Communication enforces preferred meanings through performative rules, not fixed codes

Evidence

Further, since these connotational mappings are “structured in dominance” but not closed, the communicative process consists, not in the unproblematic assignment of every visual item to its position within a set of prearranged codes, but in performative rules : rules of competence and use, of logics-in-use, which seek to enforce or prefer one semantic domain over another; and which rule items into and out of their appropriate meaning-sets. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 802

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of ‘performative rules’ as the mechanism of meaning enforcement.
• XREF: The ‘performative rules’ idea anticipates later work in reception studies and the negotiated decoding position. — connects to: Language enables conventions rather than being constituted by them. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 420; Performative utterances create states of affairs rather than merely describing them. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 83