If ideational meaning exposes phenomena to construal, interpersonal meaning exposes meaning to social reality.
It is not about feelings. It is not about attitude. It is not about values. It is about readiness under pressure — the conditions under which meaning can be said, received, accepted, or resisted.
Interpersonal meaning is the cut through which language becomes socially consequential. It actualises:
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Uptake: who can say what, and under what conditions it will be noticed.
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Obligation: what risks are incurred by saying it, or by remaining silent.
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Social sanction: the uneven distribution of power that determines whether meaning holds or fails.
This is a vulnerability surface: meaning can exist, but it may go unheard, be contested, or be silenced. Ideational readiness alone does not guarantee social traction.
Key points of this cut:
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It does not prescribe values. Meaning is exposed to values; it is not made of values.
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It is not about psychology. Readiness under risk is not inclination or desire. It is capacity to operate under uneven social conditions.
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It is not reducible to ideational meaning. One can construe phenomena perfectly, and still fail socially. One can survive ideational collapse, but not interpersonal collapse.
Think of it this way: the field of potential meanings exists, ideationally prepared. Interpersonal meaning is the pressure test. Some meanings pass; others fail. It is where language negotiates its existence in the presence of others.
The danger of misreading this cut is profound. If interpersonal meaning is psychologised, we collapse readiness into affect. If it is conflated with ideology, we mistake social conditioning for the conditions of meaning itself. This would obscure the very locus of risk where meaning becomes consequential.
In the next post, we will examine textual meaning: the cut that sustains meaning across time and interaction, ensuring that what survives ideational and interpersonal pressures can persist.
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