Stuart Hall- The Work of Representation

Representation connects meaning and language to culture. It means "using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people".
There are three theories of representation: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approaches. The constructionist approach further has the semiotic approach and the discursive approach.
Representation is the "production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language". There are two systems of representation.
1- Mental Representation- all things are attached to concepts in the mind. Meaning, thus, depends on these concepts in our minds- they represent the world for us. We can communicate our ideas to others because we share conceptual mental maps with them. When we belong to the same culture as somebody else, our mental representation of something is the same as theirs. This allows us to communicate with them.
2- Language- Other than a shared culture, we also need a shared language with which to communicate/represent something. Language is made up of signs (words, images, sounds, meanings) that represent our conceptual representations in a physical way.

Visual signs, whether they resemble the objects they refer to or not, are arbitrary signs- they carry meaning and have to be interpreted using same conceptual maps. Visual signs can be icons (they resemble the object) or indexes (those signs that point to the object- like words- written or spoken). These signs are arbitrary. Meaning is not in the object, nor in our minds. It is attached to the object by us. "The meaning is constructed by the system of representation". It is constructed by a set of codes which relate our language system to our conceptual system and allowing us to represent and communicate. Culture contains certain codes. Others of the same culture share the same codes. These codes are learned- those who learn the culture become cultured. Different cultures use different codes and languages, and meaning changes with the codes. Thus, there is no one fixed meaning, members of a culture attach meaning to objects and language. Meaning is constructed.

Coming back to the three types of representation:
1- Reflective- meaning is thought to lie in the object and language mirrors/reflects its meaning. "Language works by simply reflecting or imitating the truth that is already there".
2- Intentional- the speaker attaches his/her meaning to the object. Words mean what the author wants them to mean. However, language is a shared, public construction. Thus, meaning can never be entirely constructed by the author- it depends on the shared codes.
3- Constructionist- objects don't mean anything until we construct a meaning for them. Things exist but don't have a meaning until they enter our system of representation.

Some signs like images, sounds, impulses can be material, even if they represent a non material object. Also, the meaning in signs comes from their difference from other signs. Only in relation/opposition to other signs do we understand the meaning of signs. This is very similar to the concept of identity in people in relation to "others". But then, isn't identity a sign. a construction as well?

Sassure-
He shaped the semiotic approach to representation. Meaning depends on language. Signs are made up of form and idea- signifier and signified. Together, they produce meaning and form the sign. Individually, they do nothing. The signifier and the signified are connected arbitrarily. Once they get defined in relation to other signs, they obtain meaning and that meaning gets learned. And even then, this meaning and the relationship between them can change. Meaning is not unique and static. There is no universal meaning. It depends on each particular culture's history and context. Also, the meaning that the viewer/receiver interprets also changes with his/her context. For example, a joke in one country would be funny and in another country would be offensive. If I hear the joke for the first time today, it will be funny. If I hear it again tomorrow, it will be mundane. Thus, the reader as well as the writer are both imporant in the making of meaning.
Language has two parts:
1- Langue- rules and conventions of the language system. This is the social part of language.It can be studied like a science with rules and formulae. This is the structuralist approach.
2- Parole- particular acts of speaking/writer/communicating using the structures of the langue. This is the surface of the language, and varies with each utterance. Language is not intentional, nor natural. It depends on our shared codes, and it taught/carried from one person to another.

Semiotics- A science of signs. Cultural practices depend on signs which are meant to be read/decoded by the reader. Levi-Strauss studied a culture's signs and went from paroles of their culture to the langue and structure which were used to make cultural productions. "In the semiotic approach, not only words and images but objects themselves can function as signifiers inthe production of meaning". Signs have two levels of meaning: the denotation and the connotation. The deonotative meaning is the descriptive meaning of the object- the literal meaning. The connotative meaning is the cultrual meaning that needs to be decoded at different levels to be understood. Connotations vary with ideologies and cultures.
Another level of signification for Barthes is Myth: the ideology behind the object that takes context as a given and reconstitutes history in that meaning.

Discourse, Power and Function- Foucault was concerned with the production of knowledge.
Discourse- a system of representation- "a group of statements which provide a language for talking about-a way of representing the knowledge about-a particular topic at a particular historical moment". It defines the rules of how people talk about a topic. It defines our knowledge. It defines rules for talking and sharing/creating of knowledge and of how to regulate ideas. Ideas can belong to the same discursive formation when they refer to the same object or event. Outside of discourse, nothing has meaning. Without discourse, objects are meaningless- they exist but without a meaning. The constructionist theory says that things take on meaning and knowledge only within a discourse. Thus discourse produces knowledge, not the things. It includes statments which give us a certain kind of knowledge, rules which prescribe certain ways of talking about these things, subjects who in some ways personify the discourse, the attributes these subjects should have according the knowledge we get from the discourse, how this knowledge about the topic acquires authority and truth value, the practices that institutions should follow to deal with the discourse, and acknowledgments that a different discourse will arise at some later time. Certain discourses attach themselves to certain moments of history. They are not true outside of that certain time. Meaning happens at a certain time within a certain discursive formation. Discourse is history/culture specific.
Power- it operates within an institutional apparatus. Knowledge and power are linked. Knowledge is a form of power. With knowledge, power becomes true. Power circulates in different directions, and is exhanged. It does not have one center nor one direction. It does not have to be repressing or negative. Power is localized, not centralized. It has microphysics of power that place it at the center of power.