If interpersonal meaning enacts social relations as meaning, then the next question is unavoidable:
what, exactly, does value do?
To answer this, we must maintain the same discipline applied in the previous post. We do not begin with metaphor, analogy, or inherited usage. We begin with function.
And the first constraint is decisive:
value is not a semiotic phenomenon.
It does not belong to the stratum of meaning. It is not realised through lexicogrammar. It is not organised metafunctionally. It does not operate as construal or enactment within a symbolic system.
Value operates in a different domain altogether.
Value as coordination, not representation
Where meaning—across all metafunctions—operates through symbolic resources, value operates as a system of coordination.
It governs how actions, tendencies, and orientations are distributed, stabilised, and regulated across a population of instances.
This coordination is not symbolic in itself. It does not require language, though it can be mediated, referenced, or negotiated through language. Its effects are not confined to what is said, but extend to what is done, what is avoided, what is repeated, and what is sustained over time.
In this sense, value is not about describing what matters.
value is what makes something matter in practice.
The dynamics of value
Value can be understood as a field of constraints and attractors shaping behaviour. It:
channels attention toward certain possibilities
stabilises patterns of response
biases action selection under conditions of uncertainty
distributes salience across available options
reinforces or inhibits particular trajectories of activity
These effects are not symbolic. They are not produced by signs as signs. They arise from the operation of value as a coordinating dynamic within social, biological, and environmental systems.
Language may participate in value processes, but it does not exhaust them.
Value and affect
One of the most immediate manifestations of value is affective:
attraction and aversion
satisfaction and dissatisfaction
comfort and discomfort
attachment and detachment
These are not meanings. They are not construed representations of internal states. They are experiential and regulatory dynamics that orient behaviour.
Affective responses often align with what is valued, but they are not reducible to the meanings through which those values may be expressed.
Value and normativity
Value also underlies normativity.
Norms are not merely statements about how things should be; they are stabilised patterns of coordination that persist through reinforcement, sanction, habituation, and expectation.
A norm:
persists because deviations carry consequences
stabilises because repeated compliance reinforces the pattern
coordinates behaviour across participants without requiring explicit articulation
Language can articulate norms, justify them, or challenge them. But the norm itself is not identical to its linguistic expression.
Value in social systems
Within social systems, value operates as a mechanism of alignment:
it synchronises behaviour across participants
it sustains shared orientations over time
it enables coordination without continuous negotiation
it embeds patterns of preference, aversion, and priority into collective activity
These processes can be partially described in language, but their operation extends beyond what is said. They are enacted through participation in ongoing systems of interaction, habit, and consequence.
A simple illustration
Consider again the situation:
a speaker says, “You should apologise.”
Interpersonal meaning has already been accounted for:
the utterance enacts a directive
encodes obligation
positions participants within an exchange
evaluates the act of apologising as appropriate
This is the semiotic organisation of the interaction.
Value, however, is what determines whether:
the obligation is felt as binding
the directive carries weight
compliance or resistance has consequences
alignment is reinforced or disrupted
These are not properties of the utterance as meaning. They are effects within a value system that includes social expectations, affective responses, institutional structures, and patterns of reinforcement.
Value does not interpret—it regulates
A key difference can now be stated clearly:
Meaning interprets, organises, and enacts relations symbolically
Value regulates, constrains, and coordinates activity non-symbolically
Value does not provide descriptions of what is the case. It does not encode propositions or enact exchanges. It operates by shaping what is likely, what is sustained, and what is resisted within a field of possible actions.
The limits of value
Because value is not semiotic, it has no intrinsic descriptive content. It cannot, by itself, be said to “mean” anything. It does not present itself as a system of signs.
This is important, because it prevents us from treating value as simply another kind of meaning.
If we do so, we lose the ability to distinguish between:
what is symbolically articulated
and what is dynamically operative
And it is precisely this distinction that allows us to analyse their interaction without collapsing them.
Where this leaves us
We now have two distinct domains:
Interpersonal meaning: the semiotic enactment of social relations as meaning within exchange
Value: the non-semiotic dynamics of coordination, regulation, and affect that make certain orientations matter in practice
Both are involved in social life. Both are tightly coupled in many contexts. But they are not the same kind of phenomenon.
Interpersonal meaning can position, evaluate, and negotiate alignment. Value determines whether those positions are taken up, sustained, resisted, or ignored—and with what consequences.
The relationship between them is therefore not one of identity, but of interaction.
The next step is to examine how that interaction gives rise to the persistent appearance of overlap—and why interpersonal meaning and value so often seem indistinguishable in practice.
Only then can we understand how belief emerges within this coupled system.
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