176 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
patterns, but rather, syntax reflects patterns of conceptual structuring of semantic units represented in the expression.
Langacker writes:
Grammar is claimed to be ‘symbolic’ in nature. Only symbolic units form-meaning pairings are held necessary for the description of grammatical structure. Thus all valid
grammatical constructs are attributed some kind of conceptual import. Rather than being autonomous in regard to semantics, grammar reduces to the structuring and symbolization of
conceptual content. Langacker 1994
:592
4.4.2.2.3. The attentional view
The attentional view is similarly concerned with how the information in a clause is selected and arranged. This view is “based on the assumption that what we actually
express reflects which parts of an event attract our attention” Ungerer and Schmid
1996 :xiii. The attentional view attempts to explain why one stage of an event is
expressed in a sentence while other stages are not. The attentional view builds upon the idea of frames. “A frame is an assemblage of
the knowledge we have about a certain situation e.g., buying and selling. Depending on where we direct our attention, we can select and highlight different aspects of the frame,
thus arriving at different linguistic expressions. Although elementary types of frames, for instance the ‘motion event-frame’, are presumably shared by all human beings, they are
expressed in different ways in different languages …”
Ungerer and Schmid 1996 :xiv.
The prominence and attentional views to some extent reflect competing objectives in conceptual structuring, so that both are involved. “Taken together, prominence and
attention allocation seem to be no less relevant for syntactic analysis than the rule-based description of logical grammars”
Ungerer and Schmid 1996 :xiii.
4.4.2.2.4. Experientialist philosophy
As Lakoff 1987
and Lakoff and Johnson 1980
, 1999
discuss, cognitive linguistics is based upon experientialist philosophy. They give considerable attention to the develop-
ment of experientialist philosophy as opposing objectivist philosophy. For the purposes of this study, the more relevant contrast is that between experientialist linguistics and
objectivist linguistics. Concerning objectivist linguistics, Lakoff and Johnson
1980 write:
[In the view of objectivist linguistics] Linguistic expressions are objects that have properties in and of themselves and stand in fixed relationships to one another, independently of any person
who speaks them or understands them. As objects, they have parts—they are made up of building blocks …. Within a language, the parts can stand in various relationships to one
another, depending upon their building-block structure and their inherent properties. The study of the building-block structure, the inherent properties of the parts, and the relationship among
them has traditionally been called grammar.
Objectivist linguistics sees itself as the only scientific approach to linguistics. The objects must be capable of being analyzed in and of themselves, independently of contexts or the way
people understand them. As in objectivist philosophy, there are both empiricist and rational
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 177
traditions in linguistics. The empiricist tradition, represented by the latter-day American struc- turalism of Bloomfield, Harris, and their followers, took texts as the only objects of scientific
study. The rationalist tradition, represented by European structuralists such as Jakobson and American figures like Sapir, Whorf, and Chomsky, viewed language as having mental reality,
with linguistic expressions as mentally real objects.
Lakoff and Johnson 1980 :204–205
It should be clear that the tradition to which Lakoff and Johnson refer is not simply an objectivist position. It also has considerable overlap with the tradition and constella-
tion of commitments identified in this study as the Saussurean paradigm. As one might anticipate, the experientialist philosophy Lakoff and Johnson espouse,
when applied to the problem of language and communication, is reminiscent of John Locke’s experientialist philosophy and his discussion of language and communication
see again sections 3.2.2.2.1
and 3.2.2.2.3
. Locke did employ a theory of signs, but he did not consider human understanding or human communication to be a secure and
constant affair. Indeed, as Harris and Taylor 1997
:137 explain, Locke’s conception of language introduces “serious, explicitly reasoned worries about the capacity of language
to serve as an adequate vehicle for the telementational communication of ideas.” As a result of embedded conduit metaphorisms, the code model can be described as a telemen-
tational i.e., “thought transferring” view of communication. See again section
3.2.1.1 ;
also Harris 1990
:26, 1987
:205. In Locke’s view, words and ideas i.e., concepts were linked, but not securely.
Furthermore, the various members in a speech community could employ somewhat different ideas, even though they employed the same words. Accordingly, as Locke saw
it, communication could not be objective, but neither was it entirely subjective. In his view as a corpuscularian, primary sensations were accurate representations of reality. In
this way, communication was partially grounded in reality, but only partially. The secondary sensations and the various complex constructions built up from them made
human understanding and thereby communication less than reliable. See again section
3.2.2.2.3 .
Saussure borrowed the basic form of Locke’s model of communication, but in contrast to Locke, his notion of the sign solidified the relationship of concept and sound
pattern. Also in contrast to Locke, Saussure proposed that langue was not subject to change nor was it variable between individuals in a speech community. Furthermore, it
was fixed only by internal values. As a system it was presumed to stand entirely independent of any extralinguistic contexts.
86
Of course, neither Lakoff, Johnson, nor Langacker share Locke’s corpuscularian viewpoint; nevertheless, there are certain elements of that perspective that they do share
with Locke. Like both Saussure and Locke, cognitivists maintain a theory of signs, so that meaning and form are related. But in contrast to the Saussurean position, they share
with Locke the idea that the relationship of meaning and form is variable, and that it is
86
As will be discussed in section 5.2.1, Saussure did understand language change and variation. And yet, for the theoretical and rhetorical purposes of synchronic linguistics, he proposed a fixed langue.
178 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
dependent upon the experience of the individual. Also in contrast to Saussure, they share with Locke the view that language is grounded, if only partially, in experience, and that
the language user can build up complex expressions by making extensions from simpler, basic expressions.
Considering the position taken by these cognitivists, one could almost anticipate what sort of response they might have to the code model of communication. In fact, they
do make such a response, although in the absence of an adequate analysis of the code model and its constituents. Accordingly, they direct their attention toward the conduit
metaphor, not recognizing that the conduit metaphor is simply a constituent of the code model. Their rejection of the code model is nevertheless clear.
87
Lakoff and Johnson write:
Within objectivist linguistics and philosophy, meanings and linguistic expressions are independently existing objects. Such a view gives rise to a theory of communication that fits
the CONDUIT metaphor very closely:
Meanings are objects. Linguistic expressions are objects.
Linguistic expressions have meanings in them. In communication, a speaker sends a fixed meaning to a hearer via the linguistic expression
associated with that meaning.
On this account it is possible to objectively say what you mean, and communication failures are matters of subjective errors: since the meanings are objectively right there in the words,
either you didn’t use the right words to say what you meant or you were misunderstood. Lakoff and Johnson 1980
:206
Later in their discussion, Lakoff and Johnson comment:
When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another
by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is
negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility
in bending your world view and with luck and skill and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.
Lakoff and Johnson 1980 :231–232
87
While going to some length to develop new terminology appropriate to his theory, Langacker does retain some code- model terminology. For example, he frequently employs the term “encoding.” However, he does slightly alter the
definition see the glossary in Langacker 1987
:485–494:
coding, and the coding problem
The relation between linguistic units and usage events; the coding problem is to find an appropriate target structure that fits a sanctioning unit within some expected range of
tolerance. cf., target structure Langacker 1987
:487
target structure
The object of comparison in a scanning operation. A solution to the coding problem. In a dependent structure seen as a “function,” the “output” of that function: the substructure
corresponding to the composite structure and determining its organization. Langacker 1987
:493
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 179
4.4.2.3. Integrationalists
