[Spaz]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

I'm not sure how many times I'll have to say this, but:

No one controls meaning.

A speaker, such as Sister Beck, can provide a "preferred encoding," but any number of decodings (reasoned interpretations) are not only possible (including those that scholars call "negotiated" and "oppositional,"), but are inevitable and even desirable.

The search for authorial intention as some kind of definitive pronouncement as to what a particular artifact--like a speech--means has been debunked for decades. Don't believe me? Research the intentional approach to meaning.

The search for meaning in objects themselves has been debunked for even longer.

Meaning is constructed much like human beings are. It takes something from authors and something from receivers, but is ultimately its own creature. Meaning is zygotic.

Trying to discover, let alone capture and articulate, what Sister Beck "means" or "intends" is impossible, for you, me, and Sister Beck herself. Do people understand their own intentions? I assert that in many instances the answer to that is "no."

Still, a competent speaker tries to anticipate the range of plausible interpretations. Certainly Sister Beck should have done this, and it's quite possible that she did.

The "shot birds flutter" business is ridiculous, except that it introduces the disturbing idea of Church leaders as hunters, Church members as dehumanized prey, and the process of speaking at conference as "shooting at people."

Even a comparison such as "Lost sheep bleet" would be better, although it presumes that the speaker is correct (or not "lost") and that those who disagree are wrong, which, as I've implied above, does not speak to the "meaning" of something such as a speech.

This is certainly something for me to consider.

I still don't think that the statement "This dish is red" should be interpreted to mean other dishes aren't also red.