GPCHAT: Project Meaning:Are meanings produced and fixed by historical genesis or by the contemporaneous relations among signs or by both reflected in public performance.
Are meanings produced and fixed by historical genesis or by the contemporaneous relations among signs or by both reflected in public performance. Meanings are produced by both historical genesis and contemporaneous relations among signs , but they become socially operative only when they are publicly performed, recognised, contested, and repeated . A useful way to separate the issue is: 1. Historical genesis: where the sign comes from A sign, symbol, word, ritual, slogan, flag, gesture, or institution carries sedimented history. Its meaning is shaped by prior uses, origin stories, inherited associations, past conflicts, sacred narratives, legal codifications, victories, humiliations, traumas, and collective memory. For example, a national flag does not mean only “cloth with colours.” Its meaning comes partly from wars, founding myths, sacrifice, conquest, independence, betrayal, or constitutional order. The past loads the sign with force. So historical genesis matters because it s...