Meaning and Influence

Class Review 6

Meaning and Influence

Literacy. That sound seems so familiar nowadays, but why is that so? Literacy will never be known before people understand the nature of written. Someone says literacy could change many things: social, economy, culture, education and many more, but the question is How big literacy influence awareness of the reader and how many someone will be changed by literacy. Pouring the believe on something is hard, even never be true if people don’t know the key how to engage on what their read. Something hard also happen when pursuing someone to be believable on what we write.

            Through some books related with literacy that I have read during this semester, finally I think that reader and writer are revolutionary. They could write everything based on their genre, they could change and influence many people on their believe, they could create any history and science based on their experience, they could do many things. That’s why research still goes on and on every day, it is because of the influence of books that they have read and their action is originally to prove what really happen in the book.

Based on Fowler (1996: 10): “Like the historian critical linguist aims to understand the values which underpin social, economic, and political formations, and diachronically, changes in values and changes in formaitons.  And again this is the power in marching words we really can’t take a distance from that one, because literacy is something we do(Ken Hyland:2006). We know that someone will have a power if he is smart, elite politic could make a policy it he is smart, historian could create the story if he is smart and they could influence the life of whole society.

The ideology that people embrace is actually follow other people believe based on their like on particular things. We are influenced and growth by doctrine from some people who has a power in their mind, some of life aspect: social, economic, political formations are what some people think this and that is right. Earth joins in applying the policy and book will empower the policy, someone is machines who will make and deserve the policy itself.

The connection also exists in Hyland remarks, when he pointed out culture as a part of important point in book. It is because of culture is known by literacy as communication, literacy could show or hide the story then will impact the change of culture. It means that culture have never changed by themselves, it was changed because of some factors. Someone and circumstances is a member of its factor, they influence the other based on context and text that they saw before.

(Hyland:2006) A literacy study is focused on the use of writing in social practice. Research showed that not only reading has a complex necessity but writing as well, it because writing always located in particular times and places and indicative of wider social forces and relationship.

Linguistic also apply literacy practice every day, they make connection between research data of literacy-in-use and social theory and understanding of writing itself. It showed how literacy is positioned in relation to social institution and dominant ideologies.

Someone will understand the meaning of book if they recognize each text and context that always go together. Book will never change someone’s life if the reader does not engage in context in their book, so it is become important to reader to understand what is really happening in a book.

Hyland told that meaning is not something that resides in the words that author write and send it to someone else, but meaning is created in the interaction between a writer and reader as they make sense of these words in different ways, each trying to guess the intentions of the other.

(Cutting:2003) Suggest that there are three main aspect of interpretive context in making meaning:

1.      The situational context

What people know about what they can see around them

2.      The background knowledge context

What people know about the world, what they know about aspect of life and what they know about each other

3.      The co-textual context

What people know about what they have been saying

            All of those are principles way of understanding how meaning produce in interaction. Usually the way to understand meaning will start on the text and go to the other part but Halliday developed an analysis of context based on the idea that any text is the result of the writer’s language choices in a particular context of situations. Halliday also see the context of culture are expressed in or (through) more specific context of situations so that he describe social situations as a apart of a boarder culture. How do language users understand these circumstances in their everyday acts of writing and speaking? Presumably there is some level of cognition through which writers construct their social words and which influences the reader.

            Through meaning of a book, someone probably will strengthen or even change their ideology. Its magic is really works for reader if they are realized by any lines in book’s notions. People ideology will influence the other aspect: social, politic, economy, so on. One people have a minimal one ideology. They are as human being will socialize and influence society based on their believe.

            Like Fowler said that ideology help people to understand the essence of condition: social, economy, politic, culture. Talking more about ideology will approach the end of life, namely value. How human actualize themselves is based on how they could understand the life.

            (Wikipedia) ideology is a group if ideas that will make people give a value on something according to their believe. People will compare many things through their ideology point of view, and ideology wills made by the one of complex way, that is reading.

            The main purpose of ideology is to offer the change through thinking process of normative. Ideology is abstract system. Example: Indonesian has a main ideology, namely pancasila. Even through people of majority don’t realize that they actualize themselves as in Indonesia citizen, it because of one ideology will influence the life of anyone else.

            To see anything is good or bad is surely need ideology as assessment. In the filsafat term, ideologies will their own ‘value’. The term value itself is for judging a worth of something or for judging the other abstract thing. Value also is one of verb kind, which is a mental action to assess something good or bad.

Best Regard,

Susi Nurjanah