The Meaning of Meaning

What we believe about words influences the ways in which we live our lives, what we think and say and do. Notice that I'm not referring to our uses of language: it's obvious that speaking, writing, listening, and reading have consequences for our lives. What I'm suggesting is rather less apparent: attitudes we have, assumptions we make, beliefs we hold, mostly tacit and unexamined, about what language can do for us, how language works, its connections to the world, the reliability of meaning, the truth-value of different kinds of statements, all affect our lives just as much as, and perhaps even more deeply than, our actual usage. Anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir, known for his insights into the relativity of representation across languages, argued the error of supposing that "one adjusts to reality without the use of language" and insisted that the "real" world is "to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits" of different groups of people. No two languages, he writes, "are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality" (Sapir 1964, 69). Sapir's observations in linguistics (the study of language) are pertinent also for rhetoric (the study of discourse). That is, what he argued regarding different assumptions about words and reality in different languages anticipates similar distinctions among the multiple, complexly interwoven discourses, or communication practices, that compose social experience in any one language — domestic discourses (the verbal routines of everyday life), religious discourses, scientific, legal, political, medical, artistic, educational, scholarly, and other discourses. These discourses are themselves different worlds of words, albeit within a single language, and they feature, some more self-consciously than others, not just distinct vocabularies, syntactic styles, and registers, but different views of what C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (1923) called "the meaning of meaning" — how things are named, what (if anything) is to be regarded as reliably "true," what counts as "proof," how the literal is distinguished from the figurative, who can speak authoritatively, what knowledge is and how it's achieved, and myriad other questions. In the most self-conscious of these discourses — religious, legal, or scholarly, for example — one commonly finds competing rhetorical theories vying for authority, with significant consequences attending the ebb and flow of alternative points of view. Ask a Catholic and an Anglican theologian about their contrasting views of the doctrine of transubstantiation, or two lawyers about the "intent" of the framers of the US Constitution, or two literary critics about their readings of "Young Goodman Brown," and conflicts regarding not just meaning but also the meaning of meaning will be quickly apparent.

MEANING AND EVERYDAY LIFE

But let's begin more simply with the familiar discourses of everyday life and consider the tacit rhetorical assumptions of a couple of ordinary Americans whom I will call, for ease of reference, George and Louise. Friday morning, George comes down to breakfast and the newspaper, observes while pouring milk on his cornflakes that the carton says "sell by September 15," which was two days ago, and, fearing the milk may be spoiling, plays safe and empties the carton in the sink. He reads a front-page story on a bond proposal to fund new buildings in his local school district and accepts the objectivity of the report along with the display of evidence supporting the need for new taxes to pay for the borrowing. He's unhappy, however, about Hispanic "aliens" driving up enrollment, and also with school programs that seem to put "multiculturalism" ahead of learning English. Turning to the editorial page, he finds a piece on global warming to be mere opinion, unsubstantiated by facts, its author melodramatic, and decides to withhold judgment until dispassionate science quiets the noise of discordant voices. As for the ad on page 6 hawking "eye-catching cosmetics," he recognizes the manipulative play of words, smirks briefly at the ad's fictions of beauty and sexuality, which he knows were conjured for commercial advantage, and dismisses its claims.

Reaching his office building later in the morning, he glances at the sign in the elevator warning not to exceed a limit of twelve occupants, takes it as an engineer's appraisal, casually estimates the number of his fellow travelers, and rides confidently to his workplace. He spends part of his work time writing proposals to potential business customers that detail how his consulting firm can troubleshoot their management practices and present software solutions. He is confident that his statements are accurate, unbiased, clear, and true, as professional writing is supposed to be, and he trusts that the precision of the language will allow the document to have contractual force if his firm's bid is accepted. Arriving home that afternoon, he sorts his mail, saving a notice of jury duty in two weeks and throwing away a breathless proclamation that he has won a Caribbean cruise, not bothering to open the official-looking envelope. He listens to a phone message from his mother but dismisses her familiar complaint that he "never calls" as an unreasonable plea for attention. In the evening, he watches the televised hearing on a Supreme Court nominee, marking the candidate's views on the first and second amendments. Before bedtime, he amuses himself with a history of the Crimean war; he rarely reads novels and doesn't like poetry. First thing Saturday morning, George, a devout Catholic, goes to confession at his church, admits to the priest that he has failed recently to "keep holy the Sabbath day," and earnestly recites the requisite Hail, Marys and Our Fathers as penance, confident that he has been forgiven. On the way home, he notices a traffic sign saying "No U Turn." He makes a U turn anyway to park in front of his house, interpreting the meaning of the sign as "don't turn unless you're sure there is no oncoming traffic."

Louise follows similar routines, motivated (in part) by equally tacit, occasionally different, assumptions about language. She reads the sale date on the milk carton as an approximation only and decides to keep her milk, sees the bond issue article as an argument motivated by the political slant of the newspaper, and approves the global warming editorial, impressed by the urgency of the writer's prose. She glances at a letter to the editor in which the writer refers to Palestinian militants as "freedom fighters," a label with which she disagrees strenuously, believing that the militants are just plain terrorists. Like George, she sees a cautionary notice in her workplace elevator but regards it not as an example of engineering discourse but as a legal statement protecting the manufacturer from liability if the elevator fails when too fully loaded. She is skeptical about the safety of elevators and often climbs the stairs to her office. She spends...