‘Construe My Meaning’: Performance, Poetry and Semiotic Distance

Abstract

These words, quoted from the Elizabethan madrigal by Giles Farnaby (1560–1640), evoke for me many of the dimensions of the thought and linguistic technique of Ruqaiya Hasan (e.g. Hasan, 2007). The primary point of Hasan’s emphasis is that a linguist should work so that all that is performed in linguistic analysis demonstrates its relevance to meaning. Second, in evaluating linguistic proposals, one needs to be assiduous in thinking through the implications of the theory — what the theory carries by way of its own meanings. Throughout Hasan’s semantic odyssey, there are then at least two levels of meaning for construe: it applies to the cultural and linguistic meaning under investigation through wording; and to the theoretical meanings that we bring with our modes of enquiry, and which are inherent in the terms of representation that we employ. With respect to the latter, ‘wrest not my method’ is also relevant: namely, do not take my method from me, or turn it to different purposes (more archaic).