The alternative model An alternative model of communication

5. Developing an Alternative 219 generalizations important to linguists? The longevity of the model make it abundantly clear that it has. Many of the men and women who have used it for the last fifty years used it to great profit and with satisfaction. The point to be made here is this: The code model is not the only model of communication possible. If this is true, then one might reasonably ask a related question: How might the discipline of linguistics be different if linguists employed an alternative model of communication? Actually offering an alternative model is perhaps the most succinct way to point out that the code model is not the only way in which one might conceive of communication. It also involves great risk. As T. J. Tally points out, it is easy to offer criticism, “But if you want to end a war, you have to solve the problems the war solves, without the war” 1997 :4. In contrast to certain approaches considered in chapter 4 , which involved efforts to “patch up” the code model, an alternative model requires an effort to account for communication in a manner which is distinct from the code model account. Whereas the code model depends upon COMMUNICATION IS CODING EVENT , COMMUNICATION IS TRANSMISSION , and COMMUNICATION IS DECODING EVENT conceptual metaphors, the alternative model developed here depends on a COMMUNI- CATION IS CREATION conceptual metaphor, with artist-artifact components. It is important to highlight the artist-artifact components as being distinct from the transmitter-signal i.e., code model components of the code model metaphor. Without adequate distinction, the reader may too easy read the code model perspective back onto the alternative description. For some readers, this strong distinction may seem excessive. But as Brown, Black, and Horowitz wrote of their own efforts to explain an alternative perspective, “We forsake conservatism on this occasion for the excellent reason that the thesis proposed is so alien to most thinking … that it needs to be brought forward strongly so that we may see that its unpopularity has not been deserved” 1955 :272. A strong distinction must be made here, if only to make a distinction at all. It can be difficult to discuss the implications of an alternative model, particularly when alternative terminology is lacking. The metalanguage currently available has been employed in code model linguistics for almost fifty years. It can take considerable effort to overcome a pattern of expression so entrenched.

5.4.1. The alternative model

At least for the purposes of the present study, the model graphically presented in figure 5.2 serves as an alternative model. In an effort to avoid preferential representation of any particular revolutionary school of linguistics, the model will simply be called “the alternative model.” The model reflects the present author’s understanding of the interests and perspectives of revolutionary linguists addressed in this study. It should be under- stood, however, that the alternative model is not proposed as a replacement for the code model, but as an antithesis—an essential element in the evaluation and evolution of linguistic metatheory. Undoubtedly, other characterizations could also be developed which would serve a similar purpose. 220 5. Developing an Alternative In this graphic representation figure 5.2 , the interlocutors are represented by a circle and square. The speaker’s thoughts are concept A, while the hearer’s understanding is labeled concept A. Concept A may approximate concept A, but it is presumed that the two will never be identically the same. In this model, it is not supposed that words and structures have meaning, but that they have a history of use. 103 Speaker and hearer each maintain their own history of use collage, labeled collage. The triangle in the center represents the text. It is label “artifact,” as it is “an object made by human work” Neufeldt 1989 :24. Its creation and its interpretation are grounded in the context of that work. Once created, however, the text is an historical artifact. In that respect, it is auton- omous of the interlocutors. The history of use collage manages encyclopedic knowledge of artifact use which the interlocutors have experienced, both as hearers and as speakers. Figure 5.2. The alternative model of communication, as applied to monologue As the text is considered an artifact, the graphic representation does not connect the interlocutors with arrows, for there is no connection, by way of a communicative link or channel. The recycling arrows in the graphic representation represent a hermeneutic helix, insuring a feedback process and allowing for “the progressive modification of the communication situation through time” Harris 1987 :214. 104 The helices provide the interlocutors constant feedback as they work through simultaneous processes of 103 This author first heard the phrase “history of use” from R. J. Reddick 1995, personal communication. Unfortunately, neither this author nor Reddick are aware of the origins of the phrase. 104 Harris writes: The difference between a circuit model and a rectilinear model is the difference between a circle and a straight line. The difference between a circuit model and a helical model is the difference between a circle and a helix or spiral. Of these three types, only helical models Dance 1967a are formally appropriate to capture the dynamic or developmental aspects of speech communication. Circuit models can make no al- lowance for the progressive modification of the communication situation through time. For circles always lead back to an original point of departure. The only aspect of temporal progression a circuit model allows for is the time it takes for information to pass from one point in the circuit to another point, and the only aspect of modification allowed for is the alteration in the form of the signal as it passes from one section of the circuit to the next. Harris 1987 :214 5. Developing an Alternative 221 interpretation and creation, thereby providing a means of negotiating meaning and evaluating semantic equilibrium. 105 When speakers converse they each interpret the artifact the other has produced, as well as continually reevaluating i.e., interpreting the artifact they have themselves produced. These artifacts do not simply consist of language, but also incorporate the complete communicative and contextual environment, so that pragmatic concerns cannot be isolated from the concerns of discourse production and comprehension. Included in this is the fact that the hearer may interpret as being communicative various artifacts which the speaker had not intended to be a part of the communicative expression. As the hearer interprets the artifact, he assembles and revises the developing concept A by comparing it with his history of use collage. The degree to which the hearer con- siders an artifact to be normative or eccentric is determined by its comparison to the history of use collage. Concept A is linked to the history of use collage during concept development, but it does not have to exactly match any previous use in that collage. The collage is organized via prototypes, rather than a bounded-set category system. Accord- ingly, novel uses can be linked to existing prototypes. The edges and centers of the prototype structures are shifted as necessary to accommodate experience in language use. Modification occurs in response to swings in how the speech community produces and uses various communicative artifacts. History of use collages are distinctive and personal, as are the respective prototype structures they employ. A hearer and speaker may maintain very similar collages, but there is no guarantee of such. Since the collage is built and modified according to experience with various usage, speakers who communicate regularly with one another or who share an active, communicative network may maintain approximate equilibrium in their patterns of use. It is important to understand that this equilibrium can never be more than approx- imate. Since each use of a language structure occurs in a distinct socio-temporal context, even if the syntactic pattern is constant, the semantic association is distinct. 106 This 105 It is important to distinguish the notion of a hermeneutical helix from the idea of a hermeneutical spiral, as proposed by Osborne 1991 . The helix is intended to characterize the evolving communicative situation, as described by Dance 1967a . Osborne’s spiral, in contrast, is intended to characterize an exegete’s effort to increasingly purify understanding and hypotheses regarding authorial intention. Osborne writes: Scholars since the New Hermeneutic have been fond of describing a “hermeneutical circle” within which our interpretation of the text leads to its interpreting us. However, such a closed circle is dangerous because the priority of the text is lost in the shared gestalt of the “language event” …. A “spiral” is a better meta- phor because it is not a closed circle but rather an open-ended movement from the horizon of the text to the horizon of the reader. I am not going round and round a closed circle that can never detect the true meaning but am spiralling nearer and nearer to the text’s intended meaning as I refine my hypotheses and allow the text to guide my delineation of its significance for my situation today. Osborne 1991 :6 106 See Harris 1990 :47–48, where Harris discusses the necessity of a “principle of cotemporality.” Harris writes: This principle, which orthodox linguistics fails to recognize, is of basic importance if we wish to have a theory of language which can explain how and why communication invariably proceeds on the assumption that every linguistic act is integrated into the individual’s experience as a unique event, which has never before occurred and will never recur. Harris 1990 :48 222 5. Developing an Alternative creates a state of constant variation—often subtle, but nevertheless constant. The result of this constant variation is the continued evolution of individual history of use collages, so that no two collages ever match exactly. Accordingly, the patterns of use within the communicative network are always in a subtle state of imbalance and change. In applying the model, it is important to slightly differentiate monologue and dialogue. For ease of discussion, figure 5.2 characterizes a monologic situation. In representing dialogue, however, the model may be slightly recast, as is presented in figure 5.3 . In this representation, the intention is to emphasize dialogue as a corporately produced artifact. In dialogue interlocutors jointly contribute to creation of a dialogic artifact. The dialogue itself is an artifact, rather than dialogue being composed simply of sequential monologic events. Figure 5.3. The alternative model of communication, as applied to dialogue

5.4.2. Alternative model presuppositions