Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2014

 

On the Social Construction of Language and Meaning (Abstract)

 

Chen Bo

 

The dominant idea in 20th century linguistics and linguistic philosophy is that language has a direct referential and descriptive relationship with the world, and it is from this relationship that linguistic expressions gain their significance. Formal semantics is the typical representative of this dominant idea. “Social Construction of Language and Meaning” (SCLM) follows on the work of the later Wittgenstein, Austin, Grice, Searle, Dummett, David Lewis, Brandom, et al., in presenting a critique of this approach. It tries to answer the following important questions: how does language work? How is meaning generated? SCLM comprises six propositions: (1) the primary function of language is to communicate, not to describe. (2) The meaning of language is generated from the interaction between the human body and the outside world, and the social interaction between people. (3) The meaning of language lies in the connections between language and the world and is set up by the collective will of the language community. (4) The meaning of language is based on conventions formed in the course of the long-term association of the language community. (5) Semantic knowledge is empirical knowledge that has been refined and condensed, or language usage accepted by the language community. (6) Language and meaning change quickly or slowly depending on the language community’s association in practice. The key point of SCLM is that it substitutes the threefold relationship of “language, people (the language community), and the world” for the twofold relationship of “language and the world.”