Phenomenology focus on sender’s intention, needs, wants and mechanisms by which they are able to express those in language.

Diction – choice of words to express a meaning.

Code (convention = mapping) – unspoken mechanism by which an expression is made sensible to a linguistic community.

Genre – set of characteristics that define a type of message. Cover letter, novel, email, etc…

Radical structuralist idea: Genres precede us and inform all of our mental conditioning.

Where does meaning come from?

Phenomenology – locus of meaning comes from a person’s intention.

Structuralism – meaning arises units of discourse are arranged in grammatical ways.

A structure is a common pattern of ordered signs. Structuralism is an effort to discover and articulate those patterns.