Interpretation, Interpretative Frameworks

What is Interpretation?

Interpretation is

  • the act of literacy, the human process of making inferences, of ascribing meaning to signs and symbols, the act of signification.

People make interpretations of texts and events in order to make sense of world.

Interpretation is a deeply subjective process. Different people can see the exact same event and infer contrasting interpretations. Critics often disagree about the relative merits of movies, songs, and other texts.

For readers, listeners, users, interpretation is challenging. At any given moment, people experience a tsunami of information coming at them at warp speed.

Personal experience shapes interpretation. Our world view is shaped by our contexts—our families, schools, communities, and workplaces. The rhetorical stances we can imagine adopting in response to exigencies, calls for discourse, are shaped by our interpretations about what exists and what is possible.

Key Concepts: Rhetorical Stance; Semiotics;


For readers, listeners, users, interpretation is challenging. At any given moment, people experience a tsunami of information coming at them at warp speed.

People are rhetorically situated. Their interpretations are shaped by their discourse communities, their communities of practice. For instance, The Association of College and Research Libraries has identified six interpretative frameworks that underlie critical literacy practices:

  1. Authority is Constructed & Contextual
  2. Information Creation as a Process
  3. Information Has Value
  4. Research as Inquiry
  5. Scholarship as a Conversation
  6. Searching as Strategic Exploration

Much of the library-orientated training students receive in the U.S. concern these six frameworks.

Interpretive Frameworks

Consider how critics use theory to interprets works of art and literature:



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