specific meaning. This process supports the idea of a code in cultural studies. A code “sets up the
correlation between our conceptual system and our language system” (Hall 21). Thus, placing
flowers at random at any place at any time minimizes their meaning. As with oral and written
communication, speakers and writers must internalize the rules (grammar) of language to
communicate the intended meaning to an audience. Speakers and writers do not select language
structure vicariously. They chose words and the manner of their arrangement based on the
specific goals of the speaker or writer. Likewise, it appears as if persons who place nonverbal
forms of discourse to express sorrow display similar kinds of knowledge about the location and
manner of placing objects.
In addition to Saussure’s analysis of the signifier and the signifier, Roland Barthes has
contributed to the topic of semiotics from the perspective of opposition and representation.
Opposition theory claims that meaning is the result of conceptualizing things in different ways.
The often cited example is that night has meaning when opposed to day. Representation is the
view that any text or spectacle stands for something that is not immediately stated in the text. It
is our social codes that we carry around in our heads that contribute to meaning (Danesi 24).
Adding to the analysis of communication in nonverbal form is Suzanne Langer’s idea of
symbols. A symbol, in Langer’s analysis, brings to mind (6). For example, an expensive home in
an upper-class neighborhood is a symbol in that it brings to mind the owners’ socioeconomic
status. How do we obtain meaning from these modes of expression? One theoretical approach to
this question is that advanced by Hall (24). According to Hall, representation is the production of
meaning through language. Language, as stated above, uses signs to refer to objects, to people,
and to events in the real world. However, as Hall furthers points out, language does not function
like a mirror in that it directly reflects meaning. Rather, meaning is produced within a signifying
process. Objects at tragic sites, in this case, function as signs provided that they have been
assigned a concept and meaning within our cultural and linguistic codes (28). Signs in this
analysis cover a range of possible language devices (e.g., clothing, facial expressions, gestures
music and words). In using various signs at memorial sites, nonverbal in this case, individuals do
so with the idea that onlookers share the same concepts associated with the signs.
Audience as a Factor
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