Blog Post #4

In these excerpts of Richards’ journal he discusses the faults of the traditional Doctrine of Usage, making the point that words alone “mean” nothing in their solidarity. Richard attacks the doctrine as misinforming readers that words are merely to possess their sense, bringing this meaning with them regardless of the surrounding words in a sentence. He acknowledges that the Doctrine of Usage can be interpreted in different ways that would make it suitable but expands on arguing against its conventional explanation. By this common understanding, the doctrine undertakes that the assumption that words all have fixed meanings, of which we will always know before we read them. So that an author’s tasks is to build up the meaning of a sentence with these preset building blocks, just as “a mosaic is put together of discrete independent tesserae” (Richards 55). Richard addresses that this understanding of the doctrine quickly brings about problems, especially when leaving out crucial elements. In actuality when we speak or write, we employ symbolism to convey a “meaning” to a word. This symbolism is caused by not only the reference we are making but also the purpose for which we are making it, the proposed effect of the symbol on others, and the author’s attitude. His example, “we say that the gardener mows the lawn when we know that it is the lawn-mower which actually does the cutting,” will encounter no difficulties when the whole matter is considered in more detail (Richards 9). A word independently has no meaning, no fixed single usage, or even a limited number of correct uses. Richard’s argument relates to our discussions of remix so far because just as words are given meaning by their use, other elements of different mediums are given meaning by their surrounding details and references. It is the creator, and the symbolism they employ that gives something it’s meaning and makes it original.