What is the Meaning of “Meaning”? A Case Study from Graphing

This article raises questions about the meaning of “meaning,” which often is understood in terms of the referent or interpretant (sense) of mathematical signs. In this study, which uses data from an interview study with scientists who were asked to read graphs from their own work, a different approach is proposed with the intent to contribute toward a more appropriate theory of meaning. I argue that graphs accrue to meaning—which always arises from already existing, existential understanding of the world more generally and the workplace in particular—rather than having or receiving meaning from some place or person. We experience graphs as meaningful exactly then when they are integral to a world that we already understand in an existential but never completely determinable way.