Roland Barthes - Mythologies

As a semiologist, Roland Barthes studies the structure of language as a symbol and how it operates. His major contribution to semiology and literary criticism is his theory of the "myth." Far from our standard understanding of myth as an ancient story or recurring elements of a story, Barthes uses the term to identify a semiological structure. The term builds on the idea of a "sign" expounded by Ferdinand de Saussure in his "Course in General Linguistics." Essentially what Barthes did was explain how something with a meaning and an identity all its own can be used in a way that gives that same thing an entirely different and independent meaning and identity.

As a semiological structure, the Saussurian sign is made up of the combination of a "signifier" and a "signified" (as well as a lot of spitty s's) and can be diagramed in this way:

With regards to language, the sign can be used to describe a word. For instance, "Tree." The sound made when we pronounce "Tree" functions as the signifier. Likewise, the text "Tree" on a page functions as a signifier. Even a picture might function as a signifier, but more on that later. Our understanding of tree functions as the signified. A sign is the simultaneous occurrence of the signifier and the signified. A sign occurs when we say "Tree," either to ourselves and/or someone else.

Barthes expanded Saussure's sign in Mythologies (1957), a collection of short journalistic entries on topics ranging from films to magazines to cars and children's toys, collectively la culture de masse. Mythologies also contains the theoretical essay "Myth Today" which introduces the idea of mythological signification. To put it one (perhaps needlessly confusing) way, any system of signfication which uses the sign in the way described above is a semiological system in the first order. Barthes development of Saussurian linguistics proceeds by claiming that myth is a second order semiological system, since it appropriates an already full sign as a signifier for a second form or signification, which is mythological signification. Barthes graphically represents myth in the following way:
In keeping with the Tree example above the image Scootro posted of that magnificent redwood can function as a sign all by itself.  There's the image which can function as the signifier:

In that case, the signified is a particular redwood tree. It's the tree that Scooter and Alysse stood by some time ago. According to some, the redwood stands in "the most beautiful place in the continental us." When we see the image posted up on the walls of The Shanty, the image and our understanding of the image occur simultaneously; Scott's picture functions as a sign, full of meaning and identity. A semiological system in the first order.

When I responded to Scott's post, I attempted to impart mythological signification on Scott's tree. Years ago, Scott introduced some of us to Brightblack Morning Light. Shortly after, I think Gumthum said it best:

It's just perfect. Exactly the kind of band you'd expect from Scott. Honestly, I don't know where he finds these guys. I'm not saying they're bad or anything. I really like 'em. But you can just imagine them, can't you? A bunch of hippies sitting around in the woods by a tree or something getting all stoned and just chanting music.

Yea, I could imagine that. 

And it stuck. Forever, when I think of Brightblack Morning Light I think of the misty woods and hippies chanting religiously. Same thing happened when I saw Scott's tree. By framing Scott's tree next to the music of BBML, I attempted to add a second layer of signification. I attempted to take the sign which was Scott's tree and make it a signifier for all that imagery surrounding mine and Gumthum's understanding surrounding BBML. Stoned hippies. Religious chanting. A transcendent mist surrounding everything. And ancient looking trees in a forest.

Barthes uses the following example to explain the same concept. Please keep in mind the context, the date, the place and whatnot when reading:

And here is now another example: I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris- Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. 

All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any color discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so- called oppressors. I am therefore again faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is a presence of the signified through the signifier.

So that is how one thing, with a meaning and an identity all its own can be used in a way that gives that same thing an entirely different and independent meaning and identity. Whether it's a Tree or a young saluting soldier. 

Or a Hitler Youth slogan. 

Or a song.

In this regard, it may be important to conclude with the following note from "Myth Today":

What is characteristic of myth? To transform a meaning into form. In other words, myth is always a language-robbery. I rob the Negro who is saluting, the white and brown chalet, the seasonal fall in fruit prices, not to make them into examples or symbols, but to naturalize through them the Empire, my taste for Basque things, the Government. Are all primary languages a prey for myth? Is there no meaning which can resist this capture with which form threatens it? In fact, nothing can be safe from myth, myth can develop its second-order schema from any meaning and, as we saw, start from the very lack of meaning.