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

        The object key concept of this lesson is the ability to recognize and define signs (visually and audibly) when analyzing media products for denotative and connotative meanings. Denotation is the primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. A great example is It was too hard. (The object was too firm). Connotation is an idea that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning. For example, blue is a color, but it also is a word used to describe a feeling of sadness, as in. She's feeling blue. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes believed signs had both signifiers, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified or meaning that is interpreted.

       In class our teacher assigned us a table, we were given images and we were assigned to select three images given to  analyze This was a group assignment. I worked with one student. The images we selected were a rose, cat, and car. We found the denotative and connotative meaning of three. I learned in this lesson  semiotics study is to ensure the intended meanings are unambiguously understood by the person on the receiving end. Semiotics also reduce non-numerical data to their parts without losing essential meanings.