Cultural Function and Meaning

Gracia ultimately argues for a “cultural function” view of meaning. Cultural function goes beyond other factors that play a role in determining meaning “in that it establishes which of those factors take precedence over the others, and whether they are given any role in the determination of meaning.”

For Gracia, “The cultural function of X within a culture is the use to which X is put in that culture. The culture is the complex system of values, customs, beliefs, and social norms that regulate activities within the community that has the culture, and the community is the group of people involved. Cultural function, then, needs to be distinguished from both the culture and the community. It should also be distinguished from audiences, which consist of any persons with actual or potential access to the text . . . . Likewise, the context of a text is much broader than the cultural function it has in a particular culture, since it includes anything that can affect its meaning.”