Mythologies

Mythologies

In Roland Barthes book Mythologies, he argues that no language use can be separated from structures of ideology and power. In the section "Myth Today” Barthes emphasizes the ideas of Ferdinand Saussure a French linguistic. such as with his concept of the linguistic sign that consists of a signifier (the vehicle for the meaning) and the signified (the meaning being conveyed).

In Barthes' application of this notion to the objects and practices of everyday life, he takes the analysis a step further and invests a further layer of meaning in each sign - the mythological meaning or cultural subtext that underlies the primary linguistic meaning. He names the language system that myth appropriates the "language-object", while myth itself is termed the "metalanguage", i.e. that language which is used to structure and manipulate everyday language. On the level of everyday language, the signifier is the "meaning" but on the level of myth, it becomes the "form". The signified remains the "concept" in both cases. That which is the "sign" on the first level, however, is equated to "signification" at the level of myth. For example, he deconstructs a photograph of a black man saluting the French flag on the cover of Paris-Match and explores the layers of meaning this image conveys, with the physical image on the paper serving as the original signifier and the signified being the literal reading of patriotism in terms of a loyal citizen saluting the flag, while the deeper or "mythological" meaning of the entire sign becomes a reinforcement of French imperialism by implying that France's non-White "citizens" in colonial territories were content and fulfilled in their role relative to the Empire. Myth being a "second order semiological system", the sign in the first system, which in this case is "the purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness" embodied in the figure of the black citizen saluting the flag, becomes a signifier in the second system that represents a bourgeoisie ideological glorification of Empire.

There are three potential ways to relate to myth, according to Barthes, as a producer, reader or decipherer of mythological speech. The task of the mythologist is to delve beneath several layers of meaning to uncover the ideological structure at the base, exposing the deceptive innocence of mythical speech as a sham. This process restores a sense of "history" and political relevance to naturalized images such as the "Negro-giving-the-salute" in the example above: "As the concept of French imperiality, here it is again tied to the totality of the world: to the general History of France, to its colonial adventures, to its present