Ibn Zohr University, Faculty of Languages, Arts and Human Sciences-Ait

Melloul- Agadir- Morocco

Introuction to cultural Studies

(S4)

Maryeme Ouchen
2019/2020
 OUTLINE
• What is culture?
• Culture, communication and representation
• The organisation of meaning
• Communication and meaning
• Semiology and semiotics
• Structuralism and the order of meaning
• Hermeneutics and interpretation
• Political economy, ideology and meaning
• Poststructuralism and the patterns of meaning
• Postmodernism and semiotics
• Language, representation, power and inequality
Part I
 Introduction
cultural Studies

In the past many academic subjects – including anthropology, history, literary studies, human geography
and sociology – have brought their own disciplinary concerns to the study of culture. However, in recent
decades there has been a renewed interest in the study of culture that has crossed disciplinary
boundaries. The resulting activity, cultural studies, has emerged as an intriguing and exciting area of
intellectual inquiry that has already shed important new light on the character of human cultures. While
there is little doubt that cultural studies is coming to be widely recognised as an important and
distinctive field of study, it does seem to encompass a potentially enormous area. This is because the
term ‘culture’ has a complex history and range of usages, which have provided a legitimate focus of
inquiry for several academic disciplines
 1.1 What is culture?

The term ‘culture’ has a complex history and diverse range of meanings in contemporary discourse.
Culture is found in your local street, in your own city and country, as well as on the other side of the
world. Small children, teenagers, adults and older people all have their own cultures; but they may
also share a wider culture with others.
Culture is a word that has grown over the centuries to reach its present broad meaning. One of the
founders of cultural studies in Britain, RaymondWilliams .
 Raymond Williams
(1921–88)

Raymond Williams was a Welsh cultural analyst and literary critic. His ‘serious’ attention to
‘ordinary culture’ was a key influence on the development of the idea of cultural studies, of which
he is normally seen as a founding figure. Born into a Welsh working-class family, Williams studied at
Cambridge before serving as a tank commander in the Second World War. He returned to
Cambridge after the war to complete his degree. He taught for the Workers’ Educational
Association during the 1950s, before returning to Cambridge to take up a lectureship in
[Link]’s earliest work addressed questions of textual analysis and drama. His influence was
enhanced and reputation made by two key books: Culture and Society (1958) and The Long
Revolution (1961).
 1.1 What is culture?

Raymond Williams (p. 3), has traced the development of the concept of culture and provided
an influential ordering of its modern uses. Outside the natural sciences, the term ‘culture’ is
chiefly used in three relatively distinct senses to refer to: the arts and artistic activity; the
learned, primarily symbolic features of a particular way of life; and a process of
development.
 1.1 What is culture?

Process and
development
Culture as a
‘way of life

Culture with a big ‘C’

 Culture with a big ‘C

In everyday talk, culture is believed to consist of the ‘works and practices of

intellectual and especially artistic activity’, thus culture is the word that describes
‘music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film’ (Williams, 1983b: 90).
Culture in this sense is widely believed to concern ‘refined’ pursuits in which the
‘cultured’ person engages.
 Culture as a ‘way of life

In the human sciences the word ‘culture’ has achieved wide currency to refer to the
creation and use of symbols (p. 214) which distinguish ‘a particular way of life,
whether of a people, a period or a group, or humanity in general’ (Williams, 1983b:
90). Only humans, it is often argued, are capable of creating and transmitting
culture and we are able to do this because we create and use symbols. Humans
possess a symbolising capacity which is the basis of our cultural being.
 Culture as a ‘way of life
What, then, is a symbol? It is when people agree that some word or drawing or gesture will stand
for either an idea (for example, a person, like a pilot), or an object (a box, for example), or a
feeling (like contempt). When this has been done, then a symbol conveying a shared idea has been
created. These shared ideas are symbolically mediated or expressed. A symbol defines what
something means, although a single symbol may have many meanings. For example, a flag may stand
for a material entity like a country and an abstract value such as patriotism. To study culture is thus
to ask what is the meaning of a style of dress, a code of manners, a place, a language, a norm of
conduct, a system of belief, an architectural style, and so on. Language, both spoken and written, is
obviously a vast repository of symbols. But symbols can take numerous forms: flags, hairstyles, road
signs, smiles,– the list is endless.
 Process and development

The earliest uses of the word ‘culture’ in the late Middle Ages refer to the tending or cultivation of
crops and animals (hence agriculture); a little later the same sense was transferred to describe the
cultivation of people’s minds. This dimension of the word ‘culture’ draws attention to its subsequent
use to describe the development of the individual’s capacities and it has been extended to embrace the
idea that cultivation is itself a general, social and historical process (Williams, 1983b: 90–1). Culture is
symbolic. It gives meaning to things. Language might be the most important example of the symbolic
nature of culture.
 How do people become part of a
culture?
Culture is not something that we simply absorb – it is learned. In anthropology
this process is referred to as acculturation or enculturation. In psychology it is
described as conditioning. Sociologists have tended to use the term
‘socialisation’ to describe the process by which we become social and cultural
beings.
Acculturation is a process through which a person or a group from one culture
comes to adopt the practices and values of another culture, while still retaining
their own distinct culture. This process is most commonly shown in the case of a
minority culture adopting elements of the majority culture (example of immigrant
groups that are culturally or ethnically distinct from the majority in the place
where they have immigrated).
 Conclusion

Given the way that we have discussed culture so far, it might be thought that culture is everything
and everywhere. Indeed, some approaches to the study of culture take such a position, especially, for
instance, those coming at the topic from a more anthropological point of view. Thus, the nineteenth-
century anthropologist Edward Tylor (1871: 1) famously defined culture as ‘that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man [sic] as a member of society’. This definition underlines the pervasiveness of culture
in social life. It also emphasises that culture is a product of humans living together and that it is
learned.
 Practical Task

Group work:

Write a short paragraph in which you give concrete examples of the three
definitions of culture in the Moroccan society and emphasise the importance
of one’s becoming part of a culture
Part II
 2. Culture, Communication and
Representation
✓Communication is the process of making meaning. It is how one individual (or a word, object, sign,
gesture) conveys meaning to another individual – be that meaning intentional or not.
✓The process of communication also involves representation, in that meaning is represented through
objects or actions. For example, certain letters written on a page may spell the word ‘cat’ and those
three small shapes (letters) placed together convey the meaning, and therefore represent, the idea of a
cat.
✓what is significant about the study of communication and representation for cultural studies, is the
suggestion that it is through language and communication that we define and shape our social and
cultural world.
✓It is through language and communication that we make sense of our world, and convey these
meanings to others, through which we develop shared meanings and shared cultures, which shape our
understanding and interpretation of our whole social world.
 2.1 The organisation of meaning

Raymond Williams (p. 3) argues that the patterning of meaning is a crucial

starting point for cultural analysis:
“[I]t is with the discovery of patterns of a characteristic kind that any useful
cultural analysis begins, and it is with the relationships between these
patterns …. that general cultural analysis is concerned”.
(Williams, 1965: 47)
 Patterns of meaning

There are many different ways in which this search for patterns of meaning can
proceed. Meaning can be shaped by:

✓The form of communication used,

✓Communication and meaning,
✓ Structuralism and meaning,
✓Hermeneutics and interpretation,
✓The political economy and ideology,
✓Poststructuralism, and postmodernism.
 A. The form of communication:
Spoken, written and visual texts
✓ A ‘text’ is any cultural item that can be ‘read’ or interpreted. These can be
books, letters or television shows, or can be someone speaking or watching a
live football match.

✓ The nature or form of a text can significantly contribute to the meaning

derived from it. In particular, this can be summed by Marshall McLuhan’s
famous dictum that ‘the medium is the message’. By this, McLuhan (1964) is
suggesting that too often we focus on the content of a message, but overlook its
context, form or the medium through which it is delivered – and it is these which
are crucial in determining what the content (message) is.
 A.1 Spoken Text

Spoken language first developed as sounds made to accompany gestures, which

through use, developed into more elaborate codes (Newsom, 2007: 57). However,
the development of spoken language should not be seen as a natural uncontested
process of evolution. The history of any language is a history of contest, conflict and
struggle.
Evolution
▪ For instance, the ‘English’ language is in origin an Anglo-Frisian (i.e. Germanic)
language first brought to Great Britain in the fifth century. This ‘imported’ language
combined with Celtic dialectics to form ‘old English’, which over the centuries was
adapted and changed, due to successive invasion, such as from (Norse) Vikings
and (Franco) Normans – each imposing, their own languages.
What we have come to view as ‘Standard British English’ developed primarily as a
merchant dialect in England in the Middle Ages. With the continued growth in
importance of merchants, trade and business this dialect was increasingly used in
the development of institutions, such as the law, government and financial
institutions, facilitating the spread of this dialect and its common acceptance
(Schirato and Yell 2000). This then becomes accepted as the ‘correct’ way to speak,
with all other dialects being rejected, and viewed as ‘incorrect’ if not ‘vulgar’
(Schirato and Yell 2000).
 Spoken Language and meaning

✓ Spoken language also has complexities in meanings beyond the actual words
spoken themselves. For instance, the meaning of spoken words can be greatly
influenced by tone, pitch, speed and volume – and this is sometimes referred as
‘paralanguage’ (Schirato and Yell, 2000).

✓ Speech will also often be punctuated by the use of noises or what Goffman
(1981) referred to as ‘response cries’ such as ‘ouch’ (to being hit) or ‘oops’ (to a
minor accident).

✓Speech, and the meanings associated with it, are also frequently accompanied
by non-verbal forms of communication, such as facial expression or gestures,
and these have a very important role in communication and can significantly alter
the meaning of what is being spoken. (Subtle meaning)
✓ Speech, and the meanings highlight how social interaction between people is
shaped by their social status

✓ People’s behaviour and speech patterns may alter if they are talking to someone
perceived to be more or less powerful than themselves.

✓For Goffman social interaction is a social performance similar to acting on a stage,

where people will also carefully consider how they are perceived by others and alter
their behaviour and what they say accordingly and this is referred to as ‘impression
management’.
 A.2 Written Language
✓ Written language first developed as symbolic, usually artistic, representations
(such as cave paintings and later hieroglyphics) of aspects of the world, but did not
relate directly to spoken words.

✓ Writing can be understood as a technology, which allows communication at

distance.

✓ Written language often lacks the same ability to convey the subtle meanings
and variations that can be conveyed through paralanguage.

✓ To convey subtle meanings, written language must rely on emphasis and

punctuation, such as exclamation or question marks, or even emoticons (also
known as ‘smileys’), which are particularly common in Internet chat-
rooms/messaging and emails, and use punctuations to represent faces and
emotions such as :-) (smile) :-( (sad/sulk) ;-) (wink) :-o
 Written Language and meaning
✓ Written language is a form of communication that negates some of the unequal
power relations associated with speech. For instance, it is often easier to tell a
powerful person something in a letter than face-to-face.

✓ However, written words still involve some of the social conventions and role
taking associated with speech. For instance, a letter writer will write in a very
different style if they were writing to their mother, lover or boss.

✓ Written language styles also differ in various forms of document. For instance,
legal, academic or scientific documents, comic books, novels, love letters and
newspapers, may all be written in the same language, but will often use very
different writing styles and techniques – and these will often be shaped by the
ideologies or discourses of both the writer and the conventions associated with
that type of document/publication.
 A.3 Visual text
✓ Communication can also take the form of visual texts, but it is important to
acknowledge here the powerful role of visual representations (such as painting,
photographs and television) as a form of communication.

✓ Visual representations, often give the impression of being neutral and lacking in
the ideology or discourses associated with spoken or written language. However,
visual imagery is just as prone to, and shaped by, ideologies and discourses as
written or spoken texts.

✓ For instance, paintings will be painted to portray particular meanings or feelings,

and will focus on particular subjects (and not others). And this is particularly the
case in the mass media, which is in the business of image ‘creation’ (rather than
presentation). It is important that visual images are seen as a representation and
not presentation, of the world.
Task 1: Analyse the following argument by giving
concrete examples from society

« Meaning can be shaped by the form of the text and type of

comunication used”
Part III
 B-Communication and Meaning
Evolution

Gunther Kress (1988) suggests that the term communication came into popular
usage first in the nineteenth century to refer to physical means of connection, such
as railroads, roads and shipping. However, it was with the development of new
technologies, such as the telegram, the radio and telephone, that the term
‘communication’ became more commonly used to refer to the delivery of
information.
 Communication and Meaning

The process of making meaning, at its simplest, involves an individual speaks a

word, which is heard and interpreted by a second person and this conveys a
meaning to the listener.
Or an individual may wear a t-shirt or a hat, that conveys meaning to an observer;
for example, that the wearer is the supporter of a particular belief, movement– or
the meaning conveyed may be unintentional, such as the receiver of the message
may think that the person in the hat or t-shirt looks silly or unfashionable.
This model therefore presents a very straightforward and simplistic understanding
of communication and meaning, which involves a three stage process of ‘sender –
message – receiver’. First, there is an individual (the sender) who composes a
message (such as a letter or a spoken sentence or phrase), this is then delivered
to and received by another individual (the receiver)
 Pitfalls of the three stages process to
communication and meaning
▪ What this model fails to recognise or consider, is the social context of message
creation, conveyance and reception.
▪ This model undermines the fact that the process of communication does not simply
involve a message, which is clearly intended by the sender and likewise clearly
understood in the same way by the receiver.
▪The meaning of a message will be determined by many different social factors,
such as the contexts of the message, the form it takes, the power relations between
the ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ and the process of interpretation and reinterpretation
undertaken by the receiver.

All of these are what helps create the meaning of a message and also form
important constituent parts of the communication process, and cannot therefore be
simply dismissed as ‘noise’ that needs to be overcome.
 Semiology and Semiotics approach to
meaning

▪ The study (or science) of ‘signs’ is known in Europe as ‘semiology’; a term

coined by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), a Swiss linguist
▪ This field of study is known in North America as ‘semiotics’; a name devised by
C.S. Peirce (1839–1914)
▪ Such a science main concern is the study of signs to make meaning and
interpretation
 What is a Sign

At its simplest, a sign consists of two components. First, there is a spoken, written,
or visual symbol (such as a word, a road sign or an advertisement) – this is known
as the signifier.
Second, associated with this symbol will be a certain concept or idea – this is the
signified.
For example, the word ‘apple’ (the signifier) along with our understanding of what an
apple is (a small fruit– this is the signified) together provides us with an
understanding or meaning of an ‘apple. This then is the sign – the sum of both the
word and the meaning we attach to it.

De Saussure suggests that the relationship between a sign and its meaning is
arbitrary.
There is no reason why the five letters that make up the word ‘apple’ should mean a
small fruit. These five letters could just have been used to refer to a ‘table’ or a ‘fish’
or a ‘banana’
 Why???

▪ De Saussure emphasises that what a sign stands for is simply a matter of cultural
convention, of how things are done in a given culture. This can clearly be seen in
the way different people attach different meanings to a word or the way people use
different words to refer to the same object/thing.
▪ For instance, the word ‘pig’ could refer to a farmyard animal. However, in a
different context, or to a different person, a ‘pig’ could refer to a greedy person or
even a police officer.
▪ Another example, many Western cultures see black as a colour for mourning and
funerals; however, in Morocco, it is white (and not black) that is associated with
death.
 Therefore!!!
If the sign is arbitrary, then its meaning can only be established by considering its
relation to other signs. It is thus necessary to look for the connections and
differences between signs.

➤ Syntagmatically – the linear or sequential relations between signs (e.g.

traditional English meals consist of a starter, followed by a main course and a
dessert).
➤ Paradigmatically – the ‘vertical’ relations, the particular combination of signs
(thus soup or melon but not apple pie for starters).

This is what semiologists refer to as different levels of signification. The semiologist

can proceed from the level of denotation, the obvious meaning of the sign (e.g. a
photograph of a cowboy smoking a Marlboro cigarette), to the connotation of the
sign, its taken-for-granted meaning (e.g. that smoking Marlboro is something that
tough ‘real’ men do.)
 Sapir and Whorf’s “thought worlds” approach
to meaning
The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis implies
that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality.
They suggested that there develops in all languages specialised and elaborated
lexicons dedicated to the description and understanding of important features of
social and cultural life.

Their hypothesis states that language creates mental categories through which
humans make sense of the world.
Meaning is shaped through the language one speaks; reality is relative
 Whorf expresses the idea in the following way:

“The world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be

organized by our minds and this means … we organize it into concepts, and
ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to
organize it in this way – an agreement that holds through our speech community
and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an
implicit and unstated one. But its terms are absolutely obligatory”.
Therefore, for linguistic theories, such as semiotics and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis,
language is seen as a structural system, which is both stable and provides a useful
tool for understanding the social world in which these are used. Therefore linguists
such as De Saussure provides the basis of structuralism the idea that there are
structures to be found below or behind everyday interaction.
 ArgumentativeTask : Discuss the following

To what extent do you agree/disagree with the semiotics/

semiology and structuralism approaches to meaning
Part IV
 Structuralism Approach to meaning

▪ Structuralists see culture as an ordered system or structure.

▪ Culture is presented as a system of coded meanings that are produced

and reproduced through social interaction.
▪ Structuralists’ interest is in how participants through interaction learn
and use the codes of communication
▪ Certain theories of linguistics, for example those of Ferdinand de Saussure
and Noam Chomsky, state that there is a universal structuring principle in all
human language: that of binary oppositions which consist of two opposing terms.

▪ Such an assumption is emphasised by Lévi Strauss (1966) who argues that

individuals have an innate biological capacity, what he calls a ‘bio-grammar’,
which they use to ‘decode’ or interpret codes of cultural information. Codes are
cultural in the sense that they are the expression of a people’s shared
conventions at a particular time
This means that everyone makes sense of the world at two distinct levels, which
take place simultaneously. The first is at the level of deep structure where the
binary oppositions operate (cultural conventions). The second is at the surface
level (innate knowledge) where knowledge of a cultural code allows sorting and
classifying to operate and meaning to emerge.
Lévi-Strauss likens this thinking to what we engage in when we listen to music. We
hear both the melody and the harmony, but in order to achieve an understanding of
the music we have to integrate them. It is the whole that gives us the message, and
so it is both surface and deep structure that gives us our understanding of cultural
messages.
Mary Douglas (1966) and Edmund Leach (1970) add that it is the social and
cultural contexts and the agreed meanings of shared experience through
interaction that allocate and set meanings.

Leach, for example, illustrates his case with colour classifications. In English
culture there are customary associations made between colours and fact and
feeling – thus red is the colour of danger, red is the colour of the British Labour
Party and it is a term used to describe members of the Communist Party. A native
user of English is aware of some if not all of the repertoire of available meanings
and on hearing the word ‘red’ will decide, according to context, which meaning is
appropriate. This will be the meaning that makes sense to the hearer and gives a
message.
 Hermeneutics and interpretation

Another significant tradition concerned with meaning and interpretation is

hermeneutics. Derived initially from debates in German-speaking countries over
the interpretation of the Bible, this approach has become increasingly concerned
with wider issues of interpretation and with philosophical debates over the
connections between meaning and existence.
Hermeneutics argues that it is impossible to divorce the meaning of a text from the
cultural context of its interpreter. In order to interpret any text the interpreter
necessarily and unavoidably brings to the text certain prior understandings or fore
understandings from their own culture.
The interpreter’s fore-understandings facilitate the process of interpretation and are
themselves worked upon (i.e. confirmed, modified, refuted, amended, etc.) in the
course of interpretation.
This conversation-like process is sometimes described by the term ‘the hermeneutic
circle’
This means that interpretation is not a simple one-way transmission of ideas from text
to reader but it is rather an interactive process in which the reader’s fore-
understandings are required for any further understanding of the text to be possible.
For example, when we read Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600–1), or watch a
performance of it, we bring our present-day cultural understandings to the situation
about familial relations, jealousy and revenge, sexual propriety, etc., and these
understandings are elaborated and modified in consequence of our reading of this
play.
 Pierre Bourdieu (1984)

He contributes to the understanding of social interactions and the meanings of

communication through his discussion of ‘fields’ and ‘habitus’. Fields for Bourdieu
are the constituent parts of a society or ‘social space’, for example the contemporary
fields of art, politics, sport and economics.
Society, consists of multiple interrelated fields, where each of these will have its own
habitus. Habitus is similar to what other authors have described as the ‘culture’ of a
particular group or society. However, key to Bourdieu’s understanding of habitus is
that this is embodied.
Jenkins (1992) writes that habitus is Latin to mean ‘a habitual or typical condition,
state or appearance, particularly of the body which is manifested in three ways:
First, habitus only exists ‘inside the heads of actors’, for instance, ways of
behaving and modes of practice are learnt and internalised by social actors.
Second, habitus only exists through the practice and actions of social actors –
their ways of talking, moving, acting and behaviour. Third, the ‘practical
taxonomies’ actors’ making sense of the world is all rooted in the body – such as
male/female, hot/cold, up/down are all linked to our senses and physically
located in relationship to our bodies
 Ideology
Theories of ideology understand ideas in terms of power. This has been most fully
developed within Marxist.
Raymond Williams (1977) stresses the various meanings that the term ‘ideology’
can have. He identifies two components to Marxist understandings of ideology:
➤ Ideology as the ideas of a particular social group. ➤ Ideology as a system of
illusory beliefs.
 Ideology as the ideas of
a particular social group

➢ This is the argument that social groups referred to within Marxism as social
classes have particular beliefs associated with them.

➢ In this critique of idealism (a way of thinking that identifies ideas as the main
properties of a society) they asserted that ideas were not independent. Instead
ideologies come from social classes in their social relations with each other.
➢ Ideas, or ideologies, are seen to be rooted in the material conditions of the
everyday life of classes (including their relations with other classes). Yet these
classes are not equal; some ideas dominate because of the unequal material
social relations.

➢ Ideology (the realm of ideas) is seen to be shaped by something ‘deeper’ – the

social (or class) relations within which people live their lives or even the economic
organisation of society (or ‘mode of production’) which shapes those class
relations.
 Ideology as a system of
illusory beliefs.
➢ Ideologies are a distorted representation of the truth because of their origins as
part of unequal social relations,

➢This is to argue that there are sets of ideas appropriate to each class, generated
by their position within exploitative social relations, but that people may have
adopted other ideas via education, the media, entertainment and so on. people who
do not think that way are said to have ‘false consciousness’.

➢ There are a series of problems with these ways of thinking. First, ‘false
consciousness’ is always something that someone else has, not oneself. It has a
tendency to define people as ‘cultural dupes’. the world cannot be understood in
terms of class alone.
 Political Economy, ideology and meaning

An interest in political economy means an interest in issues of power and inequality

that are associated with the allocation of resources and the formation of wealth.

Antonio Gramsci divided up ideologies into three categories:

Hegemonic

A particular
philosophy

common sense
 Common sense

Common-sense ideas are those we all take for granted. Common-sense ideas
and values are part of everyday life. They form the bedrock of our understanding
of the world; but when examined closely they may appear to be either
contradictory or very superficial. An example of a common-sense ideology is
‘Boys are better at football than girls’. This expresses an idea, commonly held to
be true. A closer examination of this ‘truth’, however, might question its validity by
asking ‘Are boys encouraged to be more physically active than girls?’ or ‘Are girls
allowed to participate in football or are they excluded at home, at school, or at
club level?’ If the answer to these questions is yes, then the common-sense idea
that boys are better at football than girls is shown to be true only because of
particular circumstances.
 A particular philosophy

This refers to the thought of not a single individual but a particular group of people
in society who put forward a reasonably coherent set of ideas. These people
Gramsci calls intellectuals; and he includes both traditional intellectuals such as
priests, and intellectuals who emerge from social movements, like political activists.
Examples of ideologies that are philosophies are ecological ideas of Greenpeace
or the beliefs of Right to Life antiabortionist groups, etc.
 Hegemonic

This category is that of a dominant or hegemonic ideology, that is one that has a
leading role in society. An example of a hegemonic ideology in a particular society
might be the dominance of one person’s ideas, for example in a dictatorship. Or it
might be the description of a society as capitalist or individualistic, whereby ideas
(or ideologies) like ‘the primacy of monetary profit’ or ‘the survival of the fittest’ are
the dominant ideas.
 Example of the three different
categories of ideology (Racism)

In the first category, ‘common-sense’ racism might consist of phrases like ‘The
English are cold’, or ‘Black people are natural athletes’. These phrases express
everyday prejudices as common sense. They express the individual prejudice of
the speaker.
If, however, these common-sense ideas become part of a coherent system, then
they enter Gramsci’s second category of a philosophy. For example, nineteenth-
century anthropologists classified the ‘races’ of humanity, placing Europeans at the
top of a purportedly evolutionary ladder with Orientals and Africans coming further
down; this is plainly an example of a racist philosophy.
Racism becomes a dominant or hegemonic ideology when it is used within a
particular society to legitimate the social divisions and organisation of that society.
For example, the use of racist ideas to justify the European colonisation of India
and Africa or to exclude black people from housing or particular jobs is an example
of a hegemonic ideology.
 Practical Task: Ideologies towards
gender

Give concrete examples (from society) in relation to Raymond and

Gramci’s devision of ideologies (agree and disagree)
Part V
 Poststructuralism and the patterns of
meaning
In the structuralist version meanings are strictly patterned according to specific
structures and systems such as binary opposition.
First, Poststructuralism questions what are seen as the rigidities of structuralist
systems of thought. Instead of binary oppositions it suggests that there are much
more complicated and ever-changing systems of meaning that need to be
understood in their particular contexts.
Thus, the meanings that things have are not fixed – they are fluid and changing.
For example in Shakespeare’s plays, the meanings cannot be defined by fixed
systems of signs – for instance, thinking about the relationships between harmony
and disharmony or order and disorder in the comedies –are dependent on the
contexts in which they are written, enacted, consumed and interpreted.
It is not, therefore, the systems and structures of meaning that are important but
the ways in which more diffuse patterns of meanings intersect in particular
situations
Second, poststructuralists question the assumption that there are ideologies
appropriate to classes, they argue that the relationships are both contingent and
contextual. Classes, genders and races are, in part, formed through the ideas,
ideologies and discourses that are used about them and that they use in their
struggles; and these will differ depending on the time, the place, the nature of the
struggle, and the history of that struggle. Thus the patterns of meaning cannot
be traced back to underlying political and economic structures; they are related to
them but in ways that are ever-changing.
In line with this, poststructuralism highlights how meanings are not always intended,
and that texts are polysemic (open to multiple readings). culture consists of multiple
realities that are never understood in their entirety either by the sender or the
receiver of information. Texts are always subject to interpretation, doubt and dispute
(Barthes , Foucault and Jacques Derrida).
 Postmodernism and semiotics

The philosophic origins of postmodern thought can be traced back to the philosophy
of Nietzsche and Heidegger. These philosophers question the ideas of the
Enlightenment that there exists one ‘true’ reality, which is delivered to us by science
and rationality. Nietzsche suggested that all social reality was a product of language
and thought, and not objective truths or realities.
These ideas were then developed further by postmodern writers such as Jean-
Francois Lyotard who suggests that in pre-industrial times, myths and stories had
a religious quality and assisted in the reproduction of the social order. With the
Enlightenment came a new set of narratives, which emphasised progress and
reason, knowledge and technology. However, he suggests we have now moved
into a postmodern era, where science, technology and computers have developed
to such as point that knowledge becomes more widespread and accessible;
hence, there is a decline in belief of one truth or one knowledge.
He suggests that knowledge has always been made up of different, and at times
incompatible perspectives or views, but these were often hidden within modernism
and scientific positivism, which claimed to provide one absolute truth. However, most
people no longer believe that there is one truth that is delivered to us by science and
rationality. Nor do they believe that there is one theory, which can explain all aspects
of our social lives. As a result, knowledge and societies fragment. what defines our
postmodern social lives is language and linguistic, but there exists no one true
meaning, no one true reality. There is no truth, but only truths.
For postmodernists there is no longer an underlying reality, which has an existence
apart from the simulations and simulacra. The only reality is a reality created by
signs (which have no depth or relation to real objects). What we consider to be social
reality is reproducible and extendable, with the copy indistinguishable from the
original, or perhaps seeming more real than the original.
Baudrillard also uses the term implosion to refer to the process whereby simulation
and reality collapse in on each other and become the same, so that there is no longer
any distinction between the two. All the different parts of the social world implode,
leaving no separation between formerly distinctive parts of society – politics and
sports become entertainment, or the latter become the former.
 2.2 Language, representation, power
and inequality

Representation and communication of cultural meaning takes place through

language because of two sets of standardisations: the customary meanings
attached to words and the customary ways of speaking in given social and
cultural settings.
 What does Representation refer to?

Raymond Williams (1983b: 296) points to two meanings of ‘represent’ that have
developed through history. A representation, can mean either ‘a symbol or image, or
the process of presenting to the eye or the mind’. The meaning of symbol or image is
particularly important. A representation re-presents or stands for an ‘accurate
reproduction’. For example, a photograph represents that which was arranged before
the camera, but is also often thought to be an accurate reproduction of it.
A. Language and power

Cultural studies scholars argue that language has become increasingly politicised
and implicated in social struggles.
The argument has moved from seeing language as a neutral instrument for
objectively representing and communicating the views of a uniform grouping to
seeing language as a politically and culturally charged medium over which groups
wrestle for control.
Language and power (examples)
Print language

Benedict Anderson (1991) highlights the powerful role of print languages in

enabling the rise and spread of nationalism. the invention of print language gave a
‘new fixity’ to language and created languages of power; particular forms of
language became dominant and more prestigious. In this way written language
came to be viewed as more ‘correct’ than spoken language and
Language and power (examples)
Spoken Language

Similarly, spoken languages that are close in form and vocabulary to printed
language are the most prestigious (Anderson, 1991: 44–5). In this respect,
Pulgram, (1954) states that:
“We can recognise a person by his speech quite apart from the intelligence or
intelligibility of his utterance. The mere physical features of his speech, conditioned
automatically and by habits, suffice for identification... what he says and how he
says it, his style, provide further clues all the better”.
B. Language and Class

Basil Bernstein (1924–2000) is a sociologist whose research linked social class,

language and speech. His studies showed that lower-class members of English
society spoke a language that was restricted in comparison with the elaborated
code of the middle classes. This restricted code handicapped them in their quest for
social and economic betterment because schools, which were seen by Bernstein as
the chief agency for social mobility, required the use of elaborated codes.
What do restricted codes stand for?
Therefore, Bernstein, class-based language reflects the hierarchies of the English
class system with the consequence that some languages are socially and
culturally dominant. Accordingly, success comes to those who speak the dominant
language and use its skills; elaborated language is better than public or restricted
language because it is constituted through the operation of logic and abstract
thought. Lower-class language is a less competent form than middle-class language
and its speakers and users are not able to benefit from education which requires
discrimination and logic.
C. Language, Race and Ethnicity (to be
continued)
 Reading Assignment for next week

Language, race and ethnicity

Language and gender
2.3 Mass communication and representation
The mass media and representation
Mass media representations of race and ethnicity
Mass media representations of gender
Mass media representation of celebrity
Audiences and reception
Stuart Hall: encoding, decoding and ideology