Shanghai

Why language is not communication and why communication is not language

17 November 2021

  • abstract

It is generally admitted that the function of language is communication. One implication of this assumption is that language structure is organized in such a way to optimise communication. However, research on language structure have shown a strong divergence between linguistic rules and communication principles. Whereas linguistic (syntactic) rules are optimal solutions for the sound-meaning interfaces, principles governing verbal communication are best captured by properties of conversation and cognition, for instance cooperation (Grice) and relevance (Sperber and Wilson).

In this lecture, I will defend the idea, now extensively argued in cognitive pragmatics, that language’s main function is not communication, but the externalisation of the language of thought, as well as linguistic communication is not shaped by linguistic rules, but by independent cognitive and communicative principles.

This clear-cut distinction offers new answers to the study of meaning in natural language, as well as to the complex issues of the origin and evolution of language and the paradox of communication: the addressee must be vigilant enough to avoid the speaker’s manipulation and in the same time trust her in order to get what the speaker means. I will show the consequence of such an integrated approach to language and communication, mainly as regards the semantics-pragmatics border.

References

Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the way of words. Cambridge: Harvard UP.

Moeschler, Jacques. 2019. Non-lexical pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Moeschler, Jacques. 2021. Why language? Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Reboul, Anne. 2017. Cognition and communication in the evolution of language. Oxford: OUP

Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1985. Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd ed.

Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 2012. Meaning and relevance. Cambridge: CUP.

Zufferey, Sandrine, Jacques Moeschler & Anne Reboul. 2019. Implicatures. Cambridge: CUP.