Cover

Half-title

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

0.1 Meaning troublespots

0.2 Approaches to meaning

0.3 Historical context for a media dispute culture

0.4 Outline of main arguments

0.5 Why meanings matter

Part I: Communication failure and interpretive conflict

1 From personal disagreement to meaning troublespot

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Interpretive disagreement

1.3 Informal disagreement and more public ‘media’ disputes

1.4 Communication and the nature of disagreement

1.5 The concept of ‘meaning troublespots’

1.6 Types of interpretive dispute

1.7 The problem of interpretive gridlock

1.8 Summary

2 Signs of trouble

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Three kinds of trouble

2.2.1 ‘Use’: media communicators behaving badly

2.2.2 Problems of discourse ‘effect’

2.2.3 Trouble with ‘meaning’

2.3 Interaction between communication categories

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

2.4 Usefulness of communicative distinctions

2.5 Communication and social harm

2.6 Summary

3 Different kinds of meaning question

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Limits of interpretation

3.3 Meaning not a single question

3.3.1 Who or what is referred to?

3.3.2 What claim is being made?

3.3.3 Is what is claimed fact or opinion?

3.3.4 Is something biased or taken out of context?

3.3.5 What reaction is encouraged?

3.3.6 What follows if you interpret like this?

3.3.7 Who will read it this way?

3.3.8 What does this normally mean?

3.3.9 Is it true?

3.4 Conflicting attitudes towards questions of meaning

3.5 Summary

Part II: Making sense of ‘meaning’

4 Meaning and the appeal to semantics

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Meaning not an ‘open and shut’ case

4.3 Meaning wonderland

4.3.1 Fixed and variable meaning

4.4 Meanings of meaning

4.4.1 Types of meaning

4.4.2 Unbearable abstractness of meaning?

4.5 Problems with applying semantics in interpretive disputes

4.6 Summary

5 Interpretive variation

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Should a hundred meanings blossom?

5.2.1 Natural and communicated meaning

5.3 Code and inference

5.4 Creativity and risk

5.5 Boundaries of legitimate inference

5.5.1 ‘Beef is safe’

5.6 Public circulation of meaning

5.7 Summary

6 Time-based meaning

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Meaning in the mind

6.3 When does a meaning become a meaning?

6.3.1 Online and offline inferences

6.4 Closure and continuing dialogue

6.5 Meaning approximation

6.6 Given time and attention

6.6.1 Interrupted interpretation: ‘Nothing good ever came out of America’

6.6.2 Porn-heads in the newspaper

6.7 This will mean more later

6.8 Summary

Part III: Verbal disputes and approaches to resolving them

7 Meaning as a knockout competition

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Fighting over meaning

7.3 Argument culture

7.4 Need for counselling in a meaning triangle

7.4.1 Legal action replay

7.4.2 Only the meanings pleaded

7.5 Conflict and cooperation

7.6 Caught up in the act

7.6.1 Opposing statements of meaning

7.6.2 Clarifying meaning level within a communicative act

7.7 Clever footwork between meanings

7.8 Summary

8 Standards of interpretation

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Adjudicating meanings is different from interpreting

8.3 Sources of interpretive authority

8.4 What creates a ‘standard’?

8.5 Conceptual and procedural standards

8.5.1 Truth

8.5.2 Validity

8.5.3 Being reasonable

8.5.4 Being ordinary

8.6 Interpretive standards and legal outcomes

8.7 Summary

Part IV: Analysing disputes in different fields of law and regulation

9 Defamation: ‘reasonably capable of bearing the meaning attributed’

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Libel and the meaning of words

9.3 Defamatory potential: an illustration

9.3.1 Basics of a libel action

9.3.2 How meanings are constructed

9.3.2.1 ‘Ridiculous’

9.3.2.2 ‘Expenses queen’

9.3.2.3 ‘Imelda-like stature’

9.3.2.4 ‘Who is known to like the company of wealthy men’

9.3.2.5 ‘Not in attendance to see her husband receive the plaudits’

9.3.2.6 ‘Glimpsed dining privately with a friend in another part of the city’

9.3.3 From paraphrase to imputation

9.4 Ordinary and extended meaning

9.4.1 The problem of not being George Washington

9.4.2 Technical, slang and local meanings

9.5 Capable of bearing the meaning attributed

9.6 Defamatory meaning and common knowledge

9.7 Summary

10 Advertising: ‘not only what is said, but what is reasonably implied’

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Commercial information and persuasion

10.3 Advertising and promotional discourse

10.4 How discourse represents products and services

10.5 Advertising law and regulation

10.6 Product and service claims

10.6.1 Prototypical product and service claims

10.6.2 Vague and implied claims

10.6.3 Trade puffs

10.6.4 Ironic and humorous claims

10.6.5 Comparative claims

10.7 Beyond product and service claims

10.8 Deciding what an advert is telling you

10.9 The average consumer

10.10 Generalised interpretive strategies

10.11 Summary

11 Offensiveness: ‘If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable’

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Meaning and boundaries of acceptability

11.3 Cause for complaint

11.3.1 Bad language

11.3.2 Insults and hate speech

11.3.3 Hate speech that is simultaneously expressive

11.3.4 Incitement

11.3.5 Unspeakable ideas

11.3.6 Blasphemy

11.3.7 Obscenity

11.4 Meaning in action

11.4.1 Constructing the sense of being offended

11.4.2 Performatives and speech acts

11.4.3 Situation-altering utterances

11.4.4 Performativity

11.4.5 Force and inference

11.5 Interpretive variation and standards

11.6 Symbolic shock effects

11.7 Summary

Part V: Conclusion

12 Trust in interpretation

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Meaning and speculation

12.2.1 Electronic rumour mill

12.3 Risky information

12.3.1 Direction of fit between discourse and world

12.4 Trust and suspicion

12.5 Pragmatic interpretation

12.6 Summary

References

Index