1. Definition of language: Any patterned and normed set of assertion codes by which one being communicates with another.
Patterned: A finite set of standard projections which may be combined and recombined in a virtually infinite set of communications.
Examples:
- Written language: An alphabet, a syntax, a rhetoric
- Spoken language: Morphemes, a syntax, a rhetoric
Normed: Mutual agreement in a community of agents as to the definition of a pattern set. This establishes typical usage.
Example:
- Periodic table of the elements
- Dictionary
Assertion: Any communication of one being to another.
Example: A person speaks standard morpheme patterns in a standard syntax and rhetoric to communicate with others within his group.
Code: Medium for the physical projection of an assertion in a language.
Example:
- Regular spoken English
- Morse code
- Sign language
- Digital language
2. Kinds of language:
- a. English, French, American Sign Language.
- b. Body language (actions and appearance)
- c. Chemical triggers
- d. Concept language
3. Basic principle of language usage: Radical Utility: All language use is governed by the desire of individuals to communicate with (affect change in) their environment. The only limitation on language is that it work (that the individual achieves his desires). There are no necessary patterns, norms, codes or languages. Any individual may do anything he or she pleases with language. The only question is, does what is done further the desires of the individual or not?
4. Other principles of language use:
- a. All meaning is personal. No language pattern means anything. Meaning is always a function of the speaker or hearer but never of the connecting language link between speaker and hearer.
- b. All meaning is total. To get a full understanding of what a person means by a given communication one would need to understand his entire being: heart, might, mind and strength in the past, present and future.
- c. All language is abstract. All meaning is particular.
- d. There are two kinds of language in every culture:
- 1) Common sense language: Meanings are vague and general (family resemblance)
Example: I want to buy an apple tree. - 2) Technical: Meanings are relatively much more precise (essence)
Example: I want to buy a Stark Yellow Delicious on a Malling IX - e. No language usage should be self-referential. Language must always depict things from a “distance” to avoid paradoxes.
5. Parameters necessary to a language:
- a. A community of persons who have a need to cooperate.
- b. A common physical context. (This makes definition possible)
- c. A code. A set of signals.
- d. A syntax. A typical set of word and sentence forming patterns.
- e. A rhetoric. A typical set of message and communication patterns.
- f. A lexicon. A standard set of words.
- g. A defining procedure. A standard means of relating codes, words and meanings.
- h. A culture. A common set of beliefs, values and customs.
6. Natural language: Any language learned as a mother tongue.
Artificial language: Any language not learned as a mother tongue by anyone. Any language artificially constructed or artificially employed.
7. Grammar: Rules invented in the attempt to provide pattern for syntax systems. (Grammar is an artificial imposition on a language; syntax is the typical “natural” patterning of a language. Grammar is not used to learn mother tongues. It is a “schooling” contrivance thought by some to assist the learning of second languages.)
8. Stages of language:
- a. Pidgin: Noun language formed in the first generation of cultural contact between two very different language cultures.
- b. Creole: Basic inflected language formed in the second generation of cultural contact between two very different language cultures.
- c. Normal language: Fully developed language having all tenses, moods, cases needed by the participants.
9. Additional principles of language use:
- a. Indeterminacy: There are no correct or incorrect semantic, syntactic, or rhetorical patterns in any language. There is only modal usage. Modal usage is a pattern that is used most often in a particular culture at a particular time and place to accomplish a particular task.
- b. Typicality: The modal usage of language in a particular time, place, and culture. Only by mastering the typical patterns of a language can one gain entrance to most social groups. Typicality maximizes the utility of language for most ordinary purposes.
- c. Entropy: There is always a loss of information between the sender and the receiver in any natural communication.
- d. Ellipsis: No speaker can say all of what he means in any finite language use.
- e. Parsimony: Communication must be finite to be effective. (Say all that is necessary but no more.) The principle of parsimony does not apply to phatic communication; there the goal is to fill up time, so the communication may be infinite.
- f. Integrality: Every assertion has four principal parts. Speaker intent, speaker message, speaker support, speaker result. This is matched by hearer intent, hearer message, hearer support, hearer result. (These map on to heart, might, mind and strength for every person.)
- g. Attraction: The community using a given language grows in number (in relation to the number of users of rival languages) in proportion to the relatively greater utility of a language.
- h. Generality: The more widespread and the greater the number of experiences a language population has in common, the more uniform the language usage tends to become (patterns of typicality have more widespread use.)
- i. Diversity: The more a sub-population desires to separate itself from a community, the more it clings to non-typical patterns of language. Non-typical patterns are used when there is a need to:
- 1) Discourse in a technical way about recondite matters (jargon).
- 2) Prevent the general population from understanding or penetrating an “in” group (dialect).
- j. Admittance: the entre into any social group is to master the language patterns of that group.
- k. Accession: The key by which to acquire the total culture of any social group is to master the typical language patterns of that group.
- l. Stability: Typical use of language tends to stabilize language forms through time. Factors which tend stability in a language:
- 1) Constant physical environment.
- 2) Constant culture/religious environment.
- 3) Appreciation/respect for ancestors/conventions/traditions.
- 4) Influential persons who speak typically.
- 5) A written literature which is highly respected and widely read.
- m. Metamorphosis: Non-typical and atypical use of language tends to cause language forms to change. Factors which abet metamorphosis:
- 1) New physical environment or factors.
- 2) Desire for exclusivity.
- 3) Desire for novelty.
- 4) Influential persons who speak atypically or non-typically.
- 5) Social interaction with other cultures.
- 6) Preponderance of spoken over written usage of the language.
10. The signals (codings) used by a language vary on a scale from very representational to very referential. Examples:
- a. Very referential: Binary codes, alphabets.
- b. Moderately referential: Glyphs, pictographs
- c. Moderately representational: Pantomime, pictures, graphs
- d. Very representational: Drama, movies, television, role-playing.
Referential coding maximizes efficiency in communication.
Representational coding maximizes efficacy in communication.
11. Naming may be random or rational.
- a. Rational coding: Surnames, latitude, and legated descriptive names
- b. Random coding: Most given names
12. Defining: pairing a symbol with another indicator of meaning.
- (Rule: Never use the definiendum in the definiens.)
- Definiendum: That which is being defined.
- Definiens: that which does the defining.
Modes of defining:
- a. Ostension: Pairing a symbol with an experience.
- b. Synonymy: Pairing a symbol with another symbol which is supposed to have the same meaning.
- c. Denotation: Pairing a symbol with a verbal set of directions which enable the receiver to pair the symbol with an experience.
- d. Connotation: Pairing the symbol verbally with a larger class to which the concept belongs (the genus), then verbally separating it from other members of that class (differentia).
13. Kinds of assertions: There are four kinds of assertions by which human beings express themselves. These are:
- a. Disclosures: Communication of thoughts or feelings of the speaker.
Examples: I have a headache. I believe in the supernatural. - b. Descriptions: Communication of the nature of things in the universe other than inside the speaker. These may be open to inspection by the hearer, whereas disclosures are not.
Example: The earth revolves around the sun. - c. Directives: Communications by which the speaker attempts to get the hearer to do something.
Example: What time is it? - d. Declaratives: Communications by a person having authority which change the status of something in the universe.
Example: I now pronounce you man and wife.
Exercises for Language
1. Why is there communication that does not involve language?
2. What is the basic difference between linguistic and non-linguistic communication?
3. What are some theories of language other than Radical Utility?
4. What are the inter-relationships of the triad signal/sign/symbol?
5. Is the fourfold taxonomy of assertions exhaustive?
6. What are the inter-relationships of the fourfold taxonomy of assertions?
7. Why can’t human beings be fully human without language development?
8. Why do propositions not serve well as the basic unit of human communication?
9. Why is it false to say that all meaning is particular?