The work of representation – Stuart Hall
1. Representation, meaning and language
Representation connects meaning and language to culture. Representaiton means using language to
say something menaingful about, or to present, the world meaningfully, to other people.
Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged
between members of a culture. It does involve the use of language, of signs and images which stand
for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process.
Three different accounts or theories to explore how the concept of representation connect meaning
and language to culture
1. Reflective – does language simply reflect a meaning which already exists out there in the
world of objects, people and events?
2. Intentional – does language express only what the speaker or writer or painter wants to say,
his or her personally intended meaning?
3. Constructionist – is meaning constructed through language?
The semiotic appraoch
Discursive approach
1.1 Making meaning, representing things
Representation= the production of meaning through language.
- To present something is to describe or depict it, to call it up in the mind by description nor
portrayal or imagination; to place a likeness of it before us in our mind or in the senses.
- To represent also means to symbolize, stand for, to be a specimen of or to substitute for
Representation is the production of 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,
people or events, or indeed ot imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events.
There are two systems of representation
1. The system by which all sorts of objects, people and events are correlated with a set of concepts
or mental representations which we carry around in our heads.
- Without them, we could not interpret the world meaningfully at all.
- Also form concepts of rather obscure and abstract things, which we can’t in any simple way see,
feel or touch – war, death, friendship, love.
- Different ways of organizing, clustering, arranging and classifying concepts, and of establishing
complex relations between them. Similarity and differences.
- We are able to communicate because we share broadly the same conceptual maps and thus
make sense of or interpret the world in roughly similar ways.
2. Language (to exchange and represent meanings and concepts)
- Our shared conceptual map must be translated into a common language, so that we can
correlate our concepts and ideas with certain written words, spoken sounds or visual images
(signs).
- Signs are organized into languages and it is the existence of common languages which enable us
to translate our thoughts (concepts) into words, sounds or images, and then to use these,
operating as a language, to express meanings and communicate thoughts to other people.
, - Any sound, word, image or object which functions as a sign, and is organized with other signs
into a system which is capable of carrying and expressing meaning is, from this point of view, a
language.
The first enables us to give meaning to the world by constructing a set of corresponences or a chain
of equivalences between things – people, objects, events, abstract ideas etc. – and our system of
concepts, our conceptual maps.
The second depends on constructing a set of correspondences between our conceptual map and a
set of signs, arranged or organized into various languages which stand for or represent those
concepts.
The relation between things, concepts and signs lies at th eheart of the production of meaning in
language. The process which links these three elements together is what we call representation.
1.2 Language and representation
Just as people who belong to the same culture must share a broadly similar conceptual map, so they
must also share the same way of interpreting the signs of a language, for only this way can meanings
be effectively exchanged between people.
We need to remind ourselves that a drawn of painted or digital version of a sheep is not exactly like a
‘real’ sheep.
Visual signs and images, even when they bear a close resemblance to the things to which they refer,
are still signs: they carry meaning and thus have to be interpreted. As the relationship between the
sign and its referent becomes less clear-cut, the meaning begins to slip and slide away from us into
uncertainty.
There are different kinds of signs:
- Iconic signs – visual
- Indexical sign – written or spoken signs
1.3 Sharing the codes
The meaning is not in the object or person or thing, nor it is in the word. It is we who fix the meaning
so firmly that, after a while, it comes to seem natural and inevitable. The meaning is constructed by
the system of representation. It is constructed and fixed by the code, which sets up the correlation
between our conceptual system and our language system in such a way that, every time we think of
a tree, the code tells us to use the English word tree. The code tells us that, in our culture – that is, in
our conceptual and language codes – the condept tree is represented by the letters T, R, E, E,
arranged in a certain sequence.
One way of thinking about culture, then, is in terms of these shared conceptual maps, shared
language systems and the codes which govern the relationships of translation between them. Codes
fix the relationships between concepts and signs. They stabilize meaning within different languages
and cultures. They tell us which language to use to convey which idea. Codes tells us which concepts
are being referred to when we hear or read which signs. Codes make it possible for us to speak and
to hear intelligibly, and establish the transability between our concepts and our languages which
enables meaning to pass from speaker to hearer and be effectively communicated within a culture.
Children learn the system and conventions of representation, the codes of their language and
culture, which equip them with cultural ‘know-how’, enabling them to function as culturally
competent subjects. Not because such knowledge is imprinted in their genes, but because they learn
