Denotation and Connotation

1. Denotation and
Connotation
by Louise Douse
Week
6
Analysing
Performance

2. So where were we…?
Week 6
Analysing Performance

3. The Sign
Week 6
Analysing Performance
Signifier
Signified
CAT

4. Charles Peirce
 Expanded on the definition of a sign – three different
and distinct relationships between the signifier and
signified.
 ICONIC SIGN: Signifier represents or resembles the signified
 INDEXICAL SIGN: Signifier has a causal relationship to the
signified
 SYMBOLIC SIGN: Signifier has a conventional/arbitrary
relationship to the signified
Week 6
Analysing Performance

5. Cultural Codes
the type of relationship between the
signifier and signified (that constitute the sign)
 can change
 can be multiple
Week 6
Analysing Performance

6. Roland Barthes
Week 6
Analysing Performance
 Another theorist who developed on both Saussure and Peirce’s
ideas
 Roland Barthes, French theorist (1915-1980)
 Father of Semiotics

7. Terms, terms and more terms…
CulturalTheory/Movements
Modernism Postmodernism
LiteraryTheory
Structuralism Post-structuralism
Semiotics
Week 6
Analysing Performance

8. Semiotics
In his book Mythologies (1957) Roland Barthes:
 Applied Structuralist ideas beyond language to
other cultural communication forms
 Provided a political agenda for semiotics
Week 6
Analysing Performance

9. What’s the big idea?
 He identified a
paradox within
Saussure’s
formulation of
the sign
Week 6
Analysing Performance

10. Task
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Analysing Performance
= red rose-ness
… and what other meaning?

11. Polysemic sign
Poly = many
Polysemic = Many
signs / many
meanings
Week 6
Analysing Performance
Signifier: Picture
of rose
Signified: Red
rose-ness
Signifier: Red-
rose-ness
Signified:
Romance

12. Semiotics
The process and construction of Myth:
First Order Signification: Denotive
Second Order Signification: Connotive
Second order signification is Myth making
Week 6
Analysing Performance

13. FIRST ORDER
SIGNIFICATION
Denotation
“red rose-ness”
SECOND ORDER
SIGNIFICATION
Connotation
“romance”
Week 6
Analysing Performance

14. Semiotics
For Barthes then:
1. The sign is polysemic
2. Myth, second order signification is political and therefore
ideological
“I resented seeing Nature and History confused at every turn,
and I wanted to track down, in the decorative display of what-
goes-without-saying, the ideological abuse which, in my view,
is hidden there”
Week 6
Analysing Performance

15. Another idea…
Roland Barthes identified two
types of second order
signification:
Connotational Conjunction:
when sign systems work
together to generate a
mythologically dominant
meaning
Connotational Disjunction:
when sign systems work in
opposition to generate a
critical meaning
Week 6
Analysing Performance

16. The Nexus of the Four Strands
Performer Movement
Sound Space
Week 6
Analysing Performance

17. Integrated
Hammers home
the idea
https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v
=GbpP3Sxp-1U
Week 6
Analysing Performance

18. Co-existing
No intention to
connect elements
https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v
=gGHvnRtr3TI
Week 6
Analysing Performance

19. Juxtaposed
Ideas merge, but
some guess work
needed
https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v
=NoWKWeYY8o8
Week 6
Analysing Performance

20. Postmodernism
 INTERTEXTUALITY – the meaning of cultural texts produced by the reader as mosaics or pieces
of other pre-existing cultural texts
 PASTICHE - a light-hearted or tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style, a composition made
up of bits of other works or styles
 PARODY -work that imitates another work in order to critically comment on the work itself or the
subject of the work.
 IRONY - a gap or incongruity between what a performer or author says/communicates, and what
is generally understood
 JUXTAPOSITION - an act or instance of placing two things close together or side by side. This is
often done in order to highlight contrast and incongruity
 FRAGMENTATION - conscious highlighting of the discontinuous, disparate elements of the
structure
 NON-LINEARITY -events portrayed in a non-chronological manner.
Week 6
Analysing Performance

21. Week 6
Analysing Performance
“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
Everything on the
stage is a sign
1. Describe the signifiers.
What do you perceive
(performer, movement
sound space)
2. What is the signified
concept/ (denotive)
meaning?
3. How do the signs produce
their meaning?What is the
relationship between the
signifier and signified?
Indexical, iconic, symbolic?
“This dream has got me all shook up, treat me nice and tell me
what it means”

22. Everything on the
stage is a sign
4. What are the
associated/connotational
meanings?
5. Do the signs work in
conjunction or disjunction
6. Do the sign systems work
in an integrated, co-
existing, or juxtaposed
way?
7. Does the work challenge or
support dominant myths/
cultural codes?
Week 6
Analysing Performance
“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
“This dream has got me all shook up, treat me nice and tell me
what it means”