The symbolic nature of our communication is a quality unique to humans. Even languages with a written component didn’t see widespread literacy, or the ability to read and write, until a little over one hundred years ago. Remember that for most of human history the spoken word and nonverbal communication were the primary means of communication. There are about 6,000 language codes used in the world, and around 40 percent of those (2,400) are only spoken and do not have a written version.David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die(Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 17, 24. Codes are culturally agreed on and ever-changing systems of symbols that help us organize, understand, and generate meaning.Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Semiotics and Communication: Signs, Codes, Cultures (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993), 53. The symbols we use combine to form language systems or codes. Unlike hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt, which often did have a literal relationship between the written symbol and the object being referenced, the symbols used in modern languages look nothing like the object or idea to which they refer. In any case, the symbols we use stand in for something else, like a physical object or an idea they do not actually correspond to the thing being referenced in any direct way. O together), or nonverbally (waving your hand back and forth). Symbols can be communicated verbally (speaking the word hello), in writing (putting the letters H-E-L-L. A symbol is something that stands in for or represents something else. Our language system is primarily made up of symbols. Since language and symbols are the primary vehicle for our communication, it is important that we not take the components of our verbal communication for granted. We may even experience a little of all three, when we stop to think about how there are some twenty-five definitions available to tell us the meaning of word meaning!David Crystal, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 187. The indirect and sometimes complicated relationship between language and meaning can lead to confusion, frustration, or even humor. It is here, between what the communication models we discussed earlier labeled as encoding and decoding, that meaning is generated as sensory information is interpreted. We arrive at meaning through the interaction between our nervous and sensory systems and some stimulus outside of them. You’ll recall that “generating meaning” was a central part of the definition of communication we learned earlier. So with all this possibility, how does communication generate meaning? Although we can only make a few hundred physical signs, we have about a million words in the English language. Of course, words aren’t the only things we need to communicate, and although verbal and nonverbal communication are closely related in terms of how we make meaning, nonverbal communication is not productive and limitless. In addition, there is no limit to a language’s vocabulary, as new words are coined daily. Language is productive in the sense that there are an infinite number of utterances we can make by connecting existing words in new ways. One reason for this complicated relationship is the limitlessness of modern language systems like English.David Crystal,How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die(Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 8–9. The relationship between language and meaning is not a straightforward one. Describe the process of language acquisition.Discuss the function of the rules of language.
Distinguish between denotation and connotation.Explain how the triangle of meaning describes the symbolic nature of language.
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