Roland Barthes was a 20th century French philosopher born in 1915 in Cherbourg, France. He studied semiotics, structuralism, and post-structuralism at the Sorbonne, where he was plagued by tuberculosis from 1935-1939. Barthes expanded on Ferdinand de Saussure's theories of signs and meaning, believing that meanings are constructed through language and cultural systems rather than inherent in the objects themselves. He made important contributions to understanding how signs and myths operate in society.

1. Roland Barthes was born
November 12th 1915 in
Cherbourg. He was a 20th century
philosopher and studied
semiotics, structuralism and
post-structuralism. His main
interests were semiotics, literary
theory and linguistics.
During the period 1935-1939 he was plagued by ill health, suffering
from tuberculosis whilst studying at Sorbonne.

2. Roland believes in Ferdinand De Saussure's
theories, creating the idea of how signs work,
but Bathes takes the theory further.
 He believed that all signs weren‟t natural, but
structured instead, he said “ people don‟t start
off with thoughts or perceptions of objects
which they then express into language, the
categories of language determine how people
divide objects into categories.”
 Furthermore all signs depend on the entire
system of signs, none of them have meaning
aside from the system.
 Barthes does not mechanically apply Saussure's
theory, he largely replaces his term „arbitrary‟
with motivated.


3.  Roland
was very important, this is because
he gave us a new way to express the
language of signs.
 He
went on to write a book about
mythologies saying some signifiers have
mythical status, where a sign has developed
some sort of meaning that is no way backed
up in history or truth….

4. A knight in
shining armour…
What do you
think when
you see this?

5. (1968) - Elements of Semiology
 (1972) - Mythologies
 (1977) - Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
(In this so-called autobiography, Barthes
interrogates himself as a text.)
 (1983) - Empire of Signs
 (1986) - The Rustle of Language
 (1988) - Roland Barthes
 (1994) - The Semiotic Challenge
