coinstance

— Notice in particular the semantic relation which is set up between 'negative culture' and being 'totally suspicious' of change, 'looking for the rip-off', trying to 'get one over on them', 'demarcation lines', 'inflexible' and 'destructive'. We can see this as the texturing of a semantic relation of 'meronymy', i.e. a relation between the whole ('negative culture') and its parts. No dictionary would identify such a semantic relation between these expressions — the relation is textured by the manager. We can attribute this meaning-making to the manager as a social agent. And notice what the making of meaning involves here: putting existing expressions into a new relation of equivalence as co-instances of 'negative culture'. The meaning does not have a pre-existing presence in these words and expressions, it is an effect of the relations that are set up between them (Merleau-Ponty 1964).