Article Review: “Representation, Meaning and Language”

The concept of representation holds an important role in the study of modern culture. It's important to examine what this concept means with regard to culture itself and how it transmits ideas and meaning through its artifacts and interactions. It is therefore very important to also understand that the concept of representation is fundamental to comprehending exactly how meaning is produced and exchanged between people within their own culture.

The article discusses how it is important to draw distinctions between three different accounts or theories when examining the nature of representation. These theories are reflective, intentional and constructionist approaches to representation. It is the constructionist approach that has the most pertinent and relevant application to our modern culture today and is the primary focus of this discussion. The definition of representation includes words like describe or depict but also phrases such as "symbolize" and "stands for" as part of its definition as well. As best described in the article "representation is the production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between concepts and language which enables us to refer to either the real world of objects or to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events (p.17)." There are therefore two kinds of representation - mental representations and systems of representation. How people construct meaning depends on the concepts and images they carry in their thoughts that represent the world both inside and outside of their minds.

A system of representation is dependent upon principles of similarity and difference to establish relationships that correlate concepts or distinguish them from each other. It's the relationships between ideas and thoughts that then become arranged into different sub-systems of classifications. Referencing these representations is what permits a person to identify and construct relationships and then assign meaning to their world. Within a culture people share much of the same conceptual maps about general experiences so that many of the same experiences make sense between individuals within the masses. However beyond any one individual culture the idea of representations change from one to the next based on unique versions of that culture's conceptual mapping system. Any conceptual map must then be translated into the cultures language and is made up of words, sounds and images. Each of these elements conveys meaning in its role as a sign. Signs are organized into languages communicated via written, spoken or visual mediums.

Conceptual maps permit a culture to give meaning to the world by establishing equivalences between people, objects, events, abstract ideas, etc. Because of these conceptual agreements it is possible and necessary to construct relationships between a conceptual map and a set of signs present to better understand culture and its messages. Again, as best as stated by the article "one way of thinking about culture then is in terms of shared conceptual maps, shared language systems and the codes which govern the relationships of translation between them (p.29)."

From a constructionist point of view the production of “cultural meanings” is made through language with regards to representation of signs organized into languages of different times and places. Languages are constructed with signs that symbolize, stand for and reference objects, people and events in both the real and imaginary world. And it is language that allows the person to experience and assemble meaning rather then simply absorbing something as though it were shown in the mirror.

In 1857 the Swiss linguist Saussure analyzed the concept of a "sign", breaking it into a combination of elements. First there is the form and then the idea or concept in your head with which the form is associated. The first element is the signifier and the second element is the signified or concept triggered in one's mind. Critical to understand while keeping this definition in mind is that "the sign is totally subject to history and the combination of the particular moment of a given signifier and signified is a contingent result of the historical process (p.32)." For that reason the importance of recognizing that signs are the drivers of cultural meaning underscores that they are never fixed and are always subject to change from one cultural context and from one time to another. So it is quite logical to appreciate that representations are in this way subject to constant production of new meanings and new interpretations. These are very interesting ways of identifying how to understand the very nature of “cultural meanings” as they represent civilization as a whole through the ages.