Finally, a third type of connotative signified can be fleshed out of the discourse circuits
captured on the tapes. This can be called a mythic signified andcan be defined
as a connotation derived from mythic themes, characters, and settings. Thus the mythic theme of
good vs. evil is a signified that influences, for instance, the perception of sports events,
whereby the home team = the good and the visiting team = the bad. In one
conversation, an interlocutor referred to a colleague as someone who has "fallen into disgrace," an
expression triggered by the mythic signified thatcomes from the story of Adam and
Eve.
Concluding
Remarks
The main implication for the study of discourse that
crystallizes from the interconnectedness principle is that the meaning of a conversation is determinable
in terms of circuits that are interconnected connotatively to each other. This principle thus provides
a framework for relating what would appear to be disparate and heterogeneous stretches of
conversation to each other. The connotative circuits of conversation provide the "conceptual maps"
that keep discourse acts meaningful. Conversation is apparently a mental journey that leads to various
places according to the situation and to the interlocutors, but all within the same connotative map
space.
The interconnectedness principleis not new. It has been
identified in various ways, and with differing terminological guises, in the relevant literature. I have
offered it here as synthetic statement to make it testable for use in further research on discourse. What
it attempts to make clear is that systems of representation are not based on literal-denotative, but
rather on the subjective paths that connotative circuits entail. Unlike a machine, a human being can
construct models of meaning in the very process of making them. Most of these are socially
motivated. As McNeill (1987: 263) aptly puts it, "We become linguistically conscious by mentally
simulating social experience."
|
Page +
1