208 5. Developing an Alternative
this problem is a major reason why code model linguists have typically found it difficult to explore language structures above the sentence level.
Many linguists attempt to accommodate the problem of discourse with some version of notional structure, which is supposed to operate alongside or “above” the surface
structure see Longacre 1983
. Circular logic is sometimes employed, however, in that code model linguists see the text as “containing” meaning. In this way, the text is
presumed to be speaking for itself. With this view, the notional structure is characterized as being represented in the text.
Of course, the surface structure of the discourse text is simply “a string of beads,” that is, it is no more than a sequence of sound waves or “little dark marks”
Sperber and Wilson 1986
:1, see Reddy 1979
. The relationship between the beads and the plan for how those beads are strung and what they are intended to “mean” is something that the
linguist, as a sophisticated hearer or reader, must somehow infer. R. J. Reddick writes:
What the text then does is trigger what is already in the mind of [the] interpreter, and thus the text will automatically seem clear. If they are not already familiar, all that the text can do is
trigger inferences in the interpreter’s mind that might enable that interpreter to construct those ideas, provided that what is in the text triggers the right inferences from the interpreter’s pre-
existing ideas. It is easy for us to assume, erroneously, that everyone brings the same ideas to any particular text, and this assumption blinds us to the diversity among readers.
Reddick 1992
:218
Various schools of thought have been developed for accounting for how the hearer and reader work through this process of inference and comprehension, including how
embedded elements discourse markers, deictics, and so forth are processed in compre- hension. Various theories also attempt to account for how the speaker or writer “plan”
and produce the text.
5.2.4.1. Revolutionary responses to the problem of discourse
As do some code model linguists, revolutionary linguists see language as naturally functioning in discourse contexts. But in contrast to code model-oriented discourse
studies, revolutionary linguists typically resist not only the extraction of sentences from discourse, but also the extraction of discourse from context of use. Of course, there is a
practical limitation in the scope of application. While some discourses may have rather expansive contexts, most will be more limited. In practice, then, the discourse units
handled in revolutionary approaches are analogous to those handled by linguists employing a code model-oriented approach. The difference is in how the linguist views
the processes of discourse production and comprehension.
Whereas code model linguists typically think of the text as being meaningful, revolutionary linguists describe the text as being used in a meaningful way. The text does
not have meaning of its own. Rather, it is employed in a meaningful way by the speaker, and understood in a meaningful way by the hearer. However, the manner in which they
understand that text may be different. Revolutionary linguists recognize that the text itself, once spoken, is autonomous from the speaker. It is also autonomous from the
5. Developing an Alternative 209
hearer. The speaker’s and hearer’s processes of production and comprehension, however, are grounded in context.
Another difference between revolutionary and code model-based approaches to discourse is that, rather that seeing the text as being composed of coded segments with
gaps, revolutionary linguists see the text as being related to a conceptual unit, rather than simply a unit which would have been more traditionally been considered “linguistic.” For
example, cognitivists envision the text as being related to and organized via schema. The speaker’s goal in producing the text then, is to stimulate the hearer to conceive of a
particular scheme. Within such a view, the fact that gaps exist between respective sen- tential strings may then be comparatively insignificant, since the manner in which the
strings relate to the schema may be more significant than how the strings are supposedly related to one another.
This notion of schema is, of course, related to the idea of notional structure. For the revolutionary linguist, however, the schema exist in the mind of the speaker and hearer.
They are not in the text. The notion of schema may also seem to bear resemblance to the notion of shared
knowledge. The two notions are not equivalent, however, in that it is not presumed that speaker and hearer will necessarily comprehend the text according to the same schema.
In this way, the revolutionary linguist emphasizes the process of comprehension, rather than the “meaning” of the text.
5.3. Other models
As was addressed briefly in chapters 3
and 4
, the code model and its constituent models are not the only models or metaphors of communication recorded in the literature;
however, they are the most pervasive within linguistic literature. This section provides a cursory review of additional models and metaphors. It should be noted that some of them
depend upon the code model or are otherwise related to it in some way.
The study examines these models from the perspective of linguistic concerns and the present study of the code model. Where relevant, the study address how the models
would handle particular code model anomalies.
5.3.1. Mechanistic models
Ronald Langacker has provided some discussion of metaphors in linguistic metatheory, including the container and conduit metaphors as addressed by Reddy and
reviewed by Lakoff and Johnson 1980
; also see Johnson 1987
; Lakoff 1987
; Moore and
Carling 1982 . Langacker also mentions the dictionary view and the building-block
metaphor see Langacker 1987
:161, 1991
:507–508:
The conduit metaphor dovetails with the dictionary view of lexical semantics, which holds that a word’s linguistic meaning is strictly limited and distinct from general knowledge, and
also with the building-block metaphor, wherein the meaning of a complex expression is
