202 5. Developing an Alternative
which corresponds to the generated structure. It cannot account for what may be called the “metamorphosis” of meaning in any way whatsoever.
A model of language and communication which cannot account for this fact is an inadequate model. While Saussure may have considered a notion of fixed meaning to be
a requirement of an objectivist view of language and a logical condition for the syn- chronic enterprise, it is nevertheless a theoretical fallacy.
5.2.3.1. The problem of intention
As one might anticipate, the issue of intentionality, that is, the speaker’s intention regarding “meaningful” discourse, is closely related to the general problem of meaning.
Again, the problem is not new. One of the more entertaining expressions of the conflict appears, to the delight of both children and linguists, in Lewis Carroll’s Through the
Looking Glass.
In an often quoted passage, Carroll writes:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Carroll 1960
:269
According to the code model perspective, in communication the speaker simply selects the word which means what he intends. Assuming he is speaking to a fellow
member of his speech community, who thereby shares with him the code defining the intrinsic semantic interpretation of each sentence see
Chomsky and Halle 1968 :3, then
the hearer should understand the sentence in the same manner as did the speaker. Note that the problem of discourse will be addressed below. But what if the hearer does not
understand the sentence in the manner in which the speaker intends? How is the code model to account for this? As explained early in this study, a strict application of the
model can only attribute the phenomenon to one of two factors:
1. The communicators in fact do not share copies of the code. 2. Noise has interrupted the signal.
Of course it is possible to be distracted by physical noise, or by wandering attention, which may also be considered noise; however, the noise clause will simply not cover this
problem, at least not when it is applied to normal human communication. The idea of noise is borrowed from information theory, which handles noise by either circum-
navigation or by statistical compensation for the damaged signal. In human communication, the speaker and hearer can be sitting side by side in a sound proof room,
the speaker can say the sentence one hundred times in order to compensate for poor attention, and the hearer may still understand the sentence differently than the speaker
intended. One could attribute the problem to differing code, but the problem may persist even with a married couple celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. At what point, then,
should the linguist suggest that the problem is attributable to differing codes, particularly when such a suggestion implies that the communicators do not share a speech
5. Developing an Alternative 203
community? Strictly speaking, the model cannot satisfactorily and consistently account for the hearer having understood the signal differently than the speaker intended.
Stated in Lewis Carroll’s terms, in the code model-view of meaning, Humpty Dumpty never has the prerogative of using a word or expression in a novel way. The
words are the master, and not the man see Carroll 1960
:269. As Saussure expresses it:
A language, as a collective phenomenon, takes the form of a totality of imprints in every- one’s brain, rather like a dictionary of which each individual has an identical copy. Thus it is
something which is in each individual, but is none the less common to all. At the same time it is out of the reach of any deliberate interference by individuals.
Saussure 1983 :[38]
5.2.3.2. The problem of context
