Summary

Signs establish between words and things various semantic relations of denotation, connotation, or iconicity that give general meaning to the world. In addition, signs establish semantic relations with other signs in the direct environment of verbal exchanges, or in the historical context of a discourse community. The creation of meaning through signs is not arbitrary, but is, rather, guided by the human desire for recognition, influence, power, and the general motivation for social and cultural survival. Since meaning is encoded in language with a purpose, meaning as sign is contingent upon the context in which signs are used to regulate human action. Thus it is often difficult to draw a clear line between the generic semantic meanings of the code and the pragmatic meanings of the code in various contexts of use.

3. Meaning as action

After years of searching in vain for the meaning of life in philosophy, law, and theology, Goethe's Dr. Faust decides that: meaning is not in words, but in actions. The famous statement in the Bible 'In the beginning was the Word' needs to be replaced, he says, by a statement more appropriate to modern times. 'In the beginning was Action!' he exclaims, and he sells his soul to the Devil. If he does get saved in the end, it is for having accepted that all action is contingent upon the time and place in which it unfolds. Meaning is never achieved once and for all, it must be conquered anew in every utterance through the verbal actions and interactions of speakers and hearers, writers, and readers.

In this chapter we consider the way in which cultural meaning is created through the actions and interactions of speakers in social contexts.

Context of situation, context of culture

It is the study of so-called primitive languages in their respective societal contexts that has put into question Western linguists' exclusive views of language as an instrument of thought, or as Faust would say, as the primary domain of philosophy, law, and theology. The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1941) was working at describing the fishing and agricultural practices of the native inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands, when he discovered for the first time that their language (Kiriwinian) was the key to understanding the meaning of their practices. But, as he sat on the beach, observing the fishermen cry out from one canoe to the other, maneuvering their boats across difficult straits, he realized that, in order to understand what was going on, it was not enough to understand and write down the meaning of their words. One had to understand why they said what they said and how they said it to whom in a specific context of situation. In addition, one had to link their words, beliefs, and mindsets to a larger context of culture such as: tribal economics, social organization, kinship patterns, fertility rites, seasonal rhythms, concepts of time and space. Thus, the semantic meanings of verbal signs had to be supplemented by the pragmatic meanings of verbal actions in context.

How is pragmatic meaning culturally realized in verbal ex-changes? Meaning is created not only through what speakers say to one another, but through what they do with words in order to respond to the demands of their environment. In this chapter, we consider what these responses entail.