Language theories

Question 1

Barthes- Semiotics

Answer 1

• Texts communicates meaning through a process of signification
• Signs fuction at the level of denotation which involves the literal meaning and the level of connotation which involves the meaning associated with the sign
• Constructed meanings can come to seem self-evident, achieveing the status of myth through the process of naturalisation

Question 2

Todorov- Narratology

Answer 2

• All narratives share a basic structure that invloves the movement from one state of equilibrium to another
• These states of equilibrium are separated by a period of disequilibrium
• The way in which narratives are resolved can have have particular idealogical significance

Question 3

Steve Neale- Genre theory

Answer 3

• Genres are dominated by repetition but are also marked by variation and change
• Genres change, develop and vary, as they borrow from and overlap with one another
• Genres exist within specific economic, institutional and industrial contexts

Question 4

Levi-Strauss- Structuralism

Answer 4

• Texts can be best understood through an examination of their underlying structure
• Meaning is dependent upon pairs of oppositions
• The way in which these binary oppositions are resloved can have particular idealogical significance

Question 5

Jean Baudrillard- Postmodernism

Answer 5

• Boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the media have collapsed and it is no longer possible to distinguish between the two
• In a postmodern age of simulacra we are immersed in a world of images that no longer refer to anything ‘real’
• Media images have come to seem more ‘real’ than the reality they represent, creating a hyperreality