This week is class I enjoyed the exercise dealing with the title “A Short Story” For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn. It was interesting to see the different answers classmates gave for the phrase, “a short story,” written in all lower cases and then capitalized with quotations. The phrase went from symbolizing a type of book to symbolizing the title of something. While the answers varied, most classmates identified the capitalized phrase put in quotations as the title for something. This demonstrates the shared meaning within our community that we give a capitalized word put in quotations. The phrase, “A Short Story,” is the signifier and the signified is that it represents a title of something. The only reason we can identify this as students is because we had seen it before. As a community of students we learned the concept within school allowing us to recognize it again. Just like in class with the word ghoti.
The next class session we explored ideas for a film using the title “For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.” Each group had a different idea for a film with a beginning, middle, and end. It only took six words to create such different ideas. Going along with Barthes and Macherey and the idea that it is what’s missing in the text that causes language. Using different community experiences and utilizing the gap within the language, each student thought of their own, different film idea.
While what we learn in class is new to us, it is eye opening because we have been participating in it our whole lives without realization. For example, so many times throughout conversations with people I think to myself, what are they really trying to say? This searching for a deeper meaning stems from learning that most people do not say what they really mean. Somewhere at a young age I learned that I need to question and search for a deeper meaning. It is this gap within language that Barthes believes is fun and creates meaning. The gap where people create different interpretations just like we did in class with “For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.”
1 comment:
I like how you connect the work of DeSaussure and his notion of shared understanding of language within a community to the way the students equally decoded the use of punctuation and grammar in similar ways; you point out that college students (though likely educated previously to Rollins is different places) still belong to a community of educated young adults. Also, you capture the idea of a deeper meaning clearly when trying to understand people. Something to think about, will we ever truly understand what someone is saying?
Smiley Face :)
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