1. Since a basic definition is always ostensive, and since ostensive definition can only offer family resemblance likeness in the formation of universals, the first language learned by a person must always be a vernacular language where family resemblance is the unifying factor in all universals.
2. After a vernacular language has been mastered, essential definitions can be constructed, thus making technical languages possible.
3. For a symbol system to be a language, there must be:
- a. A community of persons who have a need or opportunity to cooperate.
- b. A common physical context (to make primitive ostensive definitions possible).
- c. A set of signals (phonemes, letters, gestures, etc.)
- d. A defining procedure (ostensive plus other definitions).
- e. A lexicon: a set of defined signals.
- f. A syntax: a set of typical patterns of word and sentence formation.
- g. A rhetoric: a set of typical patterns of sentence usage in conversation and writing.
- h. A social structure for identifying and rewarding “correct” usage and for identifying and penalizing “incorrect” usage.
4. Mastery of a language is the ability to use it correctly (typically) for all purposes, satisfying the social structure which rewards and penalizes usage.
5. Once they have mastered a language, some persons who are leaders expand the typical patterns by introducing new symbols with old meanings, new symbols having new meanings, new meanings for old symbols, new syntactical arrangements, new defining procedures, and new social support structures. This atypical use of language is the occasion for the growth of knowledge, change in values, and the drift of language.
6. Language is a technology, the most important technology known to man. It is thus an instrument of power. It enables men to:
- a. share good things with others (righteousness),
- b. dominate others (unrighteousness), and
- c. fill up time (phatic use of language).
7. Principles of language use:
- a. Radical utility. Usefulness shapes and controls the nature of every language in every aspect.
- b. Indeterminacy. Any linguistic structure can be used to mean anything by any person.
- c. Typicality. For any given language in a given time/place/culture there is a pattern of typical phonetic, semantic, syntactic and rhetorical usage, the mastery of which makes one a full-fledged member of that language community. Non-typical usage is simply error.
- d. Atypicality. One who has mastered a language can then use it atypically with great power. Atypicality must be very close to typicality to have power. When one uses language atypically, one is attempting to assume a leadership role. (Any given population is susceptible to the atypicality of leaders because there are always unfulfilled desires. The leader raises the hope of fulfilling those unfulfilled desires by leading the group to the “promised land.”)
- e. Parsimony. When language is used for sharing or control, efficiency is important: language tends to be lean, spare, nothing unnecessary. When language is used phatically, parsimony is undesirable.
- f. Ellipsis. No speaker can express all he means in any finite discourse. The meaning of any utterance is ultimately the total universe of the speaker.
- g. Entropy. There is always a loss of information from speaker to hearer in any natural language transaction.
- h. Integrality. As persons have four parts, so meaning has four parts: heart, might, mind and strength. The whole person speaks in every linguistic usage.
- i. Attraction. The community using a given language grows (in relation to rival languages) in proportion to the relative utility of that language.
- j. Generality. A pattern of typicality in a language is more widespread the more large segments of the population have common linguistic experience. (E.g., television is a powerful establisher of typicality.)
- k. Diversity. The more a sub-population desires to separate itself from a community, the more its typical language patterns will differ from that of the community from which it wishes to separate itself. Examples of the need for diversity: 1) professional jargon; 2) preventing “out” persons from penetrating an “in” group.