ABSTRACT
Representation (from Latin repraesentatio, repraesentare, “to bring to mind by description,” also “to symbolize, to be the embodiment of”) is a philosophical term for the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else (Mitchell, 1995). It can also be thought of as the production of meaning through language, for, as Hall (1997a ) points out:
we give things meaning by how we represent them—the words we use about them, the stories we tell about them, the images of them we produce, the emotions we associate with them, the ways we classify and conceptualize them, the values we place on them.
(p. 3)