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Semiotics Essay The Swiss linguist ‘Saussure developed the original formal theory of the hidden, absent elements of language’ (Lemert: 1993: 22) Saussure deluded that the relationship between an object we see and the language or word we associate with that object are arbitrary, the concept of signs was therefore created. Taking a banal example of a chair, the physical chair (signified), Saussure argued has no actual link to the word chair (signifier) that we connect it with but together they create a sign that is culturally recognized. ‘Both terms in the linguist sign are psychological and are united in the brain by an associative bond’ (Bally & Sechehaye cited in ibid: 160).This brings us to the study of semiotics. Roland Barthes takes the notion further by applying that idea of denotation to the sign (signified + signifier = sign), and from the denotation looks at the connotations that we culturally relate to it. This essay will use a close analysis of a perfume advertisement (still image) to look at the denotations and connotations in order to find out the ‘myth’, as Fiske, reflecting on Barthes, explains ‘A myth is a story by which culture explains or understands some aspect of reality or nature’. The an