Blog Post 1- Meaning
The meaning of text is made in several different ways but to understand it fully we must first explore the components that come together to make meaning. First, a person known as the author must have some information that they would like to share with another person known as the reader. Second, the author must compose that information into some form of text. Finally, the reader must interoperate the text to get the information from the author.
From this description, the process of making meaning appears to be a straight line from the author to the text to the reader, however this in not the case. Creating meaning should be thought of more like a triangle. The author has an intended meaning that they attempt to put into text, however due to the context of the text the meaning from the author to the text can be changed or skewed. If their article on a new medication ends up in a kid’s magazine the meaning would be considerably changed. There are also constraints on the reader’s familiarity of the subject. If the reader can’t understand the text the way it was intended, then the meaning of the text could change. The final connection is between the author and reader. The author makes certain affordances or adjustments to their writing based on whom they think will be reading their document.
Meaning Triangle
The reader in turn makes similar adjustments based on what they are reading and how they think the author intended them to understand it. In the end the meaning of a text communication is made from all three parts of triangle coming together. The author, text, and reader are all interconnected and the meaning is formed based on how these three interact.
To see a project that I redesigned to be more meaningful click the link here.
