2.3.1 |
THE TWO HALVES OF LINGUISTIC SYMBOLISM REUNITED |
One of the basic assumptions of latter-day linguists is
that literal, linguistic symbols are essentially arbitrary, that
is, that there is no connection whatsoever between the sound of
a word (the signal) and the thing it denotes or connotes (the
message). Only a small number of onomatopoeic words are recognized
by them as exceptions. On their 'conventionalist' view
the names of things are due purely to convention and have no
deeper appropriateness. Linguistic conventionalists once had to
fight the so-called 'naturalist' doctrine that there would be
a correct name for everything by nature. According to this
doctrine words denoting movement, for instance, would actually
and necessarily contain an r or l (two sounds which are
acoustically similar and may be allophones of the same phoneme,
albeit not in the present language). Nowadays it is said that
naturalism was 'influenced by a primitive belief in the magic
properties of names'; or that in 'primitive societies' a thing
was believed to be its name.
Conventionalists may conveniently have assumed that they
settled the issue forever, and yet the rejection of supernaturalist
'naturalism' by no means forces us to adopt an
entirely arbitrary conventionalism with respect to new words or
the introduction of new morphemes, and with respect to a
selective use of old ones. There may be no necessary link
between the sound of a word and the thing it refers to, such
does not mean that a certain linguistic symbol could not be
connected with a certain thing in a fashion which is not
arbitrary.
It is only then that the sound of a word does not just refer to a
particular thing, but symbolizes it in the most appropriate way.
Thus, given that certain phonemes are more stable than other ones, it is a
straightforward case of analogy that — if possible, and if wanted
— words denoting or connoting stability or things which are stable,
or which belong to the same associative field, should contain one or
more stable phonemes (like n or m) rather than unstable ones
(like s or h).
Making use of such analogies is quite something
else than arguing that existing words do actually contain these
phonemes in a particular language as linguistic naturalists were
once so audacious to profess. We shall call this new position
"the symbolist position".
Altho not
incompatible with conventionalism, it treats the language user not merely
as a consumer of conventional products but also as a creator of new
products and as a selective user of old ones.
Names may not have magic properties, they do have properties, that is,
whole-properties and
part-properties.
In the spoken language a whole-property is, for example, the place of the
primary stress. The part-properties are, then, those of the
individual sounds making up the name. In the present language at
least one of these sounds is always a vowel, and it may also be
possible to link one or more of the properties of such a vowel
to certain things in the reality the total word is about.
Usually the thing will not have the same property, yet it may
have an attribute with the same conceptual position, or a
similar attribute in a different respect.
The word symbol itself derives from symballein meaning
(to) throw together. This throwing together refers to an
ancient custom of breaking a coin or ring in two when friends
would part for a long time or forever.
If one of them, or one of their other friends or relatives, returned after
many years, the two parts of the coin or ring could be compared with each
other.
This would give the possessor a token of identity and a
right to the other person's hospitality. Now, the two halves
which our own linguistic symbolism reunites are, on the one
hand, the view that the names of things are due to convention,
and on the other, the view that the names of things need not be
completely arbitrary combinations of sounds or characters. It is
in their separated conditions, when broken away from each other,
that these views existed, or still exist, as conventionalism and
naturalism respectively.
