Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
1-1-2003
Abstract
This paper offers a non-representational alternative to semiotic notions of meaning as the designatum of signs, the content of messages, or what a text is about. It derives from considerations of how things — artifacts and objects of nature — could mean something to somebody. Rather than treating things as signs of themselves and thereby undermining the two-world ontology of semiotics, it explores the cultural roles that artifacts acquire in the lives of their users and when questions of their meanings arise and how they are answered in conversation. The paper presents a dialogical conception of meaning, which relies on Bateson’s recognition of the importance of multiple descriptions, Wittgenstein’s "seeing as", theories of embodied narratives, and bricolages involving technology.
Date Posted: 31 January 2008
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Reprinted in The American Journal of Semiotics, Volume 19, 1-4 (2003, pages 17-34.
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