This document provides an overview of a university course on critical literacy and interaction. It discusses several key topics: - The relationship between identity, communication, and how we negotiate our identities through communication with others. - The role of language and meaning-making in shaping our understanding of self and reality. Meaning is negotiated through social interactions and messages that help form our identities. - An introduction to semiology, the study of signs and meanings. It explains concepts like the signifier, signified, and how we make meaning through a shared system of symbols and signs. - Five basic principles of semiology, including that meaning depends on context and is relational between concepts. We engage in meaning-

1. Critical Literacy & InteractionUNIT 2: Spinning webs of meaning, language and social realityUniversity of Aruba, Faculty of Arts & ScienceGeneral Education: SW&D / OGMAugust 26, 2010Lecturer: Nadia Dresscher

2. Program:Back to unit 1: Assignment about identity and communication, some notes on the interplay between identity and communicationWe will take a look on the meaning-making process and the role language plays in this process

3. What is the relationship between communication and identity?Please reflect on the interplay between the shaping of identities and communication. How does your own identity relate to communication? Can you describe how ‘you are’ in communication? How do you relate to others when communicating and what does this says about your identity??3

4. Negotiation of identitiesThe ‘self’ (self-identity) is based on innumerable messages about the ‘self’ that the individual gets from the world.Relationships and the input (messages) they give us about ourselves, helps form (shape and re-shape) our identities. This is a continuous processInterpersonal communication plays an important role in the negotiation of identitiesBut also the groups we want to belong to , we belong to or don’t belong to shapes our identities (social identity)4

5. The ‘self’ In negotiation with others5

6. Our identity…Identity is changeable, constant in a process of shaping and re-shapingIdentities are observable; we communicate it in differ forms (our cloths, language we use, our behavior, communication is behaviorIdentities are a product of their time (Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice characters vs. Facebook generation)We look for acknowledgements (bevestiging) in our communication with others.Our ‘self’ is reflected through the mirror that others put in front of us6

7. So far:Communication is a dynamic processWe make sense of ourselves and the world we live in by negotiating meaning, interpretation and identities through messagesSender and receiver interactions are based on coding and decoding of messages. Messages are composed of codes/signsStepping into ‘the signs’ zone…signes7

8. Mind, Language, Communication, MeaningThe study of language provides a window into the workings of the mind, and bears on issues of how the mind represents meaning, how we interpret and understand the worldMindLanguageCommunicationMeaning

9. The Meaning of MeaningCommunication is a social process:To capture and study the intangible process of communication [negotiation of meaning] we will start by focusing on how meaning is being created at the level of languageWhereLanguage plays a fundamental role in creating and sustaining realitieHow?We will focus on the meaning making process through the social semiological approach

10. Spinning, weaving, flow of meaningDialogueGreek: dia and logos:The flow of meaningCommunication is a process, dynamic, symbolic, contextual, cultural, omnipresent, intentional-unintentional, interactive-transactive.

11. Functions of Language (Jackobson, 1960):11 The constant engagement with meaning relies on the assumption that people do not produce texts at random and without any purpose but have specific intentions to communicate and certain goals to achieve. Language is capable of realizing numerous functions:Referential function: conveying informationEmotive function: expressing inner statesPhatic function: establishing or maintaining a channel of communication (‘Ta hasicalor awe’)

12. Functions of Language (Jackobson, 1960):12Poetic function: when the choice of the form is the essence of our messageMetalinguistic function: when the language talks about itself (e.g. The word ‘computer’ means…)Directive function: seeking to affect the behavior of the addressee (e.g. ‘Come back’)Contextual function: framing communication as a particular kind (e.g. ‘Let’s start our discussion by…’)In additional to these functions, there are numerous others such as: requesting, offering, apologizing, pleading, complimenting, advising, warning etc. “WE DO THINGS WITH LANGUAGE. LANGUAGE IS (SOCIAL) ACTION”

13. The structure of Human Language (1)13= a systematic set of sounds, combined with a set of rules, for the sole purpose creating meaning and communicating. These sounds are representing symbolically in the language’s alphabet, this is called phonemes. There is no natural relationship between sounds and their accompanying alphabet (e.g. there is no natural relationship between the letter ‘c’ and the sound ‘see’)When combined, phonemes become words (=morphemes). (There is also no natural relationship between the word cat and the fuzzy little animal)

14. The structure of Human Language (2)14All languages have a set of rules for combining the sounds to create meaning. This set of rules is called syntax or grammarThrough syntax, sentences are generated. Through syntax, sound and meaning are connected.Okay, but let’s get to the core of the language business: it is a system of signs

15. Signs!

16. Meaning-making processNegogiation of meaning

17. Meaning-making is at the core of our humanness We have to constantly negotiate what it means to be humans, to be women, men, sisters, brothers, professionals, Christians, friends, lovers

18. A tribute to the legendary linguist: Ferdinand de SaussureHuman beings communicate through the use of symbolsFounding father of SEMIOLOGY = the science of signs and meanings

19. he dedicated most of his life in discovering the underlying system upon which the process of meaning making is based

20. Other contributers to semiology are Pierce, Levi-Strauss, Barthes and Kristeva

21. Underlying philosophy: there is an essential difference between the psychical world and the social world. The key to approaching this difference is focus upon the human meaning -making processIntroduction to semiology: the study of signs and meanings (in Saussure’s terms):We zoom in the relationship between a sign and its meaningWe need the following components: Sign, Signifier and signified:

22. The Sign consists of a signifier and the signified:The sign consists of :a signifier (refers to the material aspect) & a signified (the mental aspect)

23. What is a tree? (sign)signifiersignified

24. An Aruban Treekwihi

25. 2 different level of meaning combined into 1 The material level (signifier)level of denotation: literal meaningThe mental level (signified)connotation: interpretative levelThe sign represents the combination of the two

26. We can relate this to Ogdon and Richard’s Semantic Triangle:(thought) Warm, cuddly, loyal friend(symbol) word: “Dog”(thing) DOG

27. 5 basic principles of semiology (1)We make meaning through our shared use of symbols –including language as a symbolic sign system (conventionality)What symbols mean is not inevitable. Rather it is based on our socio-political and cultural agreement there is no fixed relationship between the signifier and the signified. Although they always work together (there cannot be one without the other) the actual bond between them is arbitrary* (*there is no natural relationship between them like thunder, lighting and rain)

28. 5 basic principles of semiology (2)3. Meaning is inseparable of contextNueliep’s (2009) contextual model of communication can help us capture the communication process in the layers of context

29. :it is in the middle of these waves of contexts that we negotiate meaning

30. Words pass through context to context, this constantly changes their meaning

31. Context is key to meaningA contextual approach to communication (Neuliep,2009)

33. 5 basic principles of semiology (3)4. Meaning is relational we make sense of things (objects, words, actions) in relation to other things binary opposites (opposition)Derrida’s concept of différance (if the signifier means this, it doesn’t mean that)E.g. beautiful is not ugly, evil is the opposite of good A dog is not a cat(categorizing process)