1 8C H A P T E R 2 ■ T h e W e b o f L a n g u a g eThe conventions of our own language are so much with us that it strikes us
as odd when we discover that other languages have different conventions.
A French diplomat once praised his own language because, as he said, it fol-
lowed the natural order of thought. This strikes English speakers as silly, but
in seeing why it is silly, we see that the word order in our own language is
conventional as well.
Although it is important to realize that language is conventional, it is also
important not to misunderstand this fact. From the idea that language is con-
ventional, it is easy to conclude that language is totally arbitrary. If language
is totally arbitrary, then it might seem that it really does not matter which
words we use or how we put them together. It takes only a little thought to
see that this view, however daring it might seem, misrepresents the role of
conventions in language. If we wish to communicate with others, we must
follow the system of conventions that others use. Grapefruits are more like
big lemons than like grapes, so you might want to call them “mega-lemons.”
Still, if you order a glass of mega-lemon juice in a restaurant, you will get
stares and smirks but no grapefruit juice. The same point lies behind this
famous passage in Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll:
“There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.
“Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down
argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means
just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many
different things.”
The point, of course, is that Humpty Dumpty cannot make a word mean
whatever he wants it to mean, and he cannot communicate if he uses words
in his own peculiar way without regard to what those words themselves
mean. Communication can take place only within a shared system of con-
ventions. Conventions do not destroy meaning by making it arbitrary; con-
ventions bring meaning into existence.
A misunderstanding of the conventional nature of language can lead to
pointless disputes. Sometimes, in the middle of a discussion, someone will
declare that “the whole thing is just a matter of definition” or “what you
say is true by your definition, false by mine.” There are times when defini-
tions are important and the truth of what is said turns on them, but usually
this is not the case. Suppose someone has fallen off a cliff and is heading
toward certain death on the rocks below. Of course, it is a matter of conven-
tion that we use the word “death” to describe the result of the sudden, sharp
stop at the end of the fall. We might have used some other word—perhaps
“birth”—instead. But it certainly will not help a person who is falling to his97364_ch02_ptg01_017-040.indd 18 15/11/13 8:34 AM
some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materiallyCopyright 201^3 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights,
affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.