Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Grace Nelson Blog Post 4


The whole section on “The Meaning of Meaning” confused me.  I think the point that Richards was trying to make was that all a symbol is, is a reference to something else therefore when using symbols, you are not being original. I think that he was also trying to say is that symbols can only be interpreted by intellectuals who understand the language as it has been set up by the author. If I understood this excerpt correctly, then it relates to our discussion of Remix by claiming that when we use symbols we are not being unique because using a symbol is just referencing a preexisting thing in a new way.


I think that the section on context was trying to get at our word choice and how the context of our piece will dictate the words we choose to use. This contradicts the first passage stating that there are not “correct” or “incorrect” words as long as your audience is able to interpret them in a way that makes sense. The context section kind of suggested (unless I am completely not understanding these sections at all, which I think might be the case) that your words should almost be predictable to where if one was omitted, you could still understand what was going on because the reader is familiar with the context in which you are writing. This goes along with our discussion of Remix because we if everything has to be based off of something else (because nothing is truly original), then the reader would be able to understand the remix by knowing the works that have come before it. Since the new remix is rooted in previous texts, then we can still understand the new by understanding the old. In other words, the context has not changed (if we consider the context the original backbone of the remix) only the fine details and arrangement has changed.

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