Human beings created a world of messages and meanings and continue to create new ones to look for the meaning of life. In order to communicate with each other and leave their stories for the new generation, humans have been using the power of images and symbols since the beginning of the human history. It is this greatest purpose – communication – that makes human beings to construct their system of signs and symbols – their language – to make the world meaningful. This essay is an attempt to deal, in general, with question of representation – the production of meaning through language. In first part of the essay we define, shortly, three theories of representation, with the main focus on the constructionist theory. In the second part we will show how the constructionist approach has to do with representation, the relationship between them. And, in third part we will explain the importance that these theories have in relation with communication. We will focus our attention on structuralist semiotics – in Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes works.
CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION
2. WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIONISM?
3. WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH REPRESENTATION?
4. WHY DO SUCH THEORIES MATTER IN RELATION TO COMMUNICATION?
4.1 The Basic Concepts of Semiotics According to Saussure
4.2 Roland Barthes: Denotation – Connotation and Myths
5. CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. INTRODUCTION
Human beings created a world of messages and meanings and continue to create new ones to look for the meaning of life. In order to communicate with each other and leave their stories for the new generation, humans have been using the power of images and symbols since the beginning of the human history. It is this greatest purpose – communication – that makes human beings to construct their system of signs and symbols – their language – to make the world meaningful.
This essay is an attempt to deal, in general, with question of representation – the production of meaning through language. In first part of the essay we define, shortly, three theories of representation, with the main focus on the constructionist theory. In the second part we will show how the constructionist approach has to do with representation, the relationship between them. And, in third part we will explain the importance that these theories have in relation with communication. We will focus our attention on structuralist semiotics – in Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes works.
Keywords: Semitics, constructionist, structuralist, denotation, connotation
2. WHAT IS CONSTRUCTIONISM?
There exists a system of signs between human beings and the world they experience. Signs acquire meaning through being structured into codes. The principal being code is language (Fowler 1991, p.3). In language we use signs and symbols - whether they are sounds, written words, electronically produced images, musical notes, even objects – to stand for or represent to other people our concepts, ideas and feelings (Hall 2003, p.1).
Language operates as a representational system. According to Stuart Hall, representation is the process by which members of a culture use language (broadly defined as any signifying system deploying signs) to produce meaning (2003, p.61). According to this view, meaning is thought to be constructed. Thus, this is a matter of invention/creation: there is no meaning that we simply can ‘find’ somewhere. We have to construct it, to produce it.
We will briefly look at a number of different theories about how language is used to represent the world. A distinction between three different approaches or theories will be drawn in this regard: reflective, intentional and constructionist one.
Reflective theory of representation claims that language reflects true meaning, the same as it exists in the world. Languages simply reflect meaning which already exists out there in the world of objects, peoples and events (Hall 2003, p.15). The intentional theory of representation pretends that words mean what the author intends them to mean. Language expresses only what the speaker or writer or painter wants to say, his/her personally intended meaning (Hall 2003, p.15). As we can see, intentional theory is in fact the opposite of the reflective approach. According to the constructive theory of representation, neither things in themselves nor the individual users of language can fix meaning to the language. Instead, meanings are contextual: the particular symbolic fixes a meaning at a particular time (Hall 2003, p.15). In other words, meaning is constructed in and through language.
After these three deferent theories of representation are briefly explained, we will try to explain furthermore the constructionist approach, because of significant impact it has had in cultural studies in recent years. As Stuart Hall argued, constructionist approach, assumes neither things themselves nor the individual users of language can fix meaning to the language (2003, p.25). Thinks don’t mean. We are those to construct meaning, using representational systems: concepts and signs (Hall 2003, p.25). He argued that it is not the material world which conveys meaning; it is the language system or whatever system we are using to represent our concepts. Social actors employing conceptual, linguistic and other representational systems construct meaning to make the world meaningful and to communicate the others that world meaningfully (Hall 2003, p.25).
3. WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH REPRESENTATION?
Relationship between constructionist theory and representation - as production of meaning through language - is recursive: one cannot exist without the other. As we mention above, language is defined as set of signs, symbols – be those sounds, words or whatever else – through which we represent other people our concepts, thoughts or feelings. So, language is a representation system involving a process of constructing meaning, making things meaningful (Hall 2003, p.18). At this point, it is obvious that, in one hand, language is constructed by symbols and signs and in the other hand, it is language that enables us to construct meaning.
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- MSc. Alfred Marleku (Autor), 2005, Representation: the production of meaning through language, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/198860
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