Connotation is second-order signification: the process by which a denotative sign becomes the signifier for a further, culturally determined signified.
The concept was formalized by Louis Hjelmslev and made central to cultural critique by Roland Barthes. In Hjelmslev’s framework, a connotative semiotic is one whose expression plane is itself a semiotic system — that is, a sign system built on top of another sign system. The first-order sign (denotation) provides the material for a second-order sign whose signified is cultural, ideological, or affective.
Barthes used this framework to analyze how culture naturalizes its values. In Mythologies (1957), he showed that myth is a connotative system: it takes a first-order sign (a photograph, a news report, a sporting event) and drains it of its particular, historical content to fill it with a new, naturalized meaning. The Black soldier saluting the French flag does not simply denote that scene — at the connotative level, it signifies “French imperialism is just and universal.” The operation of myth is to transform history into nature, contingency into necessity [@barthes_Mythologies_1957].
The mechanism
The connotative chain works as follows:
- First order (denotation): a signifier (a sound, image, or mark) is linked to a signified (a concept) to produce a sign.
- Second order (connotation): that first-order sign now functions as a signifier in a new system, linked to a new signified — a cultural value, an ideological position, an emotional register.
This layering can continue: a connotative sign can itself become the signifier for a third-order meaning, and so on. The effect is that meaning accumulates in layers, each layer appearing more “natural” than the last because it is built on the apparent transparency of the lower levels [@barthes_ElementsSemiology_1964].
Related terms
- denotation — first-order signification on which connotation is built
- signifier — the form of a sign
- signified — the concept evoked by a signifier
- sign — the entity that participates in both denotative and connotative systems
- French Semiology — the school that made denotation/connotation central to cultural analysis
Source: Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Éditions du Seuil, 1957. Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Hill and Wang, 1968 [1964]. Hjelmslev, Louis. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. University of Wisconsin Press, 1961 [1943]. See also Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2007.