On The Concept Of Roland Barthes Language

Roland Barthes is an important personage in the literary criticism history of western. His theory crosses over structuralism, Semiology and post-structuralism, having exerted an enormous influence to the contemporary critical theories of the west, especially France. Recently, in the region of literary criticism in china, Barthes's name has not disappeared with decline of the structuralism, Just the opposite, the frequency of being quoted is higher and higher, the translation of his works has reached a climax too. But special research will be needed on some aspects, such as Barthes's view on language. The language is undoubtedly the theme that Roland Barthes thoughts all his life. It is also the base that we study his theory and writing. This text attempts to carry on deep discussion to it from five parts:1 -, The survey. Recommend the current situation both at home and abroad. Studying current situation synthetically, this text studies and settles especially on the base of theory, key concept, and foothold.2, language and symbol. Semiology is the foundation of Barthes's thought. Barthes still combines thinking of Semiology with linguistics, proposes a theory that Semiology is a branch of linguistics. In practice, Barthes uses the Semiology method to analyze mythical language, the political language, written clothing language, etc. In last" Camera Lucida ", the shade of Semiology still exists. Analyze three respects especially. (1) Semiology is a branch of linguistics. This is a theory influenced and against Saussure. It embodied the hope of setting-up system in Barthes's whole life. (2) Double frames of signification. This is a concept that Barthes obtained from the Hjelmslev then. They are Denotation and Connotation. (3) Symbol and meaning. Barthes's contribution lay in having emphasized the ambiguity of the language. " S/Z" is the best embodiment of this thought.3 , language and ideology. Ideology is an important problem in Barthes's language view and whole thought. In Barthes's view, through intransitive writing, language breaks away from ideology to freedom. Besides, the language, especiallylanguage structure, is a material cover of ideology. It is a existence of a kind of violence quality. I will put forth effort to describe from three respects : (1) The ideology quality of literature. In the early years, Barthes has already realized the ideology quality of literature. In" Writing Degree Zero ", after analyzing the writing of capitalist class, he propose the famous concepts of" writing degree zero ". In front of strong ideology, on one hand, without the least hesitation Barthes criticizes it; on the other hand, he avoids it. In fact, the contradiction quality is exactly a part of Barthes's. (2) How to break away from ideology to freedom. Barthes hopes the action of writing can break away from ideology .For this reason Barthes create a series of concepts such as " transitive writing" and" intransitive writing", " works" and" text", etc. To a certain extent, rigid quality of these concepts is contrary to Barthes's original intention of setting up them. (3) The violence attribute of language itself. Barthes finds the violence qualities of language soon. He pointed out that real fascism wouldn't prevent speaking but forces people to speak. The language always serves power. Then Barthes can only depend on" new theory" and " drift".4s language and literature. Unlike Sartre and Wittgenstein, the field that Barthes thinks is literature mainly, so it is important to study his view of language on literature. Barthes's view of literary language is: Literature should become Utopia of the language. I will expound the fact from three respects : (1) Linguistics turns . Barthes's whole academic careers shroud under the background of linguistics turns. And because of its concerning on language, it becomes an important sounds in the tide of linguistics turns. (2) Literature should become Utopia of the language. This is Barthes's most basic view between language and literature. Almost all the writings of Barthes are produc...