3. The Code Model Decoded 75
describe. When such models are based upon an analogy, the strength of this character- ization is further limited by the quality of the comparison made. Shannon had recognized
human communication to be a complex process, but for his purposes had factored out elements which were not pertinent to his study of electronic transmission and reception.
Linguists adopting Shannon’s description without its associated theory were, at best, inadvertently subjecting the problem of human communication to reductionism.
3.3. Integrating the constituent models
Chapter 2
cited a selection of appeals to the code model. This section addresses the integration of the three constituent models by documenting several types of appeals:
1. Quotations which inadvertently appeal to two of the constituent models in addressing a single issue
2. Quotations which address one of the constituent models while employing terminology from another
3. Quotations which purport to discuss one or another of the constituent models, but do so via an appeal to the code model
Each of these types of appeal demonstrate willingness to fuse the models. In addition, some appeals demonstrate a naïveté regarding the distinctive qualities of the constituent
models. This does not mean, however, that all of the theoreticians quoted are even aware that they are appealing to multiple models.
3.3.1. Saussure’s speech circuit and the conduit metaphor
It should be clear at this point in the discussion that Saussure employed a translation model in developing the speech circuit model of communication. In addition to its being
a translation model, Harris notes that it is also a transmission model. Accordingly, it borrows apparent plausibility from the conduit metaphor. Harris writes:
The first point to note is that the speech-circuit model is a transmission model. It represents communication as involving passage through a succession of phases arranged in linear
progression along a track or pathway. In this succession there are no gaps. The process is envisaged as a continuous journey or transfer of information from one point in space to
another point in space: that is, from a location in A’s brain to a location in B’s brain or, in the reverse direction, from B’s brain to A’s. Now a model of this kind undoubtedly receives much
support from numerous expressions used in everyday speech to describe the processes of com- munication. For example, ideas are said to be put into words; words are exchanged; verbal
messages are put across or got over, sent or passed on; and eventually received and taken in. This way of talking about communication as transmission has been described as ‘the conduit
metaphor’
Reddy 1979 , and it is a metaphor with extensive ramifications in various
European languages. The influence of this metaphor in predisposing us to accept any transmission model of speech as plain ‘common sense’ is not to be underestimated.
Harris 1987
:213–214; underscore added
It is interesting to note that Locke, upon whom Saussure relies, actually employed the term conduit in describing communication. He also extends the basic conduit
76 3. The Code Model Decoded
metaphor, speaking of an “ill use of language” as a breaking or stopping of “the pipes.” Locke writes:
For Language being the great Conduit, whereby Men convey their Discoveries, Reasonings and Knowledge, from one to another,
he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the Fountains of Knowledge, which are in Things themselves; yet he does, as much
as in him lies, break or stop the Pipes, whereby it is distributed to the publick use and advantage of Mankind.
Locke 1975 :Book III, Chapter 11, Section 5; italics added
3.3.2. The conduit metaphor and information theory
