3. The Code Model Decoded 33
1. IDEAS OR MEANINGS ARE OBJECTS
.
2. LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS
.
3. COMMUNICATION IS SENDING
. Noting the intuitive satisfaction these metaphors and their related expressions endue,
Lakoff and Johnson comment:
In examples like these [selected from Reddy 1979
] it is far more difficult to see that there is anything hidden by the metaphor or even to see that there is a metaphor here at all. This is
so much the conventional way of thinking about language that it is sometimes hard to imagine that it might not fit reality. But if we look at what the
CONDUIT
metaphor entails, we can see some of the ways in which it masks aspects of the communicative process.
First, the
LINGUISITIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING
aspect of the
CONDUIT
metaphor entails that words and sentences have meaning in themselves, independent of any context or speaker. The
MEANINGS ARE OBJECTS
part of the metaphor, for examples, entails that meanings have an existence independent of people and contexts. The
part of the metaphor that says
LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING
entails that words and sentences have meanings, again independent of contexts and speakers. Lakoff and Johnson 1980
:11–12
For native speakers of English, at least, there should be no cause for debate regarding the pervasive nature of this metaphor. In the common vernacular the metaphor is
unequivocally the dominant means of expression regarding communication.
3.2.1.1. Diffusion of the conduit metaphor in linguistic thought and literature
Is the conduit metaphor an active conceptual metaphor in linguistic theorizing? Obviously it is still active in common language, and there is no reason to think it will
nor should become otherwise; however, its use in linguistic metalanguage and metatheory is another issue entirely. For example, consider common metaphors used by
natural scientists. The metaphors “sun rise” and “sun set” are good examples. English speaking astronomers most surely use these metaphors in everyday speech. But what sort
of astronomy would have developed if they persisted, even unwittingly, in using these metaphors in constructing their theories? Needless to say, there would be certain
paradoxes that theories so formed would never be able to handle. And this was exactly the situation before Copernicus and subsequently Galileo identified anomalies and
proposed a new explanation for the solar system.
For some familiar with Reddy’s argument, the conduit metaphor is readily recognized and its use considered passé. For example, Gary Palmer writes:
The conduit metaphor, by now something of a straw man, construes linguistic meaning as consisting of discrete, stable objects contained in words and sent from speaker to hearer. But
the model is surely wrong, because, as Langacker 1987
:162 pointed out, “nothing travels from speaker to hearer except sound waves.”
Palmer 1996 :39; also see
Langacker 1991 :508
While Palmer may be well acquainted with arguments concerning the metaphor, it is difficult to evaluate just how broadly such awareness extends through the linguistic
34 3. The Code Model Decoded
community. As Palmer concedes, the model is still found in textbooks of communication 1996
:162. Incorporated within the code model, it is also still found in textbooks of linguistics and in linguistic instruction see again section
2.4 . And, as Reddy suggests, it
sometimes finds its way into the literature unannounced, even in the work of those who would prefer that it be exiled see
Reddy 1979 :298–299. The conduit metaphor is such a
part of idiomatic English that, “Practically speaking, if you try to avoid all obvious conduit metaphor expressions in your usage, you are nearly struck dumb when
communication becomes the topic” Reddy 1979
:299. Undoubtedly, it is employed numerous times even in this very discussion
The conduit metaphor has an unmistakable presence in many of the code model quotations provided above. As a means of illustrating explicit use of the model within
linguistics, additional examples are offered here. Here is one example, wherein Sapir discusses the relationships of language and
literature:
Languages are more to us than systems of thought transference. They are invisible garments that drape themselves about our spirit and give a predetermined form to all its symbolic
expression. Sapir 1921
:221
This particular quotation demonstrates a type of conduit metaphorism sometimes referred to as ‘telementation’, that is, “thought-transference”
Harris 1990 :26, also see
1987 :205. Telementation metaphorisms have often accompanied the conduit metaphor.
The following two quotations are both from a 1970 volume by Wallace Chafe.
Language enables a speaker to transform configurations of ideas into configurations of sounds, and it enables a listener within his own mind to transform these sounds back into a reasonable
facsimile of the ideas with which the speaker began. Chafe 1970
:15 The conversion of meanings into sounds allows humans beings to transfer ideas from one to
another. Chafe 1970
:16
In more recent years the conduit metaphor has seldom seen such explicit expression, typically being combined with information theoretic terminology, rather than occurring
independently as is seen in these quotations. As Reddy anticipates, the conduit metaphor exerts subtle pressure on much of
linguistic theorizing see Reddy 1979
:302–303. This is not to suggest that theoreticians are incapable of thinking in other terms, but, rather, that there is a “gravitational pull” in
the direction of the conduit metaphor. As Reddy cogently states: “I do not claim that we cannot think momentarily in terms of another model of the communication process. I
argue, rather, that that thinking will remain brief, isolated, and fragmentary in the face of an entrenched system of opposing attitudes and assumptions”
Reddy 1979 :297–298.
Lakoff and Johnson offer helpful commentary on this type of relationship via their discussion of how we understand new metaphors. They suggest that new or uncon-
ventional metaphors gain intuitive value in two ways and often through combination of the two:
3. The Code Model Decoded 35
1. By evoking, at least in part, a conventional metaphor which is already accepted as being true
2. By suggesting an alternative description which, while novel, can be readily identified as fitting a possible world
Lakoff and Johnson 1980 :172–175
Because of its overwhelming status as a means of expression in the common vernacular, the conduit metaphor carries tremendous intuitive value. That intuitive value
is readily referred to new metaphors such as information theory, provided the new metaphor may be easily rewritten or interpreted in conduit-metaphor terms. As will be
discussed, such a rewriting is readily observable in some applications or perhaps it would be better to say misapplications of information theory.
3.2.2. Saussure’s speech circuit
