The word "Rose" (the sound/ink) is the signifier . The concept of a flower is the signified .
In his landmark 1975 book, , Jonathan Culler argues that reading literature is a lot like speaking a language. You don't just naturally "know" how to interpret a poem; you have mastered a hidden system of rules that makes that interpretation possible. 1. The Blueprint: Linguistics as the Model Structuralist poetics : structuralism, linguist...
Why do you know that a "dark and stormy night" in a novel suggests something bad is coming, but the same sentence in a weather report is just a fact? The word "Rose" (the sound/ink) is the signifier