I understand it is not easy to think people are choosing the type of grammar, lexis, tone of voice, gestures and so many other things as they speak. It just looks like it’s too many things to handle at the same time. Most of what we do when we communicate seems just the natural thing to do, as if that was the way to say that we want to communicate. For semioticias however, choice is at the core of every meaning production process. Take whatever aspect of language you want, there’s always a range of different possibilities available to the speakers, who make decisions, selecting the forms which will convey specific types of meaning. Because we live in society, there are ratified ways of reaching our communicative objectives. Ways, genres would be the more technical word, which by experience we know will arrange meaning and form so as to reach specific audiences, in specific types of context. You take someone who is making a public speech, as you said, yes, it’s hard to believe he is controlling every single aspect of the way he communicates, but there sure are MANY things which he would NEVER say there in front of those people. Then he is making choices! Maybe some of them have been made so many times, his brains doesn’t need to invest a lot of time on them, but yes, we make choices all the time.

Kress ideas on social semiotics are seductive in that are built within a nicely round coherent frame but reminds me of ‘positivism’ political theory a great deal in its emphasis on ‘interest driven’ forces.

I have few doubts that we humans almost always act compel by our own interest – afterall is part of the game of being alive, but the question remains: ¿what are those less than obvious interest? Most of the time they stay as hiden to our own perception than to that of others.

¿is the altuist always choosing the one word that best serves his ideals when in a public speech? ¿is he making the right election of syntax when in front of people he hates even though they may be the ones who have the most resources to grant to the cause? ¿is his interest acting in behalf of others or when in need his own interest come first? ¿is he even aware that his own interest is not always that of others?

One to many questions and no answers, I am afraid, like the one Kress gives the impression to be willing to uncover in his ‘discovery’ of human interest in the realization of all human actions.