A Theory Of Language
To
what degree are human beings governed by the language they use? Is our
freedom of choice restricted or in any way regulated by the language we
speak and write? It is to these questions this little essay is
addressed. As an inevitable consequence, other questions arise from any
answers found but this is merely an integral facet of the learning
process and one for which I would not exchange any oracle who could tell
me what I wished to know for, it must be appreciated, a mind released
from the necessity of application to the cutting edge of the learning
process is a mind dulled and blunted through insufficient use.
I shall therefore turn first
to the ‘Theory Of Language’ by Saussure. The account of this tract
given by Jonathan Culler is fairly explicit and may literally appear to
require little further additional explanation; however, one should
perhaps focus upon some of the implications of the points raised which
Culler expounds for our thoughts and our ability to argue over a broad
spectrum of philosophical disciplines. I suggest we may discover that
his apparently simple remarks are apt to cause considerable
consternation in the face of our habitual modes of thought, influenced
in accordance by that modern western ethos of common sense. For a start,
why should we study Culler on Saussure when we might go directly to the
source and read Saussure himself? The answer to that is eminently
practical: because no book upon ‘the theory of language’ was
actually written by Saussure; it was compiled after his death by his
students from their own lecture notes. In addition to this, there has
been considerable dissent and disagreement as to the precise meaning of
certain passages at crucial points in the book. So, from out of
‘Saussures’ book’ there are a number of interesting ideas that
possess validity in themselves regardless of the authenticity of their
authorship.
When Culler gives us an
account of a linguistic sign he purposefully simplifies the description
in order to restrict his discussion to a particular ideal form of
arbitrary linguistic sign. However, this has a distinct disadvantage in
that it avoids key factors in Saussures’ work: linguistic signs are
only of one class in the repertoire of signifying systems of a culture,
since gestures, clothing and non-verbal behaviour (in fact, all that can
be seen, heard, smelt, tasted and felt) also qualify as signifying
systems. Also, there are various degrees of arbitrariness that are
bereft of sign systems as well as different kinds of signs - not only
onomatopoeia but proper names. For example, does ‘Nathan Coles’
signify in the same way as ‘cat’? The relation between a diagram of
a particular house itself seems less arbitrary than that between the
word (that is, the signifier) ‘house’ and the idea of a house. A
road-sign that indicates ‘left’ or ‘right’ seems less arbitrary
than do the words ‘turn left’ or ‘turn right’ even though we
have to learn to follow arrows that indicate a particular direction.
A sign in this sense is a
signifier (word) and that which is signified is the idea, concept or
meaning. This statement, although a little oversimplified, presents the
basic concept to which I shall add a few explanations. The meaning of
the word ‘sign’ does not usually include the meaning of the sign
under discussion. Culler and Saussure include both word and meaning when
the term ’sign’ is used. To know this is to avoid conceptual
confusion later on. Many words possess not only various often unrelated
meanings but different connotations that may even depend upon the
context at the time just as the meanings of certain words overlap and
form clusters in a similar manner. There are also those words with
identical sounds but different meanings: to, too, two; turn right, I am
right so I will write about a human right to perform a rite! We can now
appreciate that the initial sentence with which this section began was
schematic, simplified and abstract in an obviously idealised form.
Suffice to say that the signifier is a spoken or written word.
‘Signified’ presents more
of a problem of course. Engaged in a discourse on aardvarks and
asparagus I refer to a category (an idea or concept) that is present in
my mind as I pursue the debate, rather than have an actual aardvark
eating a spear of asparagus in my drawing room. It becomes even more
apparent that it is ideas or a concept to which I refer if I talk of
‘decency’ or ‘democracy’. That which is signified is not a
tangible object but a concept or idea. By this we can also say that
language is not nomenclature - a system by which to denote and attribute
names - but can we say what it is? There are various senses in which the
sign can be regarded as arbitrary, that is to say, not given by nature,
not caused or promulgated by any universal, intrinsic laws or reasons.
We are not genetically programmed to experience any specific combination
of sounds as being imbued with meaning; no special sounds exist that
possess a divine property of meaning although a brief digression here
must be excused simply because it is provocative.
The most common sound emitted
by anxious parents or partners of loved relations or friends under
duress through the threat of a perceived danger is a sibilant hiss
‘ssh’ which means ‘hush’ (itself almost an onomatopoeia),
‘quiet’ or ‘whisht’ (a Scottish form, again of an onomatopoeiac
nature) in all manner of heterogeneous cultures and societies throughout
the world. I suggest this is a genetic legacy from the days when the far
distant ancestors of humanity still had cause to fear such reptiles as
poisonous lizards and venomous snakes. However, this represents an
exception rather than a rule and in any case we deal here with a
structureless utterance, not a contrived word even though I admit that
in simplistic languages we may experience a difficulty in the
demarcation of a dividing line between what constitutes the abstract
verbal labels of words and their pre-civilised onomatoeiac ancestors. Of
course the words ‘aardvark’ and ‘asparagus’ will possess no
intrinsic meaning to a Japanese whose own words for this animal and this
vegetable would be devoid of meaning to us (probably more so since it is
generally true that he who speaks 3 languages is called
‘trilingual’, he who speaks 2 languages is called ‘bilingual’
while he who speaks just 1 language is called ‘English’).
The fact that different human
societies speak different languages is sufficient proof that the link
between signifiers and what is signified is arbitrary. During our normal
speech, to attribute certain sound combinations (which we call words) to
links which are ‘obvious’ appears to be natural yet this process is
as much an accident - an arbitrary one at that - of culture in Scotland
as it is in Japan. Words themselves do not possess any intrinsic
meaning; repeat a word - any word - many times in succession to yourself
and see how much meaning remains after you have uttered this word for
the thirtieth time. The signifier itself is arbitrary. We have seen that
no sound combination is inherently imbued with meaning but a signifier
can be said to be arbitrary in a more important, more abstract sense:
‘dog’ in English has only two meanings, our canine friends who may
repeatedly ‘dog’ us for food. No words of similar sound will
suffice: wog, fog and log will not conjure up the same animal in our
minds.
Our perception of meaning is
comprised of significant chains of sounds; there is no original
combination of meaningful sounds to which all other combinations are
related by virtue of similarities or differences. Signifiers are simply
relational or differential entities while, according to Saussure, there
is no transcendental signifier: ‘dog’ possesses its specific
meanings in English purely because it is unlike any other sound
combination so that it is related to every other English word due to its
position within the juxtaposed chains of difference. To summarise, there
are no solid or fixed words anywhere in our vocabulary - the words
possess their qualities of fragility and verisimilitude are by nature
transitory because they are culturally determined, that is, arbitrary
entities.
That which is signified is
also arbitrary, but this is an issue fraught with perplexity since it is
impossible to reach a state of universal agreement on the degree to
which various signified subjects are by nature arbitrary. Culler
expresses the notion that all signified entities are of an equally
arbitrary nature while it is clear that Saussure never intended to imply
that all signifieds are equally arbitrary. A strict empiricist would
state that we categorise the world and articulate reality simply because
the world and our reality present themselves to us in the pre-ordained
categories that we are wont to use so that therefore we as human beings
are not responsible for the existence of these categories at all.
However, different languages articulate the colour spectrum in various
modes so that there is no universally accepted concept of green-ness for
example. We experience green only because an arbitrarily demarcated
segment of the spectrum is, according to our senses, different from
other equally arbitrarily demarcated segments. Our language thus
articulates the continuous spectrum into arbitrary signified segments.
The interesting conclusion to
be drawn from all this is plainly that our language (and hence any of
our thoughts beyond mere sense experience) can never refer directly to
the external reality we perceive. Our language is thus little more than
a marsh of shifting sound combinations with transitory chains of
difference that clumsily address arbitrarily demarcated mental signified
entities. According to Culler each language articulates or organises the
world differently. Languages do not simply name existing categories,
they articulate their own. In this way it has been proved that language
is not a nomenclature. In order to appreciate this concept we are
required to utilise our ideas in a spatial manner so that we regard all
possible ideas in our minds as being akin to a vast undifferentiated
blank three dimensional space; our language then articulates that blank
space into ideas and concepts. This of course suggests that we cannot
possess or conceive of any ideas until language has inserted them into
our consciousness and since language is produced by culture, it is our
culture, in this sense, that does our thinking.
Does anyone find this rather
absurd? Surely our sense experience can distinguish between black and
white, dark and light, in the manner of intrinsic notions that exist
without the aid of language? Otherwise we state that pre-civilised
people, that is, people without language, were unable to make such
distinctions - which of course is ridiculous. Dogs know when the sun has
risen, after all. But although we know now that the words we use (black,
white, dog and so on) are totally arbitrary, that which is signified
must be directly related to our sense experience. That which is
signified cannot, then, be totally arbitrary, therefore there must be
degrees of arbitrariness. To quote the American philosopher Richard
Rorty: ‘The world does not speak, only we do; the world can, once we
have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs but
it cannot propose a language for us to speak - only human beings can do
that. The realisation that the world does not tell us what language
games to play should not, however, lead us to say that a decision which
to play is arbitrary nor to say that it is the expression of something
deep within us.”
While the individual sign is
arbitrary, there is a sense in which the signifying system as a whole is
not. The language we use can therefore be said to be inherently related
to the belief systems and reality maps we each possess, different from
each-other though they must inevitably be. Our cultural values are
equally related to past and existent relations of power within our
society. Expressions such as ‘fight like a man’, ‘scared as a
chicken’ and so forth, could make sense in no other context. It
remains an intriguing - perhaps even necessary - task for us to analyse
how the social fabric of the world and its relationships results in a
particular use of language for, if we are not content with or even
opposed to certain particular relationships, what can we do about them?
Andy Martin © 2003.
