De Saussure, Barthes-Structuralism (pre-class blog)

Semiology is simply the study of signs. However, to study signs there are many details and concept of how signs works in society.  There are two importance people in filed of Semiology. They are Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes. Saussure says that " A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology. Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them." He claims that in general linguistics, " Philosophers and linguists have always agreed in recognizing that without the help of signs we would be unable to make a clear-cut, consistent distinction between two ideas. Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula. There are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language." (pg.5) The language and signs are closely related in terms of delivering message in our society. They always have been worked together as a partner. However, Saussure say that "But there is the paradox: on the one hand the concept seems to be the counterpart of the sound-image, and on the other hand the sign itself is in turn the counterpart of other signs of language. Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others." (pg.7) In my opinion, language itself is have some difficulties and limitations to communicate and delivering messages in todays society. Signs plays significant role in terms of giving life to the text and language. With out signs people would have hard time understanding the message though just by language itself. Here is some example for famous or well known signs of "Semiology. "

There are so many signs that are used in our society.

Signs are much easier and faster to recognize and understand. For example; without all the signs on the road, people would have hard time understanding laws, if it was all written by words. Signs play important role in our society.