69249454-chandler-semiotics

TEXTUAL INTERACTIONS 185
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that in any given situation several functions may operate in a ‘hierarchical
order’, but that a dominant function influences the general
character of the ‘message’. For instance, the poetic function (which
is intended to refer to any creative use of language rather than simply
to poetry) highlights ‘the palpability of signs’, undermining any
sense of a natural or transparent connection between a signifier and
a referent (Jakobson 1960, 356). In Jakobson’s model, messages and
meanings cannot be isolated from such constitutive factors. He added
that ‘the question of presence and hierarchy of those basic functions
which we observe in language . . . must be applied also to the other
semiotic systems . . . A parallel investigation of verbal, musical,
pictorial, choreographic, theatrical, and cinematographic arts belongs
to the most imperative and fruitful duties of semiotic science’
(Jakobson 1970, 458).
As we have seen, in contrast to the earlier structuralist
model, Jakobson allocated a role for a situational context and stressed
the importance of parole – the contingency of ‘speech events’.
However, his embedded functions are systemic representations of
‘frozen’ human purposes and he did not address the dynamic, shifting
purposes of those involved in particular acts of communication or
the social frameworks within which communication occurs. His
theoretical frameworks opened up new pathways but he left to sociolinguists
and socio-semiotic researchers the task of investigating
specific, socially situated acts of communication: this, in practice,
was beyond the scope of even the most radical of the original
structural linguists.
While these earlier models had focused on interpersonal
communication, in an essay entitled ‘Encoding/decoding’ (Hall 1980,
originally published as ‘Encoding and decoding in television
discourse’ in 1973), the British sociologist Stuart Hall proposed a
model of mass communication which highlighted the importance of
signifying practices within relevant codes. A televisual text emerged
as ‘meaningful’ discourse from processes of encoding and decoding.
Each of these processes involved ‘meaning structures’ which consisted
of ‘frameworks of knowledge’, ‘relations of production’ and
‘technical infrastructure’. Despite the apparent symmetry, Hall
rejected textual determinism, noting that ‘decodings do not follow