NP Re: Semiotics (why a text can just be anything you want it to be)

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 18/12/2005 Sean Mannion wrote:

> if we can say that the intentions of the sign and the shape of a 
> sign's meaning are recognised by an actor/reader (even if it is just 
> to simply ignore them), then the original point that an encoder cannot 
> enforce any significant control over what a decoder does with a 
> sign-vehicle is wrong

Actually, this is quite wrong. The "No Smoking" sign isn't solely 
descriptive. It's imperative. The author's intention was that the sign 
would stop smokers from smoking in a vicinity (and, concomitantly, 
advertise to non-smokers that the venue is smoke-free, augment the 
directives of staff, comply with government regulations, validate 
subsequent legal action against transgressors etc), not just that 
people would read and understand the words. Ultimately, however, the 
author (interesting to think about who is the actual "author" of the 
sign here also) of the sign has no *control* over how a particular 
reader responds -- whether he or she lights up or not, tells others to 
put out their cigarettes, reports them to a staff member, whether he or 
she leaves the venue, writes to the authority responsible for the rule, 
or whether he or she defaces or rips the sign down, or how a staff 
member or law enforcement officer responds to the sign in a specific 
context (i.e what the individual reader *does* with the sign). Meaning 
can't be so conveniently divorced from purpose.

Quite apart from that, spurious recourse to signs and recipes as 
examples in no way validates a Theory of authorial privilege in the 
construction of literary meaning.

best