Almond pre-class post, Saussure & Barthes

The redenishion or interpretation of Saussure's theory about language by Easthope and McGowan reminded me of first the line from Romeo and Juliet "what is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet". And at the same time of a late night infomercial, telling you to wait because after the amazing offer there is still more! The concept of thought and sound both which are chaos when combined create language thought of as signified (idea or thought) and signifier (sound). Both parts are negative and or only positive when used together.  Words are a decent approximation of this combination and represent language. Going on to make sure that language and words are dependent on differences to have value. Thus, value and meaning in different languages are not universal because they are constructed under different contexts. Perhaps this entitles or enslaves language to structure as defined by culture and time. I say culture because one person by himself does not have culture, this being hypothetical, it is only in groups that people develop culture and also need language.  This might be wildly off kilter but seems to be the basics of the theory. 

Barthes, seems to like to string together ideas like a slinky going down stairs of an M.C. Esher painting. To my understanding he is trying to say that people have different points of view and different ways of enjoying or knot enjoying text. This may be due to the fact that although the reader is passive, the reader is also in complete control of what he reads, how he reads, and at what pace. The word bliss appears quite a bit, but perhaps bliss is both synonymous with understanding and personal agenda. Moving forward both of these theorists have put a lot more thought into language and text than I have and I hope that I am able to follow their minds through their logic.