When the Bee Gees sang “It’s only words…” and later Boyzone echoed the sentiment, a gentleman called Ferdinand de Saussure, had he not been languishing six feet under, might have given a nod of approval. Perhaps, even demanded an encore. It appears if there’s anything worth singing about—even semiotics and linguistics—folks like Saussure have already said it, albeit with less melody and lesser make-up.
Behold, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), the Swiss linguist now revered as the father of semiotics and modern linguistics. He said three things about words—three words about words, so to speak—and each one is worthy of a tome. We’ll take up one word for now and attend upon the others subsequently.
Words are arbitrary, relational, and constitutive. Try rhyming that Boyzone.
We’ll start with the easy one. When Saussure said words are arbitrary, he meant words are ‘unmotivated signs’ with no inherent connection between the word (signifier) and what it points to (the signified). There is nothing canine about the word ‘dog’. It is just a sound. When written, it is an arrangement of curves and lines that we call ‘dog’ which refers to the animal.
Why is ‘dog’ the word to refer to the animal and not any other word? It seems natural to us because of usage and habit; that is all there is to it. When you consider different languages have different words for ‘dog’ the arbitrariness of the choice is only emphasised. (The satisfaction of calling someone a SOB is, needless to say, language agnostic). Etymology will tell you where and how the word originated, but no matter how far back you go, the word’s existence, its Big Bang moment, is based on an arbitrary choice.
Plato, that giant of Philosophy, whose monolithic shadow fertilised Western thought, would surely roll his eyes and mutter, dude I already said this hundreds of years earlier. He despised all art forms; he saw them as imperfect imitations of reality, of real experiences, of the real world. The real ‘Real’ (was of course when Zidane played for them, but moving on), is an abstract form, perfect precisely because it is abstract and formless. No representation of it whether through words, music, or art could capture its essence wholly and perfectly, and therefore, any such representation would be impure and second-class. Further, precisely because the word ‘dog’ evokes different images for different people, the word itself is not a true and complete representation of the animal. It is just a word. The signified (animal) is separate from the signifier (the word), and we have arbitrarily connected the two.
Philosophy and literary theory thrills me for its fascinating ideas. But the moment that thrill becomes a rather unplatonic obsession is when I try to find its relevance and application in everyday life… and succeed (even if in a small way). Lived experiences, mon ami, that’s where it matters, non?
Language is a sensory input. And, therefore, like any sensory input it is highly suspect. (Why it is suspect takes us into my favourite Immanuel Kant territory, and I promise very soon I will hit you on the head with some Kantian concepts—it will be so much fun). And because it is suspect, language leads to imperfect communication. Think about it. In an attempt to explain or clarify we either lean towards highly complex and complicated constructions, or we veer towards an oversimplification, like: words suck. Consequently, the essence of what needs to be communicated is lost; an orphan wandering in the wasteland between these two search towers.
Once we get our head around this, we arrive at the following two points: first, the mechanism we use to communicate with each other is intrinsically flawed (based as it is on sensory input); second: the words we use are arbitrary selections that will never perfectly capture what we want to say.
One only needs to reflect upon the numerous occasions when we have had to explain and clarify our text messages; no that’s not what I mean, no I didn’t say that, but you said this… etc. etc. Also, we have not even touched upon tone, volume, the listener’s state of mind, their emotional make up, and so on and so forth; it is an absolute miracle that we manage to communicate anything at all, and that humanity has actually made it this far is a testament to how phenomenal the human brain is. And also perhaps a triumph of our dogged stubbornness.
So, yes, it’s only words, and words are all we have. And we have to make do with that, just as we always have. When we communicate, it will help to not burden the words too much or place unreal expectations on them. They are a part of an imperfect mechanism of communication between two imperfect humans. Misunderstandings and misinterpretations are par for course, and ironically, demonstrate that ‘language’ is doing its job just fine. Which is why some folks have chosen to revel in the ambiguity of words and make a living off it—poets and wannabe poets like popstars. Oh, the trolls are going to come for me! Easy there, that’s not what I meant, you misunderstand, don’t interpret the word that way….
Saussure also said words are ‘relational’ and ‘constitutive’. That’s next time. I wonder if Taylor Swift has tried to say something about that.
Leave a Reply