Word + code

Language seems to have, in principle, a social function. The existence of a common code shared by the subjects who speak enables communication and realizes the social nature of language. The constitution of code separates words of its own graphic and acoustic forms and links them to a shared and culturally defined meaning. The code turns words into signs.

Inside - outside

The dictionary makes clear a suspicious nature of code. Words are encoded with words; all refer to each other in a net that aims to fix meaning. When I talk about things of the real world (objects, people) does not seem to be conflict, but when I try to meant sensations, feelings or abstract entities with no referent, meaning moves from the world outside to the subject inside, in an unspecified space which only I can access. Although each subject built individually their meanings, there seems to be a general consensus that enables communication. Indeed, how corroborate the meanings between subjects? Do you really understand what I say? Better still: what you understand of what I say, is the same thing that I understand of what I say?

Stolen words

It is the paradox of communication: it implies a common means, a limited number of words, a certain language, but curiously, speaking, becomes the vehicle of an exclusive message. The one who speaks confers for himself what he says, in spite of having said it with already mentioned words. The words were already said it, and returns every time referring to something else. Inside the words I say, hides itself what I meant, the exclusive message that I want to express.

Continuous slice of meaning

Besides the social code and its conditions, communication is inseparable of a particular situation. The same words can be refered to different objects depending on the circumstances, the involved subjects, a logic situation. According to Bourdieu, the strict meaning of words is rarely used, "product of the neutralization of the practical relations in which it works, the word of the dictionary does not have any social existence: in practice, it only exists plunged in situations…." [1]
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[1] BOURDIEU, Pierre. The Economy of Linguistic Exchange.

Unfounded optimism

There is optimism on the issue of communicating. We speak about an issuer, a receiver, a code, a message. But the idea of a receiver implies an optimistic attitude of communication because it is equivalent to say "I speak, you understand me". Only the existence of a common code allows communication and enables the exchange of messages. But what circulates among the subjects when they speak are not messages or words or senses; what is issued, when they speak, are noises, sound chains coming to the ears to be decoded and processed, according to all the experiences, memories, skills, the whole subjectivity of the receiver. There is no transparency of language, because there is no way to corroborate the meanings between subjects outside of language. "There are a thousand perceptions of nothing and a single word to translate them, the poverty of the speech makes the universe intelligible" [1]

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[1] CIORAN, Emile. The Temptation to Exist.