05. Meta-Language

When we look at language from a meta-language perspective we can see that the meaning is not directly related to the words or the structure of the expression from which we get such meaning. The meaning is conjured up by the speaker or writer and again by the listener or reader and that meaning is only indirectly related to the words or structure of what is said or written (the expression). In a very significant sense the meaning is emergent from the expression. This is regardless of whether the ultimate meaning is truth or falsity. And the expression to achieve a given meaning may be slightly different for a speaker than for a writer. Is the meaning really the same under such circumstances?

In language the meaning is emergent and expresses more than just the words and phrases. Since we almost always view language post-emergent, because the meaning is the important "thing" and the words are only secondary, we are caught on the outside of the onion skin of language. We know an expression creates a meaning but when we try to analyze how words become meaning the process seems to evaporate into non-sense entities and relationships. There is the subject. And there is a verb which says something about the subject. And then there is an object which says something about how the verb says something about the subject. We could also draw a picture, which is what some teachers make us do, just for the exercise. But does that tell us what the sentence means?

Jerome Heath