Question for Lit. Crit. types, especially on the Theory Side of Things...

[steepholm]

Does anyone today use Barthes' five 'codes' (hermeneutic, proairetic, semantic, symbolic and cultural) except in the context of teaching Barthes' ideas?

I mean, I see (for example) Bakhtin's concepts and terminology being used all the time, but I can't remember the last time I saw an essay that drew on those codes because the writer thought they were the most helpful way of understanding a text. But perhaps I'm just living in a non-Barthesian bubble?

Comments

[lilliburlero]

We seem to have inherited a not very functional way of distributing marking from the department we merged with, and it often results in us marking essays for modules to which we've only contributed tutorials. I got a couple of references to the Barthesian codes in one batch, but I'm not sure whether they represent lecture content or an enterprising student having discovered Barthes independently and shared with a friend. They were a bit...garbled.

[steepholm]

Well, I suppose that does suggest that the codes are still in circulation, even if on the far side of a department-dividing wall.