He described text as " a galaxy of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable.. the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..."
- Text is like a tangled ball of thread
- the thread needs to be unraveled
- when unraveled it can have many different meanings
- Different people unravel it in different ways meaning everyone will interpret it differently
He said texts are either open or closed
He found that texts use five codes
- The Hermeneutic code (HER) - (The voice of the truth), it is the way a story avoids telling the truth or revealing all the facts, in order to drop clues in throughout to create mystery.
- The Enigma/ Proairetic code (ACT)- (empirical voice), The way tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what is going to happen next.
- The Symbolic code (SYM) - (the voice of symbols), similar to semantic, but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic elements into broader and deeper sets of meaning. This is typically done with the use of antithesis, where new meaning arises out of opposing and conflict interests.
- The Cultural code (REF) - (the voice of science), Looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology.
- The Semantic code (SEM) - (the voice of the person), The semantic code points to any element in the text that suggests a particular, often additional meaning by the way of connotation which the story suggests.
Narratives are open or closed.
Open-can be unravelled in lots of different ways (e.g. sci-fi) - open to interpretation
Closed-only one obvious thread to pull on (action-DieHard)
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