Introductory models and basic concepts: meaning

Berlo on Meaning

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No two people can have exactly the same meaning for anything

Many of our communication problems arise from the mistaken assumption that my message means the same to you as it does to me.

Example

In my house we have a filing cabinet with a front that rolls down. It came from Germany, where such a cabinet is known as a 'Rollschrank'. As I don't know the English term, I have always called it 'the Rollschrank' and so have my kids. Because it stands in the hall, it tends to be a fairly important item because that's where we put messages for one another, mail that arrives, things we need to remember to take out with us and so on. One day, my son came home from school and announced "My teacher doesn't even know what a Rollschrank is. I told him I'd put my homework on the Rollschrank so I wouldn't forget it and he said 'On the what?"'

That's a pretty extreme example, of course, but everyday misunderstandings are frequently no different from that in principle. We tend to assume that everybody understands signs the same way we do. Hence the 'I told them so' fallacy. You told them what you meant, but they inevitably understood what they meant. If meanings are not in messages, but arise only at the encounter of the reader with the text, then communication is an inherently unstable and unpredictable business.

Related articles:

Interpersonal Communication: Language

Introduction to semiotics

Semantic differential

Ang on meaning

Baudrillard

Fish on anti-formalism

Fish on interpretive communities