CMST 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Polysemy

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: CMST 1A03
• Professor: Christine Quail

Document Summary

Representation the act of puing ideas into words, visuals, audio, or an other medium of communicaion simpliies and interprets the object or event being described. receiver must decode or interpret the communicaion to understand the idea. Note : we will be using the word text to refer to any medium. Signiicaion(saussure)(how does an image or text signify something) The model sign :- anything with meaning (word, image, sound) signiier the thing we see, hear , feel signiied :- the idea/concept: signifier +signified = sign. Language constructs reality arbitrary relaionship between a word and sign language structured through diference. Polysemy : having many meanings (texts are polysemic open to interpretaions) Intertexuality : the meaning we make of one text depends on the meanings we have drawn from other signs we already know texts meaning are made intertextually and by combining muliple signs. No necessary correspondence between meanings the sender made, and the meaning the receiver made.