Varietà della Lingua Inglese

–Varietà della lingua inglese↔ museum ↔ as texts

Texts around → language as the foundation of one’s subject thought

Everything we hear or sense is mediated by language.

How do we define language?

Example: the way we dress is something related to language and communication. The way you → dress is something interpersonal / interactional: you can send a message through what you are wearing. Thanks to your clothes you constitute yourself in a group.

“The signifier represents a signified for other signifiers”.

Another example: name. Everyone is born in a signifier that had already been decided for him/her. Your name becomes a different signifier for everyone who enters in contact with you.

Silence. We measure the meaning of what is said or not said by what we were expecting to receive.

Our language is based on differences and absences. → Rauschenberg is an artist who creates a work of art by erasing a former piece of art. We can express ourselves in absence and not just in presence.

How do we define text? And reading?

A text is any signified unit that the viewer constitutes as an analyzing whole. A text can be formed by other subtext.

Reading is interpreting. There’s the belief in western culture that language can be objective. In reality, all communication involves interpretation and selection. The way we describe an object is always a point of view of this object.

Texts are never objectives. Objectivity in culture is free of bias but

There are texts that are neutral (reasonable, non-subjective) and others that are highly emotional (subjective and less trusty).

My language has to capture anyone who is listening to me, so I have to modify my language according to who I am speaking with.

Ravelli, museum texts: communication frameworks

Systemic functional linguistics (Halliday).

Halliday applies a sociological approach to language, useful because it dwells on the relationship between text and context.

The origins of museums

• → Etymology: mouseion (in Greece it represents the seat of Muses) / Museum (in Roman time, the place of philosophical discussion)
• → Early history: in the XV century it represents the collection of De Medici (without indicating a building). In the XVII century it represents a collection of curiosities. The modern concept of museum is born when for the first time a building was built up to house a collection.

It’s a recent idea that the museum has to be a place where you have to attract people; before, only a few and well-educated people went to visit museums. Today museums are considered institutions for the preservation.

Reading spaces in the museum

• Institution
• Exhibitions
• Exhibits
• Relat