There can also be meaning that the author simply didn’t intend. In biblical interpretation, for instance, there have been many different (and conflicting!) interpretations given to texts that were written with a completely different intent. One reader reads the story of Adam and Eve as a text that supports feminism, another reader sees the opposite, and the original writer didn’t intend to give either meaning. But both readers still get those meanings from the text.
But that’s because the meaning is underdetermined, there is information (explicit meaning) within the texts that constraints the space of interpretations, but it still allows for several different ones.
How much the text is underdetermined is both a function of the text and of the reader, the reader may lack (as I said) cultural or idiosyncratic context, acquaintance with the object of reference; or the text (which is what provides the new information) being too short to disambiguate.
There can also be meaning that the author simply didn’t intend. In biblical interpretation, for instance, there have been many different (and conflicting!) interpretations given to texts that were written with a completely different intent. One reader reads the story of Adam and Eve as a text that supports feminism, another reader sees the opposite, and the original writer didn’t intend to give either meaning. But both readers still get those meanings from the text.
But that’s because the meaning is underdetermined, there is information (explicit meaning) within the texts that constraints the space of interpretations, but it still allows for several different ones.
How much the text is underdetermined is both a function of the text and of the reader, the reader may lack (as I said) cultural or idiosyncratic context, acquaintance with the object of reference; or the text (which is what provides the new information) being too short to disambiguate.