{"id":628,"date":"2012-12-07T20:48:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T20:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/katherine-stephenson\/?page_id=628"},"modified":"2014-09-17T17:43:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T17:43:22","slug":"week-6","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/katherine-stephenson-mals\/week-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 6"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are broadly speaking three approaches to explaining how representation of meaning through language works.\u00a0 We may call these the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist or constructivist approaches.\u00a0 You might think of each as an attempt to answer the questions, ‘where do meanings come from?’ and ‘how can we tell the “true” meaning of a word or image?’<\/p>\n

In the reflective approach, meaning is thought to lie in the object, person, idea or event in the real world, and language functions like a mirror, to reflect the true meaning as it already exists in the world….<\/p>\n

The second approach to meaning in representation argues the opposite case.\u00a0 It holds that it is the speaker, the author, who imposes his or her unique meaning on the world through language.\u00a0 Words mean what the author intends they should mean.\u00a0 This is the intentional approach….<\/p>\n

The third approach recognizes the public, social character of language.\u00a0 It acknowledges that neither things in themselves nor the individual users of language can fix meaning in language.\u00a0 Things don’t mean: we construct meaning, using representation systems–concepts and signs.\u00a0 Hence it is called the constructivist or constructionist approach to meaning in language.\u00a0 According to this approach, we must not confuse the material world, where things and people exist, and the symbolic practices and processes through which representation, meaning and language operate.
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\n—Stuart Hall,\u00a0Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Required Readings<\/h3>\n