Page 80 - Decoding Culture

E N TER STRUCTURALISM 73

narrative into a distinct topic of study in itself, Barthes and the
French narratologists did a considerable service to the youthful
enterprise of cultural studies.
However, Barthes' early approach to narrative was not the cen­
tral innovation of his semiological work, nor the locus of his major
influence. That honour should perhaps be accorded to his addition
of the denotative/connotative distinction to the standard armoury
of structuralist concepts. Barthes was not the originator of that
distinction - he develops it from Hjelmslev, surely the biggest influ­
ence on his semiology after Saussure - but it is a constant
undercurrent in his earliest essays. It is this distinction which he
formalizes as the fourth organizing principle of Elements o f
Semiology, adding it to the Saussurian trio of langue/parole, signi­
fier/signified and syntagmatic/associative, and it is this distinction,
therefore, that we must examine if we are to understand Barthes'
theoretical and methodological impact on early cultural studies.
What, then, is at the root of his insistence on distinguishing
between denotation and connotation?
We can begin to see what is at issue by looking at his discussion
(Barthes, 1977c) of the 'photographic paradox', the fact that, at
first sight at least, the photographic image appears semiologically
misbegotten - 'a message without a code'. Generally, he suggests,
the photographic image is viewed not as a transformation of its
object through coded signification, but as standing in an analogical
relation to it. In other apparently analogical forms (Barthes
includes paintings, drawings, theatre and cinema) there is a second
level of meaning generated by the way in which the representation
is treated (its 'style') which, in the context of a particular culture,
itself carries a message. Such forms as these, then, 'comprise two
messages: a denoted message, which is the analogon itself, and a
connoted message, which is the manner in which the society to a
certain extent communicates what it thinks of it' (ibid: 17). The

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