Blog Post 4

I had difficult time trying to understand. I think Richard’s article is one of the more difficult articles I have read so far. The first part of the article I understood. Richards mentions the Doctrine of Usage and how we should ignore that. Richards wants us to believe that words cannot be judged on how good or bad they are. He then goes on to say that words are here just to possess.

In the second section, Richards discusses symbolism. He says that symbols organize, and communicate. Richards then says that it is our thoughts that are responsible for organizing, recording, and communicating. Words mean nothing by themselves and cannot stand alone. Meaning can be given to the words when a thinker takes the words and makes them stand for something, or gives them meaning. This section was a little confusing. I was able to understand most of the section but once I read past the Diagram I got a little lost. The diagram helped me a little but I still had trouble understanding Referent. Richards talks about delegated efficiency, which is, that it applies to the to the “meaning of words, whose virtue is to be substitutes exerting the powers of what is not there.” Delegated efficiency can also be called context.

Context is essentially a remix. This is seen when the media takes something that is said and puts it out of context. This is a remix because there is a different spin put on what has been said. A new meaning is given to what has been said but its original state has been kept.  Context can have a big effect of a piece of writing.