overcoding

The use of established codes to take on new meanings, often thereby obscuring distinctions.

The reason lies in the peculiar efficacy of the state in utilizing overcoding and rendering its principles and categories society-wide.

Stylistic and ideological conventions are examples of such rules used in overcoding.

An instance of overcoding.

Identification of the semantic status of overcodings is a necessary preliminary to translation because it serves to identify those inferences which it will be necessary to supply in the shape of informal translation (in this case, in the shape of supplementation of the formal translation).

Representation is established through successive overcodings, and the meaning of a phenomenon is given by the dominant overcoding, through a process of one code (or signifier) replacing another.