For instance we could say that dwelling places like house, mansion, hut and villa, as individual words, are possible or take on their meaning only by not being the other. Meaning emanates from a system of difference. This view of language and interpretation started with Saussure and reached its most radical enunciation in the work of Jacques Derrida. Language is non-referential and does not refer to any fixed entity in this world in an independent object. This has considerable philosophical implications. According to Barker language is a central feature of Cultural Studies. It is both the means and medium through which meaning and significance emanate. It is a vehicle of the production of meaning and if we have to understand culture which is like a language (because it operates through a system of difference, through signifying practices) we have to consider it as a language.

Language is both constitutive of culture and at the same time the site of culture. Culture is like a language or culture happens in language because culture is also defined as maps of meaning. The parallel between language and culture is well established in Cultural Studies.