A sailor can read the clothing worn by women as a semiotic text: a nun's long black dress and crucifix signals one meaning ('hello sailor' means greeting), while a woman in red satin hot pants and see-through blouse signals prostitute and 'hi sailor' means sexual proposition, demonstrating that people are constantly doing semiotic analysis through reading the first-order meaning of signs

factualpending

Speaker

Unidentified Speaker — Barthes, Semiotics and the Revolt Against Structuralism [_RLhq0jsnbM]

Evidence Quote

a sailor gets off a ship comes into port two women come up and say hi sailor one of them is wearing a long black dress and has a crucifix around her neck and she's a nun... another woman comes out she's dressed in red satin hot pants right and a see-through blast says hi sailor now clearly that person is a prostitute not a nun and clearly high sailor means something very different in that semiotic system

Source

Barthes, Semiotics and the Revolt Against StructuralismMichael Sugrue
Created: 8/11/2026, 1:42:29 AM

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