I found Jay's clarification of ineffable meaning helpful and have been
wondering about relevant technology for probing it from systemic theory.
One avenue might involve work on instantiation (the manifestation of
system in text/process) as a cline - so we can think about meanings that
are made in just one text or part of a text, across a range of texts,
perhaps constituting something we want to call a register or a genre, and
then across a range of resgisters towards something we might think as
part of the system per se.
Another avenue would involve developing genesis theory, since all genesis
involves nonce meanings getting generalised. I was talking in terms of
phylogenesis above (evolution of meaning in the culture), but we could
look at development of meaning in the individual (ontogenesis), and study
how 'wizard's' meanings come to be shared with apprentices. Or study
(logogenesis) how a single text comes to make a new meaning...
Another avenue might be to refine our topological analysis (getting away
from typological, categorical, valeur oriented descriprion), so that
there was a lot of topological system around, which might or might not
crystalise into system meaning that we are used to modelling typologically.
Finally, as for the relation of the semiotic to the material, maybe the
promising avenue here will be in the area of work in verbiage and image
systems...and how they interact.
All these ideas come from Jay into systemic theory anyhow, so won't be
news to him. More just a probe for elaboration...
Jim