Preliminary Exercise 1: Barthes’ Theory of Denotative and Connotative Signs Semiotic Analysis Table

              In the Exercise 1 the key concept of the lesson was for students to be able to recognize and define signs when analyzing media products for Denotative and connotative meanings. Another element we defined and learned about was semiotics. Semiotics is the study of signs and their meanings and the interpretation of messages in a text. Furthermore, in Exercise 1 we learned about someone named Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes was a French literacy theorist, and his theory stated that there are more than one way to read a code and that a text has multiple meanings. Barthes analyzed the process and studied the relationship between denotation and connotation. Also, according to his theory anything in culture can be a sign and send a specific message. An example of his theory would be, when people look at red roses, they think that it signifies romance and love. This came from a Roman and Greek mythology and the red rose closely tied to the goddess of love. Some key terms that we learned during this lesson was signs, denotations, connotations. Signs are the smallest units of meaning and the most basic element of communication. A denotation is the literal/primary/original meaning of a sign while, connotations communicate the meaning based on the context.

        The objective of the exercise was semiotics and analyzing them based on Barthes' theory of denotative and connotative signs.  The process of the task started with me choosing the images I was going to use. I then outlined my poster and did some research on the denotations and the connotations of my images. I filled out my poster and then added color to the poster to make it easier to read and understand. I was the student to complete this task. In this exercise I learned that every thing has a denotative and connotative meaning. I also learned that every thing has 2 meanings and can represent a lot of things.