Semiotics, as it based on structuralism, is considered by some critics that it is incapable for
accounting in the role of society, history and politics. Eagleton45 argued that both structuralism
and semiotics ‘contain the seeds of a social and historical theory of meaning, but they were not,
on the whole, able to sprout’. For Eagleton, semiotic approach is only a synchronic study, but not
a diachronic one.46 This makes the semiotics being not a suitable account of history and
historical change. Barthes47 noted that the semiotic research must not only eliminate diachronic
elements, but also must keep as close as possible to the synchronic sets. Barthes48 argued later
that connotation or ‘myth’ offers a ‘natural justification’ to history and hides it as an eternal truth.
Semiotics, however, offers a method to understand cultural texts including architecture. The
method aims to provide convincing reading of cultural texts, and to draw various conclusions from
them by looking at the texts themselves rather than the ways in which people actually consume
these texts. Thus, the method of semiotics may be employed together with other methods, such
as interviewing and ethnography, in order to refer to either the intentions of the ‘author’ or the
interpretation of the ‘readers’.