Strategies for Critical Thinking: A Plurality of Readings

Here is a sign:

Stuart Hall (a sociologist and cultural theorist) developed a theory of signs that
focused on both how signs are constructed (written) and how they are consumed
(read). With regard to encoding, Hall suggested that signs are intended. That is, they
are constructed – or, encoded – according to a number of already established
conventions (concerning such things as genre, mode, and medium).

Hall, however, was more interested in the consumption of texts – that is, decoding.
For Hall, there is no one-to-one correspondence between encoding and decoding,
and he argued that the reader has considerable autonomy in the construction of
meaning. Hall identified three ideal types of ‘reading position’ that might be adopted
in consuming texts:

Dominant reading: The reader fully shares the text’s code and accepts and
reproduces the preferred reading – in such a stance the code seems natural and
transparent.

Negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text’s code and broadly accepts
the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way that reflects
their own position, experiences and interests.

Oppositional reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in directly
oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but
does not share the text’s code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an
alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) in making sense of the text.

 For the sign (above), develop three readings – a dominant, a

negotiated, and an oppositional reading.

 How can Hall’s model inform your approach to thinking about texts?
How can you use this model to improve the quality of your examination
responses?

© David McIntyre, InThinking

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