is a good example. His transformation of the structuralist approach is predicated upon a view of myth as a communication from a society to its members about how people should act. He shows how Westerns, as contemporary American myth, are structured as binary oppositions that are easily grasped and unambiguous. The narrative represents social types acting out a drama of social order. The narrative tells us what the characters actually do and this provides the meaning for the audience. Wright showed, for example, that the classic Western could be reduced to a set of shared narrative functions. However, the meaning of these functions and the binary oppositions only comes from locating them within a wider social structure. Thus, he demonstrated how the classic Western reproduced and legitimated the individualism of the market economy. Similarly, the development of the professional plot reflected the emergence of the planned corporate economy.

Wright's analysis was not just a process of showing how specific functions or binary oppositions could be seen to reflect particular aspects of shifts in the nature of capitalism. The deconstructed story was related dialectically to the social totality through the notion of narrative sequence. Narrative sequences explain a change in social relationships in the myth and ensures that the narrative 'makes sense' to the reader who recognise their own situation. It is through the narrative sequence, which resolves social dilemmas, that Wright was able to link the deconstructed myth to the social totality.

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Notes

[2] To illustrate this, Saussure points to the analogy of a train timetable. The 8.10 from Paris is a relational concept. It is defined not in a positive sense but negatively through its relations to other trains and within the framework of a network of trains presented in abstract terms in the timetable. Nobody expects the 8.10 to comprise the same set of carriages each day, and it does not cease to be the 8.10 even if it leaves the station late every day. Identity, in short, is a function of the difference between units in a system. return

[3] Denotation as a noun means that which is marked or signified. As a verb, to denote means to specify, signify or point out. Connotation as a noun means that which is implied. As a verb, to connote means to imply or to betoken. The two terms are used in philosophy as follows. Denotation to refer to particulars while connotation is an abstract (dictionary) definition. Denotation in literature is in effect the generalised meaning of a word. For example, ‘pig’ denotes ‘a domesticated animal grown for its meat’. This is contrasted with connotation where ‘pig’ might connote ‘pigginess’ and applied to chauvinist males or law enforcers. The difference between the philosophical and literary meanings can be shown by another example. The term ‘rose’ denotes (in the philosophical sense) all the existing roses while the connotation (in the dictionary sense) would be the abstract definition ‘flowering shrub with thorns’. Connotation in literature relates to implied properties of a denoted object. Connotation is thus sometimes referred to as a second-order construct. This means that whereas a symbol might ‘denote’ an object (as the symbol ‘rose’ denotes a flower on a thorny stem) the same symbol may connote something further (the connotation of ‘rose’ may be ‘love’). return

[4] This is represented in a schematic diagram by Barthes (see pdf) return

[5] This fits in with Saussure’s idea of the relational nature of language with which Jakobson concurred. return

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