civ eng

in the study of culture the concept of representation has ocupied , a new and
important place.

representation conects meaning and language to culture

1 definition of the term is the following: " Representation means useing

language to say something meaningfull about the world ore to represent the
world meaningfully to other people"

Representation is a esential part of the proces by wich is produced and

exchanged between members of a culture representation involves the use of
language , sings ,images, which stan for things.

How does the concept of representation connect meaning and language to

culture?

We talk about the reflective aproach to rep. the intentional aproach and the
constructionist aproach.

Does language simply reflect a meaning which allready exists out there in the
world of objects people and events?

This is the reflective aproach.

Does language express only what the speaker ore writer wants to say , his
ore her personally intended meaning?

This is the intentional aproach.

Is meaning constructed in and through language?

This is the constructionist aproach.

How does representation work?

Representation is the production of meaning through language .

But there is a concept in our heads that says "desk" "chair" "blackboard".We
make sence of the world of people , objects ,events becouse we give
meanings to things through language.

When we think we think with the concept "desk" , "chair" "blackboard".

The linguists are fond of saying " dogs bark" but the concept of "dog" cannot
"bark " ore "bite"

You cant speak with the actual book , you can speak whit the word for BOOK
the linguistic sign.

Representation is the production of the meaning of the concept in our minds

through language ore with the help of language, so there is a close link
between concepts and language , but they are not one and the same.This link
enables us to refer to eighter the real world of objects, people ore events
ore refer to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people & events.

There are two sistems of representations: 1st: there is the sistem by which
all sorts of objects people and events are corelated with a set of concepts
ore mental representations which we carry around in our heads. In the 1st
place meaning depends on the sistem of concepts and images formed in our
thoughts which " represent the world" , we can also form concepts about
things we ahve never seen becouse they are abstract notions , such as
friendship , love death , war and so on. So we have a sistem of
representations, it consits of diferent ways of organizeing arangeing and
classifying concepts, and of establishing complex relations between them , in
our minds a conceptual map. each of us may have a diferent way of
arangeing concepts .

the conceptual map which i carry around in my head may be diferent then
yours in which case you and I would interpret ore make sence of the world in
totally diferent ways.

Each of us probably understands and interprets the world in a individual

way, how ever we are able to comunicate beouse we share boardly the same
conceptual maps and thus we make sence ore interpret the world in fairly
similar ways , so we can build up a culture of shared meanings and thus
construct a social world.

The term language has been used in a broad way. Visual images are
languages too, ore other things that are not "linguistic".

Ex: the language of fashion , of trafic noise , these are languages.

Even music is a "language " types of music types of languages with complex
relations between diferent sounds .Any sound , word , image ore object which
functions as a sing and is organised with other sings in a sistem which
espresses meaning is from this point of view of language.

so at the heart of the proces of meaning in culture , there are 2 related

sistems of representation.

The first enables us to give meaning to thw rold by constructing a set of

corespondences of people objects events and our sistem of concepts, our
conceptual maps.

the second sistem depdens on constructing a set of corespondences between

our conceptual map and a set of sings aranged ore organised in to various
languages which stand for ore represent those concepts.

The realtion between concepts and sings lays at the heart of the production
of meaning in language .

The process that links thse elements together is what we call

representation.A important element of comunication is the code, the sistem
of representation is constructed and fixed by the code which sets up the
corelation between our conceptual sistem and our language sistem.

On way of thinking about culture is in terms of these shared conceptual maps

, shared language sistems ,and the codes which guvern the relations between
them. Codes make posible for us to speak and hear inteligibly. The codes are
sitems of convention. One can not exist in social life without conventions,
when people learn the conventions they become gradually " cultured
persons" meaning members of their culture.

People unconciously internalize the codes which allow them to express

certain concepts and ideas through their sistems of representation.