Meaning
What is meaning?
• Tough question
– Perceived relations and substance of
experience
– Signification/Representation
– Conveyed understanding (usually through
communication)
In essence, we want to make sense of
the world, to understand it
• But how do we do that?
• First, think of small children
– How do they act? What do they do to learn about
their environment?
• As they grow, what changes? How do they
continue to try to make sense of their world?
So what happens to grown people?
• When faced with a new idea, message,
experience, etc. how does an adult try to
make sense of it?
• We must first evaluate the new information
based on our stored memories. Only through
comparison to other concepts, beliefs, etc. can
we begin to make sense of our new
experience.
Stored memories
• Memories are stored systematically, with
certain concepts, memories, ideas, etc.
connected to each other
• When we are exposed to new content, we
activate memories that are somehow related
to the new content
– We also tend to activate memories that are stored
in ways that indicate a relationship to the
concepts we recognize in the new information
A schematic view
Hit by car
Bowser
Bite
Dog
Schnauzer
Furry
Each person’s ‘schema’ is unique
• Because we all have a different set of
experiences, people we know, etc. we also
have a unique set of associations for whatever
new content we experience
• As a result, we will also generate unique
‘meaning’ when we relate our existing
memories to new content
http://www.upstreamgallery.nl/david-haines/
Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”
• http://www.mtv.com/videos/ladygaga/455472/bad-romance.jhtml
• http://www.planetperplex.com/en/ambiguou
s_images.html
Activation
• In addition to individual variation, the same
content will activate different parts of the
schema at different times or when embedded
in different context
Varied reactions to identical content
• Some will find content they see to be funny
while others exposed to the same content will
take a different set of meanings from it and
may see it as tragic, distasteful, etc.
But wait a minute:
• If we all took completely unique meaning from
the same content, we couldn’t communicate with
each other
– There would be no way to convey meaning from one
person to another at all
• So, a crucial part of socialization is to learn the
dominant meanings conveyed through the varied
forms of communication
– Especially, we must learn the language and what the
arbitrary symbols it uses are meant to represent
Learning the socially agreed-upon
meanings
• Children learn language at a very early age
through copying those around them
• Sign language comes before oral language comes
before written
– Increasingly conceptual in nature
• Visual language—an understanding of the
conventions of television and film, for instance,
develops gradually so that by age 6 most children
understand how narratives are put together, the
difference between commercials and ‘content,’
etc.
Sign systems
• Sign systems are means by which ideas can be
represented without the necessity of the
object of the idea being present
• Abstract v. iconic
– They are necessary for conceptual thinking
– Education, exposure to language, popular culture
all increase the exposure to and mastery of sign
systems
– Movement toward a ‘visual culture’ may have an
effect on the conceptual capabilities of humans