Meaning in the Media

'Brilliant, highly readable, sophisticated, and illustrated with a wealth of well-chosen examples, Meaning in the Media offers a major new analysis of disputes about meaning in public life, and of the linguistic, legal and social factors that affect their resolution. Essential reading not only for linguists, media scholars and specialists in language and the law, but for anyone who has ever been involved in a debate about defamation, honesty in advertising, or offensive language.' Deirdre Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University College London and co-author with Dan Sperber of Relevance: Communication and Cognition

'Meaning in the Media is that rare find: a work accessible to students and researchers whose clarity and readability will give linguistics the type of visibility it deserves in our meaning-suffused society. For scholars and students working in a number of fields, in law and beyond, it offers a common vocabulary and analytical model with which to tackle contested meaning.' Graeme Dinwoodie, Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law, University of Oxford

Alan Durant is Professor of Communication at Middlesex University Business School, London. His previous publications include How to Write Essays and Dissertations: A Guide for English Literature Students (2nd edition, 2005) and Ways of Reading (3rd edition, 2007). He was also co-editor of The Linguistics of Writing: Arguments Between Language and Literature (1987).

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. Communication Failure and Interpretive Conflict: 1. From personal disagreement to meaning troublespot; 2. Signs of trouble; 3. Different kinds of meaning question; Part II. Making Sense of 'Meaning': 4. Meaning and the appeal to semantics; 5. Interpretive variation; 6. Time-based meaning; Part III. Verbal Disputes and Approaches to Resolving Them: 7. Meaning as a knockout competition; 8. Standards of interpretation; Part IV. Analysing Disputes in Different Fields of Law and Regulation: 9. Defamation: 'reasonably capable of bearing the meaning attributed'; 10. Advertising: 'not only what is said, but what is reasonably implied'; 11. Offensiveness: 'if there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable'; Part V. Conclusion: 12. Trust in interpretation; References.