ABSTRACT
aberrant decoding A concept from Umberto Eco, identifying a mismatch or asymmetry of meaning between sender (encoder) and receiver (decoder) of any message, from ancient art to contemporary media. Eco himself used the term in ‘a semiotic inquiry into the television message’, first published in 1965 in Italian, a pioneering attempt to apply semiotics to mass communication (Eco, 1972). He suggested that ‘aberrant decoding’ was an accident in pre-industrial societies, an exception from the expectation by speakers and artists that their own communities would normally ‘get’ what they were on about. There are four classes of exception to this rule:
People who didn’t know the language;
E.g. what meanings did the Greeks, and then everyone till Jean-François Champollion who first deciphered them, ascribe to Egyptian hieroglyphics?
People from future generations;
E.g. what meanings did medieval Christians ascribe to Greek and Roman art?
People from different belief systems;
E.g. what meanings do modern tourists ascribe to the stained glass windows of cathedrals like Chartres or the terra cotta warriors of Xi’an?
People from different cultures;
E.g. what meanings do settlers ascribe to Aboriginal art – and vice versa?
