Representation – the production of

meaning through language

By: Alfred Marleku
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.

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).

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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.

We can not have language without constructing it. If there is no language, there is no
meaning, because things don’t mean anything by themselves. For example, the large plant
that grows in nature, in English, is defined as TREE. It is not possible that real trees know
that they are trees. They also can’t know that word in English, which represent the concept of
them, written as TREE, whereas in French it is written ARBRE (Hall 2003, p.21), or in
Albanian as PEMË. Furthermore, even Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) explored this arbitrary nature
of the linguistic sign. He suggested separateness between an object and the name used to
signify that object; he argues that any name given to something is the right one, and if you
change that and give another, the new name is as correct as the old
one (Plato in Ryder 2004). Therefore, meaning is not in the object or person or thing, nor is it
in the world. It is we who fix the meaning so firmly that (Hall 2003, p.21). Through this
process we create, as Stuart Hall calls, ‘maps of meaning’ (2003, p.29), a set of codes that are
essential for meaning and representation (Hall 2003, p.29). It is obvious that these sorts of
signs, symbols – these codes - do not exist in nature. This is result of social convention,
which enables us to create/construct the representational process – the usage of language to
produce meaning.

This way of thinking is also supported by Bal Chandra Luitel. Luitel argues that
constructionist approach and representation are carried out by what he calls ‘social
constructionist orientation of knowledge’ (Luitel 2002), in which social interchange has
major role in constructing and representing of knowledge. Explicitly speaking, the

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constructionist approach and representation of meaning is achieved through social
interdependence which is context - dependent and serves public function.

WHY DO SUCH THEORIES MATTER IN RELATION TO

COMMUNICATION?
The importance of such theories in relation to communication is great. It is, of course, not
very hard talk just about what the constructionist approach is, or what representation means.
We need more subtle understanding of the process – the impact these theories have in
communication and media. In order to explain this important relation, we will focus on
structural semiotics - more precisely, in Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes works.

Semiotics is the study of everything that can be used for communication: words, images,
traffic signs, flowers, music, medical symptoms, and many more. Martin Ryder in his
essay ‘Semiotics: Language and Culture’, defines semiotics as a branch of communication
theory that investigates sign systems and the modes of representation use by humans to
convey feelings, thoughts, ideas, and ideologies (Ryder 2004). In other way the well-known
Italian linguist Umberto Eco in his book, A Theory of Semiotics, jokingly suggests that
“semiotics is a discipline for studying everything that can be used to lie”, because
if “something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth;
it cannot, in fact, be used to tell at all” (Eco in Ryder 2004).

The Basic Concepts of Semiotics According to Saussure

One of the greatest authors in modern semiotic theory is Swiss-French linguist Ferdinand
de Saussure (1857-1913). He is considered as ‘father of the modern
linguistics’ (Hall 2003, p.30). Saussure sought to explain how all elements of a language are
taken as components of a larger system of language at use. (Ryder 2004). This work led him
to a formal discipline called semiology.

For Saussure (according to Jonathan Culler quoted in Stuart Hall’s book), the production of
meaning depends on language (Culler in Hall 2003, p.31). Hall explains that language is a
system of signs; sounds, images, written words, paintings, photographs etc., which function

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as sign within a language only when we serve to express or communicate ideas (2003, p.31).
Only through this process of communicating ideas they can be part of a conventional
system (Hall 2003, p.31). Therefore, communication process - defined as process of
increasing communality or shearing between participants on the basis of sending and
receiving ‘messages’ (McQuail 2005, p.551) - is the basic idea of the existence of language.

Saussure analyzed ‘dyadic’ or two-part model of the sign. He defines a sign as being
composed by a signifier – the form which sign takes - and the signified – the idea or the
concept it represent (Hall 2003, p.31). Saussure argued that any sign must have both a
signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely
formless signified (Saussure in Chandell 2002, pp.18-20). It is important to notice that,
according to Saussure, the sign is completely arbitrary (Hall 2003, p.31), i.e. there was no
necessary connection between the sign and its meaning.

Saussure draws a distinction between language (langue) and the activity of speaking
(parole). He argues that Langue is the rules of sign system (which might be grammar) and
Parole is the articulation of signs (speech, writing...) (Fuller & Waugh 1999, p.96). In order
to communicate our ideas, we need to know the rules and conventions but langue itself is not
enough to create meaning. For instance; Chomsky’s famous phrase ‘Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously’ is grammatically correct but meaningless (Fuller & Waugh 1999, p.96-98).
Therefore, without studying the language and its grammar (langue), we may only understand
the surface of the production (parole). In this context, language is a connection between
thought and sound, and a means for thought to be expressed as sound. Spoken language
includes the communication of concepts by means of sound-images from the speaker to the
listener. Language is a product of the speaker’s communication of signs to
the listener (Fuller & Waugh 1999, p.102).

Saussure always emphasized that structure, rules and codes, is the social part of language, the
part that could be studied with the law – like precision of a science because of its closed,
limited nature (Hall 2003, p.33). It is his strong concern for structure of language that made
people to call Saussure and his model of language, structuralism.

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Roland Barthes: Denotation – Connotation and Myths
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) is probably the most significant semiologist to assume the
mantle of Saussure. Barthes's most influential work is Mythologies, which keeps influencing
on critical theory even today. He was concerned even with relationship between sings and
their meanings - denotation and connotation.

The distinction between denotation and connotation is the guiding idea of Barthes'
semiotic theory. Most signs have at least one normal, "common sense" meaning. This
meaning, called the sign's denotation, is shared among many people and is the most widely
used meaning of the sign (Hall 2003, p.38). But, signs also may have many different
"subjective" meanings that arise from each individual's personal experiences. These are
called the connotations of the sign (Culler 2002, pp.20-28).

Roland Barthes defined semiotics and myth in a different way. He explored from Greek
myths to legends also how signs represent value system or ideology in a particular society
and make these values seem natural (Culler 2002, p.25). An example will clarify Barthes’s
point. A flower with a red pedals, green leaves and a thorny stem signifies the mental concept
of rose in denotative level. However, if it is used in the context of Valentine's Day, it
signifies romance, creating a connotation (Culler 2002, p.26.).

Adopted from Roland Barthes, Mythologies

1. Signifier 2. Signified

.
3. Sign . Denotative Level
Picture of ROSE
Language I SIGNIFIER II (1st level of signification)
SIGNIFIED
Connotative level
MYTH III SIGN ROMANCE
(2nd level of signification)

Barthes saw "myths" all around him: media, fashion, art, photography, architecture, and
especially literature. According to him, myths are signs that carrying larger
cultural meanings. He describes myth as a well-formed, sophisticated system of

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communication that serves the ideological aims of a dominant class (Ryder 2004). Barthes
observes that the myth is more understandable and more confident than the story that it
supplants, because the myth introduces self-evident truths that in conformity with the
dominant historical and cultural position (Ryder 2004).

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CONCLUSION
To conclude, the representational system, defined here as production of meaning through
language, is very important in day life. In order to enable this process – representation – we
must create our own system of signs and symbols, our language.

There exist three theories of representation, reflective, intentional and constructionist one.
The most inflective theory in cultural studies, in recent years, is constructionist one.
The basic idea of this theory is that meaning is socially constructed. Thinks don’t have
meaning in themselves. We are those attaching meaning to them. The relation between
constructionist theory and representation is recursive. They operate through one depended
process, one cannot exist without other. Language is constructed by symbols and signs, but it
is language that enables us to construct meaning. These theories are very useful in relation
with communication. This impact is more obvious when we work through
structuralist semiotics. Semiotics, in fact, is everything that can be used for communication;
like words, images, music, medical symptoms etc. There are two authors that have had great
impact in structuralist semiotics, Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes. Saussure
emphasize that the production of meaning depends in language. Therefore, the basic idea of
the existence of language is creation of meaning for things. This creation of meaning enables
us to share with others our ideas our feelings and concepts - to communicate with others. In
other way Barthes is mostly concerned with myths. He defines myths as signs that carry with
them larger cultural meanings; as sophisticated systems of communication that serves the
ideological aims of a dominant class.

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REFERENCES

Chandler, D. 2002, Semiotics: The Basics, Rutledge, London.

Culler, J. 2002, Barthes: A Very Short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Fowler, R. 1991, Language and the News: Language and the Ideology in the Press,
Rutledge, London.

Fuller, D & Waugh, P. (eds.) 1999, The Arts and Sciences of Criticism, Oxford University
Press, Oxford.

Hall, S. 2003, Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices,

Sage Publications/The Open University, London.

Luitel, B.C. 2002, Representation: Revisited, SMEC, Curtin University of Technology

http://au.geocities.com/bcluitel/Representation-revisited

McQuail, D. 2005, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, Sage Publications, London.

Ryder, M. 2002, Semiotics: Language and Culture,

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~semotics_este.htm