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DOI: 10.1177/09593543040401962004 14: 5Theory Psychology

Carlos CornejoPsychology

Who Says What the Words Say? : The Problem of Linguistic Meaning in

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Who Says What the Words Say?The Problem of Linguistic Meaning in Psychology

Carlos CornejoPontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Abstract. Currently, cognitive psychology assumes that linguistic mean-ing is based on associations between linguistic forms and semantic con-tents. This conception presents empirical as well as logical problems. Itdoes not explain the flexibility of language use and it is inconsistent withthe subject-dependence of all cognitive acts. A theoretical analysis of theseissues shows a history of confusion between linguistic and phenomeno-logical interpretations of the term meaning, and between the external andinternal perspective towards intentionality of mental life. However, ifunderstood as perspectives, both uses underline non-exclusive aspects oflinguistic meaning, namely its epistemic objectivity and its ontologicalsubjectivity. It is argued that both aspects could be integrated through thepragmatization and semiotization of meaning.

Key Words: generativism, intentionality, meaning, pragmatics, semantics,

semiotics, structuralism

Introduction: Logical and Psychological Problems with the

Notion of Linguistic Meaning

For many authors, meaning represents the main aspect of human cognition

and its proper theorization amounts to the key problem of cognitive

psychology (Bruner, 1990, 1992; Glenberg & Robertson, 2000; Kitchener,

1994). Throughout the entire intellectual history of psychology as a disci-

pline, research programsin the sense of Lakatos (1970)have emerged

emphasizing the fundamental role of the dimension of meaning in human

cognitive functioning. Cases in point are the studies on memory (Bartlett,

1932/1961), perception (Wertheimer, 1959), language (Buhler, 1934/1999)

and developmental psychology (Piaget, 1952; Vygotsky, 1978), which, even

before the consolidation of the so-called cognitive revolution, pointed with

different emphases to the relevance of meaning in the configuration of

psychological phenomena.

Theory & Psychology Copyright 2004 Sage Publications. Vol. 14(1): 528DOI: 10.1177/0959354304040196 www.sagepublications.com

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The most frequent use of the term meaning in cognitive psychology and

in the psychology of language designates the contents of linguistic con-structions (e.g. morphemes, words, clauses, etc.). According to this use of

meaning, linguistic constructions evoke objective contents in the speakersmind. The objective nature of these representations is verified through the

high degree of consensus in a given linguistic community. The association

between form and content is thus independent of the subjectivity of the

speaker/listener. These contents associated with linguistic forms constitute

their semantic content, which has been conceptualized in varying ways in

psychology (e.g. Bierwisch & Schreuder, 1992; Burguess & Lund, 1997;Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Rapaport, 1998), semantics (Fauconnier, 1994;

Jackendoff, 1988; Katz & Fodor, 1963), philosophy (Putnam, 1975), semi-

otics (Eco, 1976) and formal logic (Hintikka, 1989; Kripke, 1972).

This common way of understanding the concept of meaning is, however,

in conflict with some theoretical beliefs strongly shared by the cognitive

psychologists scientific community. In order to understand this conflict, it is

necessary to consider one of the most recurring and well-established

findings of cognitive psychology: that subjects actively construct theirexperience. The knower is not a mere passive recipient who reproduces, in a

quasi-pictorial manner, the information he or she receives from the environ-

ment. Instead, there are a number of internal processes, normally automatic,

that participate in the structuring of external reality. This thesis, known by

some authors as cognitive constructivism (Christmann & Scheele, 2001;Neisser, 1967; Nuse, Groeben, Freitag, & Schreier, 1991), has been empiric-

ally demonstrated in various cognitive processes (e.g. through the verifica-

tion of top-down influences in human perception, attention and memory) andit represents a common assumption in several theoriesmany of which are

rival in other aspects and range from Gestalt to connectionist models,

including theories of information processing and activity theories. The basic

idea of the knower as a (co-)constructor (Valsiner, 1994) of experienced

reality goes across subdisciplines and theories, and has been characterized as

belonging to the epistemological bases of the discipline (Bruner, 1992).Extending this basic constructivist idea to the realm of language

comprehension, linguistic meaning should be the result of a subjectiveinterpretation arising from a particular context, that is, the individuals

meaningful construal of the situation (Glenberg & Robertson, 2000, p. 383),

based on the assumption that nothing is meaningful in itself (Lakoff, 1987,

p. 292). However, if we claim that it is the subject using language who

construes words or confers meaningfulness on them, it is no longer possible

to maintain that words have an inherently associated meaning or semantic

content. How can we reconcile the notion that a linguistic expression has asemantic content with the notion that it is the subject who understands itwho constructs its meaning? Does a linguistic expression possess a meaning

eo ipso, or does it become meaningful only as it is constructed by the

THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 14(1)6

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speaker/hearer? Is there a conventional content that is attached to linguistic

constructions, which is more or less independent of who uses them and

where they are used, or are these constructions rather a vehicle through

which the meanings can be realized (Budwig, 1995, p. 4)? Can a mentalcontent be, at the same time, given and constructed, a priori and a

posteriori?

In summary, this view of linguistic meaning generates a contradiction

between two theoretical postulates. On the one hand, cognitive psychology

asserts that there are objective meanings attached to linguistic constructions,

which are, by definition, independent of the subject. On the other hand,

cognitive psychology also claims that the meaningfulness of linguistic

expressions is the result of an interpretive and constructive process carried

out by the speaker/listener, of whom it is therefore not independent. Thus,linguistic meaning becomes at the same time dependent on, and independent

of, the subject.

The (implicit) solution to this dilemma is to assume the existence of

linguistic meanings in the head of the speaker/listener. These linguistic

meanings are organized in some sort of mental lexicon, to which the subject

can gain access depending on their use-contingencies (e.g. E.V. Clark, 1993;

Jackendoff, 2002). According to this popular view, speakers possess a stock

of lexical entries which they use in linguistic comprehension and com-

munication. However, this account of language comprehension creates anew problem. Assuming that a given expression can be associated to more

than one linguistic meaning, subjects must be able to decide, based on

contextual cues, which is the appropriate meaning, that is, which lexical

entry is required in order to understand the expression. Yet, to be able to

make this kind of lexical decision, subjects also need to understand the

meanings of all the alternative lexical entries. This requires additional lexical

information if one wishes to preserve the consistency of the theory. This

additional lexical information creates the need for a second, deeper, compre-

hension, namely the comprehension not of linguistic expressions but oflexical entries. This creates an obvious regressus infinitus: the existence of

linguistic meanings in the head pushes the conflict between the objective,

conventional nature of linguistic meanings and their constructive, con-

textual, subjective nature towards a deeper level. Thus, this solution gives

rise to the same original questions, this time at a higher logical level: How

can these two notions be compatible, that lexical entries possess a semantic

content and that at the same time this content is the outcome of an active

interpretive process on the part of the subject? Does a lexical entry possess

a meaning eo ipso, or is it meaningful only as the speaker/listener compre-

hends it? And so on. Summarizing, the mental lexicon hypothesis is not able

to solve the conflict between the subject-independence of linguistic meaning

and the subject-dependence of all forms of meaningfulness.

CORNEJO: LINGUISTIC MEANING IN PSYCHOLOGY 7



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In order to understand the nature of this apparent contradiction, it is

helpful to examine the interdisciplinary origins of the traditional concept oflinguistic meaning in psychology. In the following section I conduct a

theoretical and historical analysis of the definition given to the termmeaning by the school of structuralism, the first great school of linguistics,

and I discuss the ways in which the legacy of this view has produced

(paradoxically, through the generativist school) the contradiction presented

before. Following this, I show how the tension between meanings depend-

ence on the subject and its independence of it is observed in linguistics as

well, specifically in the fields of semantics and pragmatics, in the discussionabout the role played by context in the formation of linguistic meaning. In

the following section, I discuss in greater depth the epistemological premises

underlying the two conflicting views of linguistic meaning, and I argue that

the problem of meaning represents a much deeper schism in the field of

psychology, related to the epistemic value given to the intentional experi-

ence of consciousness. In the next section, I propose the need to integrate the

objective and subjective aspects of linguistic meaning. I argue that the

contradiction between the subjective and objective nature of the linguisticmeaning rests on the false dichotomy, already manifest in Freges writings,

between the (epistemic) objectivity of meaning and the (ontological) subject-

ivity of consciousness. In the penultimate section, I argue that pragmat-

ization and semiotization are plausible ways to integrate the subjective and

objective aspects of meaning. Finally, I present the major conclusions thatcan be drawn from this analysis.

Origins of Linguistic Meaning

The Structuralist Legacy

In the beginnings of scientific linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure

(1916/1966) proposed a fundamental distinction between languagelangue (p. 9)and speakingparole (p. 13). Saussure and the structural-

ists understood langue as a superindividual system of signs, coherent and

self-contained, which is independent of the speaker, inasmuch as it con-

stitutes a social fact. This could and should be distinguished fromparole, the

real use of language by specific individuals in specific situations. Saussure

explicitly limited the object of study of the emerging field of linguistics to

langue.Within this framework, Saussure defines meaningconcept, signifie

(pp. 65f.)as a psychic representation appearing in the subjects con-sciousness through the quasi-physical representation of a soundimage

acoustique, signifiant (pp. 65f.)in the speakers mind. Both elements

constitute, for the structuralist school, the two components of any linguistic




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sign, which are as intimately linked as the two sides of a sheet of paper. This

close link between them is based on the assumption that the sign belongs tothe langue, that is, to the superindividual linguistic system. This idea allows

Saussure to account for the objectivity of linguistic signs. In ascribing thelinguistic sign to the langue system, Saussure defines and limits the semantic

dimension of linguistics object of knowledge, assuming that the relations

between linguistic forms and semantic contents are (socially) fixed and

grounded at the superindividual level. Thus, in the structuralist view,

meaning is ultimately an element of the langue, an intrinsic property of the

linguistic sign, just like its morphology and phonology; the fact that it is apsychic representation does not impinge on its social nature. The speakers

mind is rather the space where these superindividual creations unfold. It

follows that linguistic meaning is part of the structure of languages social

system, with an ontological status different from that of the subjective

experience of the individual who uses the linguistic signs.

Semantics displacement towards langue leads us to the distinction of

objective units of meaning attached to linguistic signs. These are by

definition independent of the subjects experience, since in the structuralistview the object of the study of linguistics ends precisely where the use of

language in real contexts by actual individuals begins.

Once the subject has been excluded, the relation between signification and

signifier unavoidably turns into a static relation, one that is unable to account

for the flexibility and variability of meaning in everyday uses of language.After all, metaphor, metonymy, jokes and puns are not as rare as the

Saussurian model would suggest. This plasticity in the relation betweenform and content, according to which a word can have different meanings

depending on the context in which it is used, is left unexplained in the

Saussurian model.

The Generativist Continuity

Although Chomsky (1957, 1965) was explicit in presenting his theory as analternative approach to structuralism, some of the Saussurian schools

essential distinctions would be recycled in the generativist model, particu-

larly those concerning the nature of linguistic meaning.

In Chomskys approach, syntax is conceived as a coherent system of

logical rules operating at a mental level, which is responsible for language

production and comprehension. This new conception requires the assump-

tion that a logical-syntactic component of the abstract system is operating inthe head of each native speaker in the form of a dynamic system in charge

of the generation of syntactic structures (Hormann, 1976, 1981).According to Chomsky (1965), any native speaker is an ideal speaker in

the sense that he or she is capable of generating an infinite number of

grammatically correct sentences, as well as being able to identify the




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grammaticality of any sentence in his or her native language, even though

this speaker has never heard it before. Chomsky assigns the term com-

petence to the linguistic knowledge that allows this capacity. When the

speaker uses language in communicative situations, he or she is showinglinguistic performance. This performance results from the activation of the

competence mentioned before, but it is also subject to interference from a

number of extra-grammatical factors, which account for the possible linguis-

tic errors which speakers actually incur. When comparing the competence/

performance pair with the langue/parole dichotomy, it is evident that the

latter is based on a distinction between two levels of description (social vs

individual), while the former distinguishes between potentiality and

realization.

It is important to note that the pre-existence of objective and contextual

links between lexical items and meanings is a prerequisite for the mental

syntactic mechanism to be able to function properly. For semantic rules to

adequately perform their interpretation of syntactic structures, there have to

be some preordained relations between the lexical items that are generated

and transformed, and the meanings corresponding to the contents for which

the items stand. Thus, the Chomskian linguistic paradigm, despite presenting

itself as an alternative to structuralism, nonetheless assumes a structuralist

definition of sign, inasmuch as the semantically blind manipulation of

syntactic structures is possible only if the subsequent semantic interpretation

is guaranteed in advance. Semantic translation of syntactic structures is thussafeguarded by the assumption of meaning-in-itself (Cornejo, 2000, p. 130),

attached to the word and independent of the speakers subjectivity.

While the structuralist school stated that the meaning-significant union

was a social fact, in the generativist framework this unit has psychological

reality in the head of the native speaker. In this sense, linguistic competence

is a sort of langue in the head which includes the knowledge of form

content associations.1 Thus, the generativist theory brings language compre-

hension back into the subject matter of linguistics. Such a reincorporation,

however, assumes a redefinition of comprehension, from a subjectiveexperience to a composition of isolated meaning units.

The assumption of abstract language representations in the individual

mind has also been criticized as being illegitimate by defenders of a

Platonist conception of the language:

There is a distinction between a speakers knowledge of a language and the

language itselfwhat the knowledge is knowledge of. . . . The language is

a timeless, unchangeable, objective structure; knowledge of a language is

temporal, subject to change, and subjective. (Katz, 1981, p. 9)

Katz calls for a return to the langue, under the motto linguistics is not

psychological science (p. 76). According to him, the ideal speakers

knowledge of the language cannot be the subject matter of linguistics, since




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this would entail a confusion between the knowledge we have of something

and the things that we have knowledge of. He concludes that sentences,

meanings and language are abstract objects. What Katz forgets in his

reasoning is the fact that Chomskys native speaker is already a Platonistconstruction, not a real one. Katzs distinction between the speakers

knowledge of a language and the language itself holds only when the

speaker is a real one, not a Platonic one. The abstract objects are not

neglected in a generativist framework; they are simply supposed to be in the

head.

Nevertheless, the langue in the head assumption granted the Chomskian

model a certain psychological flavor, which seduced many psychologists

(e.g. Johnson 1965, 1966; Miller & Isard, 1963; Miller & McKean, 1964)

and had a decisive influence in the evolution of psycholinguistics. From thispoint on, psychology appears to have assimilated the structuralist-

generativist conception of linguistic meaning which is based on the semantic

contents independence from the speaker/listener.

On the Distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics

The tension between a subject-dependent and a subject-independent mean-

ing is also found at the point where the study of the structure of languagegives way to the study of language use. Thus, the debate about the limits of

semantics and pragmatics can be understood as the point of conflict between

the two ways of understanding meaning.

Adhering to a structuralist-generativist definition of meaning, linguists

usually understand semantics as the study of linguistic meaning, understood

as the content conventionally linked to a given lexical item (e.g. Cruse,

2000). The level of description of semantics, as with the other linguistics

subdisciplines, is always structural, that is, it concerns the structure of the

general linguistic system. With the writings of Wittgenstein (1953), Austin(1962), Searle (1969/1989) and Grice (1975), among others, the view

emerged progressively that a description of the linguistic systems structure

did not encompass language use phenomena.

The division of the study of language in its structure and its use signals

the emergence of a new linguistic subdiscipline calledpragmatics. Although

the definition of pragmatics object of study is not altogether clear (Cruse,

2000; Davis, 1991; Gazdar, 1979; Levinson, 1983), authors agree that it

concerns the aspects of meaning that are derived from language use, and not

from its semantic structure, as portrayed in the motto pragmatics =meaning minus semantics (see Levinson, 1983, p. 12). Pragmatics concerns

itself with linguistic utterances in context, including the meaningful

elements produced by social and contextual factors.




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Language use always occurs in a specific context, by a specific speaker,

with a given communicative goal. Therefore, the pragmatic aspect oflinguistic meaning constitutes a psychological explanandum: when we

consider the use context of a particular expression, we are referring not to ameaning-in-itself, but, rather, to the subjective experience of meaning. It is

no longer about describing the (decontextualized) meaning of words, but

about the online meaning that a speaker/listener constructs when using/

hearing those words in a particular context. Thus, the study of language use

compels us to go beyond the structural description of meaning-in-itself and

focuses our attention on the subjective comprehension of utterances.Pragmatics quasi-psychological nature should have led it to confront the

problem of the integration of linguistic meanings objective and subjective

aspects. Surprisingly, this has not been the case, mainly because a large

portion of the research that nowadays can be classified as pragmatics

assumes, either implicitly or explicitly, a structuralist-generativist definition

of linguistic meaning, which is always alien to the experience of meaning.

Traditional pragmatics presumes the existence, in the head, of the utter-

ances meaning-in-itself, while a pragmatic component is responsible foraccommodating this meaning-in-itself to the particular communicative

situation and for extracting additional contextual inferences. In this view,

pragmatic aspects are reduced to inferences that are subsidiary and com-

plementary to the mental lexicons meaning-in-itself, which continues to

be the true linguistic meaning. Paradoxically, all contextual elements influ-encing online linguistic comprehensionboth non-linguistic (e.g. non-

verbal gestures) and paralinguistic elements (e.g. prosody, tone of

voice)have been excluded from research in pragmatics (H.H. Clark,1996).

Although the contextual aspect of language use is only a part of (and not

synonymous with) the subjective experience of meaning, its absolute ex-

clusion from pragmatics shows the incapacity of the discipline to integrate

comprehension elements not pertaining to the langue, which, in turn, reveals

that classic pragmatics has not abandoned the structuralist view of meaning.The language studied in pragmatics corresponds to the superindividual

system of language. Thus, pragmatics becomes the study of the interactionalconsequences of the manipulation of superindividual prefabricated semantic

units. The speaker/listeners experience of meaning is described, in the end,

as a fusion of two elements belonging to two different logical realms: the

meaning-in-itselfindependent of the subjectand the pragmatic

inferencesdependent on both the subject and the context.

Pragmatic theorys mixture of elements belonging to different logical

domains seems to be the result of overlooking the fact that the study oflanguage use requires abandoning the basic theoretical assumptions thatallow us to legitimately talk about meaning-in-itself. This is so inasmuch

as, in considering the context of language use, we are no longer dealing with




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a structuralist-generativist meaning-in-itself, but, rather, with a speaker/

listeners experience of meaning, that is, with a meaning-for-somebody.

It follows, then, that, its eventual descriptive value notwithstanding, the

analytical distinction between semantics and pragmatics lacks psychologicalreality (Cornejo, 2000; Gibbs, 1994; Rumelhart, 1979; Shanon, 1988). The

notion that linguistic comprehension involves the recovery of the lexical

items predetermined semantic content, with the role of the context being the

filter that selects the adequate semantic content, not only suffers from the

logical problem of confounding the social and individual levels of descrip-

tion, but is also empirically untenable from a psychological perspective, for

at least three reasons. In the first place, it is obvious that in the microgenetic

moment of linguistic comprehension, contextual-pragmatic information is as

important as semantic information in order to comprehend a given ex-

pression (Gibbs, 1984, 1994). Second, the definition of any lexical items

linguistic meaning, regardless of how simple this item appears to be, always

refers to some general background knowledge, without which the definition

would become incomprehensible. A large portion of this background know-

ledge remains implicit and is evoked by non-linguistic and paralinguistic

contextual elements, which are therefore (strictly speaking) non-semantic.

This is precisely the insight that inspired many fruitful theories in cognitive

psychology, linguistics and artificial intelligence, such as the theories of

schemata (Bartlett, 1932/1961; Rumelhart, 1980), scripts (Schank &

Abelson, 1977) andframes (Fillmore, 1982; Minsky, 1977). Third, develop-mental psychology provides abundant evidence that language acquisition

proceeds in a contextual and holistic fashion, as opposed to an analytical one

(D.A. Baldwin, Markman, Bill, Desjardins, & Irwin, 1996; D.A. Baldwin &

Tomasello, 1998).

Interestingly, criticism of the semantics/pragmatics distinction has also

originated from non-generativist theories, specifically from the cognitive

linguistics theory. This theory rejects the modular view of language, which

isolates it from the entire whole of cognitive processes and operations and

understands meaning as conceptualization (Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987,1990; Rudzka-Ostyn, 1988).

In rejecting the notion of an autonomous linguistic faculty, cognitive

linguistics necessarily removes the need for pragmatics as a separate

branch of study. All meaning is, in a sense, pragmatic, as it involves the

conceptualizations of human beings in a physical and social environment.

(Taylor, 1995, p. 132)

What the cognitive linguistics school understands as meaning is obviously

not the same as the meaning-in-itself of the structuralist and generativistschools. For the former, the meaning of a linguistic construction is an

interpretation arising out of a particular context (Geeraerts, 1993; Givon,

1989), being, as a consequence, both context- and subject-dependent.




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The shift from structure to use uncovers the problem of the existence of

two opposing ways of understanding linguistic meaning, depending onwhether it refers to superindividual regularities and conventions, or to the

speaker/listeners experience of meaning. In what follows I would like toargue that this tension implies different metatheoretical views regarding the

more basic issue of intentionality.

Meaning and Intentionality

The tension between the objectivity of what words say and the subjectivity

of the mental construction of the subject who uses them in real contexts is

the (psycho-)linguistic expression of a deeper division in psychology, one

that arises from the speaker/listeners perspective towards the intentional

experience of consciousness.

The view of linguistic meaning as meaning-in-itself emphasizes the

objective character of meaning: it concerns only conventionalized

intersubjectively valid associations between linguistic form and content.

Since the connection between form and meaning is an intersubjective one,

what the words say is independent of their subjective use. This viewpoint

thus adopts a superindividual perspective, located outside subjective experi-

ence. From this standpoint, the phenomenological experience of linguistic

comprehension becomes superfluous to the study of meaning, inasmuch assemantic content has an objective character, and either the subject possessesthis meaning or it does not. It follows that all the subtleties and deviations

from conventional associations that are observed in daily language use have

to be explained without altering the essential principle of linguistic mean-

ings objectivity. On the other hand, the view of linguistic meaning as

meaning-for-somebodye.g. that of cognitive linguisticsemphasizes the

subjective nature of meaning and places the phenomenon within the speaker/

listeners phenomenological experience: meaning does not reside objectively

in the expression eo ipso, since a words meaningfulness is always asubjects contextualized construction. According to this view, the (empiric-

ally) proven significance of the context in the definition of linguistic

meaning is a result of the fact that meaning is always a psychological

construction, a meaning-for-somebody.

Thus we have two concepts of meaning, depending on whether we situate

ourselves within or without the speaker/listeners experience of meaning. If

we are situated outside this experience, meaning is objective, social and it

resides in the words. If we take the perspective from inside the phenomeno-

logical experience, meaning is a subjective, contextual construction, and itresides in the mindin the form of an intentional content of consciousness.

It thus follows that traditional semantics term meaning puts the intention-

ality of consciousness in parentheses, using it merely as a working hypo-




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thesis that justifies an inquiry into an object of linguistic knowledge. In this

case meaning refers to a cartography of the conventional formcontentregularities existing in a linguistic community, which has nothing to do with

the psychological explanandum of meaning as a subjective comprehension.According to this analysis, the meaning-in-itself assumed by different

psychological schools to exist in the speakers heads is actually a unit of

social nature, which is induced from the regularities in the linguistic

behavior of a group of speakers. That is, it constitutes a description of the

experience of meaning from the outside. Therefore, the psycholinguistic

supposition that the meaning-in-itself would be stored in the memoryrepresents an illegitimate mixture of different perspectives: elements de-

scribed from the perspective of an external observer regarding the subjects

experience of meaning are treated as phenomenological units, whose nature

is only accessible in the first person. The meaning-in-itself is an analysis

unit belonging to a (macro-)social level, not to the speakers/listeners

intentional experience. Therefore, it cannot be supposed in the head.2

Such a standpoint could eventually lead us, however, to what Donnellan

(1968) has called the Humpty Dumpty theory of meaning, that is, a theory of

the kind When I use a word, it means just what I choose to mean . . ..3 Ifmeaning is by definition a meaning-for-somebody, then it becomes a purely

subjective construction and completely variable depending on subject and

context. Yet it is an empirical fact that linguistic expressions do not evoke

just any content in the mind of the speaker, but a set of given objectivecontents, the presence of which provides support to the assumption of a

meaning-in-itself independent of the subject who uses it and the context in

which it is used. The debate about meanings constructive-subjective char-

acter should not ignore the fact that speakers in a community are normally inagreement about the meanings of words and sentences, and when this is not

the case, they can reach agreement without great difficulty.

Nevertheless, it is not clear how a psychological conception of meaning,

which approaches the phenomenon from within the experience of meaning,

therefore emphasizing its subjective nature, can be compatible with theempirical fact that this meaning is usually objective. Is it possible for

something to be at the same time both objective and subjective?

Objectivity and Subjectivity of Linguistic Meaning

It is interesting to note that the traditional conception of linguistic

meaningas meaning-in-itselfbrings with it a particular view about the

nature of the relation between individual and society. The idea of meaning-in-itself is always proposed in opposition to other, non-objective contents(of consciousness), assuming that there is a conceptual distinction among

contents (of consciousness) depending on whether they are objective or




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subjective. In the case of Saussure, it is precisely the objectivity of linguistic

meaning that allows it to be assigned to the social fact of langue. Thisimplicitly divides mental contents in two mutually exclusive categories: a

meaning-in-itselfobjective and socialand a fuzzy set of other sub-jective and idiosyncratic mental contents.

All this suggests that the idea of meaning-in-itself is based on a

dichotomous view of the relation between individual and society, according

to which contents of consciousness are different from the social and

objective contents belonging to the social linguistic system. Individual

contents (of consciousness) cannot be social, inasmuch as they are notobjective, while social meaning cannot be subjective, for it is objective. This

reasoning can be outlined in the following way:

P1 Meaning is a conventional content.P2 If a content is conventional, then it is objective.

P3 A content is either objective or subjective.

C Meaning is not subjective.

Despite the reasoning being valid, it contains an ambiguous predicate

which is found both in the third premise and in the conclusion: subjective.

P3 and C are erroneous inasmuch as subjectivity is not necessarily opposed

to objectivity. In order to make this clear, it has to be noted that the

objectivity of meaning is based on its social conventionality and not on the

objectivity of its referent. In fact, in semantic terms, an expression can havean objective meaning even in the absence of an observable referente.g.

electron, accelerationor a specific referente.g.freedom,figure, blueness.

P1 asserts the fact that, as result of social interactions, certain consensual

soundcontent associations emerge whose validity extends to the whole

linguistic community.4 Thus, when we talk about the objectivity of meaning,

we are referring precisely to the conventional character of some associations

in a given linguistic community. In other words, objectivity is understood as

intersubjectivity. The influential Saussurian reasoning presented above is

based on the claim that meaning cannot be individual because it is inter-subjectively valid.

Nevertheless, the fact that some formcontent associations are inter-

subjective does not imply that these are non-mental. This reasoning can be

invalidated by making explicit the two different senses of subjective con-

founded in Saussurian reasoning:

We resist accepting subjectivity as a ground floor, irreducible phenomenon

of nature because, since the seventeenth century, we have come to believe

that science must be objective. But this involves a pun on the notion of

objectivity. We are confusing the epistemic objectivity of scientificinvestigation with the ontological objectivity of the typical subject matter

in science in disciplines such as physics and chemistry. Since science aims

at objectivity in the epistemic sense that we seek truths that are not




14/25

dependent on the particular point of view of this or that investigator, it has

been tempting to conclude that the reality investigated by science must be

objective in the sense of existing independently of the experiences in the

human individual. But this last feature, ontological objectivity, is not an

essential trait of science. (Searle, 1994, p. 5)

According to this distinction, subjective in the third premise of the reasoning

presented above must be understood in a strictly epistemic sense, while

subjective in the conclusion has an ontological sense. The fallacy has ledlinguistics as well as psychology to the erroneous conclusion that meaning

cannot be ontologically subjective (see C) given its epistemic objectivity

(see P3). From the fact that linguistic meaning is intersubjectively valid it is

erroneously concluded that it cannot be mental.

The idea that what is ontologically subjective is epistemically subjective

constitutes one of the essential premises of the anti-psychological thinking at

the end of the 19th century, which constituted the origin of the elimination

of subjective experience as a foundation for meaning. This anti-psychological thinking is clearly evident in the writings of one of the

founders of formal semantics, namely Frege (see Levine, 1999). When

introducing the famous distinction between referencethe object referred to

by the signand sensethe mode of presentation of the reference (Frege,

1892/1962, p. 39)Frege discusses whether the sense can be considered a

mental content. His answer is a negative one, basically due to senses

objective character, which can be a common property of many, andtherefore is not a part or mode of the individual soul (p. 42). Although the

sense does not correspond to an element of the external world, it has,

however, to be independent of the subject, due to its objectivity.

The objectivization of sense through its ontological separation from thecontents of consciousness was functional to Freges goal of ensuring a non-

ambiguous referential foundation for his Begriffschrift, the ideal language

that would allow the linguistic unification of the analytic and synthetic

sciences. In the logical-positivist view, where things and symbols belong

to disjunct classes, an ideal language warranted a format of precise thoughtfor the representational mind. For this to-think-is-to-calculate conception

to work, the class of manipulated symbols must have pre-existent relations

with their respective referents. This condition is indeed necessary forDescartes mechanical automata, Leibnizs universal grammar, the ideal

language of analytic philosophy, Turings machine, and certainly for

Chomskys generative grammar. In the Fregean framework, the separation

of the sense from the subjective mental life is indispensable to warrant the

mentioned condition.

The target of Freges criticism is idealistic subjectivism, which locatesmeaning in a transcendental spirit. Subjectivism does not give clear answersto the important question regarding the origin of significance or its relation

to referential function. Freges solution to the dilemmas of subjectivism is to




15/25

bind meaning to reference, in such a way that all phenomenological

experience not related to the referential function is excluded from the

objective conceptual domainthe sense. The individual/society dichotomy

is also expressed in the false choice between meaning as a creation of theindividual soul and meaning as Platonic concept. In both alternatives,

ontological and epistemic subjectivity are fused together.

In recent decades, however, psychology has been coming closer to a

sociocultural view of mental processes that is considerably different from

the concept of mind that was subject to anti-psychological criticism in the

19th century. This shift is expressed in the rediscovery of the classical

authors in Soviet psychology (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978; Wertsch, 1985, 1991)

and in Soviet literary science (Bakhtin, 1981; Hermans, 1996), together with

the American pragmatists (J.M. Baldwin, 1894, 1896a, 1896b; James,

1890/1983; Mead, 1934; Peirce, 19311935, 1958; see Dodds, Lawrence, &

Valsiner, 1997; Joas, 1993; Shank, 1998; Smythe & Chow, 1998; Valsiner

& Van der Veer, 2000). For different reasons, from diverse theoretical

groundings and with a range of emphases, these authors represent the

common idea that the self results from the internalization of externali.e.

socialrelations. In a naturalized conception of mind, the latter is not seen

as given beforehand, but as emerging and being formed on the basis of the

social interactions in which human beings are involved from birth. This

leads us to a framework in which subjectivity is seen as a social product:

psychic life as we experience it every day would be unthinkable without the

social processes in which the subject participates from birth. Thus, the

intersubjective world is constitutive of the subjective world:

The social is usually thought of in binary opposition with the individual,

and hence we have the notion that the psyche is individual while ideology

is social. Notions of that sort are fundamentally false. The correlate of the

social is the natural, and thus individual is not meant in the sense of a

person, but individual as a natural, biological specimen. The individual,

as possessor of the contents of his own consciousness, as author of his own

thoughts, as the personality responsible for his thoughts and feelings,

such an individual is a purely socioideological phenomenon. . . . Every

sign as sign is social, and this is no less true for the inner sign than for the

outer sign. (Volosinov, 1929/1973, p. 34)

Thus it follows that a content can be subjective, that is, can occur in a

subjects mental domain, and be intersubjective at the same time. Further-

more, the conceptual tools available to subjects to perceive and understand

their world in a coherent manner are necessarily intersubjective and there-

fore objective. From the observation that a given content is objective, thereis no reason to conclude that the same content is necessarily non-subjective

and belongs to a Platonic superindividual world. Linguistic meanings cannot

be anywhere else but in the speakers heads, but this does not mean that they




16/25

are stored in the shape of fixed acontextual relations between form and

content, as semantics and formal logic assert.In a dialogical view of the self (Hermans, 1996; Hermans & Kempen,

1993), it is not hard to understand that, epistemically, the dichotomybetween individual and society on which the concept of meaning-in-itself

is based does not exist. Peirce and Vygotskys hypotheses about the social

formation of subjectivity weaken the implicit synonymy between epistemic

subjectivitysubjectivity in the sense of a knowledge that cannot be

generally validand ontological subjectivitythe fact that mental pro-

cesses can only be experienced within the private realm. As a consequence,although linguistic comprehension is an undeniably private experience and

therefore subjective, it is also undeniable that the subject cannot understand

this experience as such unless he or she has internalized a conceptual set of

tools that are intersubjectively constructed.

Overcoming the dichotomous view of the relation between individual and

society, a goal pursued both by Peirces pragmatism and by sociogenetic

theory, puts into question the theoretical basis that caused linguistic meaning

to be taken out of phenomenological experience and reified as a structuralproperty of linguistic signs. If meanings ontological subjectivity is not

opposed to its epistemic objectivity, then psychology is now able to

reformulate the concept of linguistic meaning in a way that integrates both

aspects of the concept: objectivity and subjectivity.

Pragmatization and Semiotization of Meaning as Methods for

Integration of Objectivity and Subjectivity

So far, it can be concluded that it is necessary to correct the traditional

definition of meaning in a double sense: (1) it should be understood as a

phenomenon that takes place inside the subjects experience; and (2) its

epistemic objectivity should be considered compatible with the ontological

subjectivity of experience. The first correction implies the pragmatization ofmeaning, that is, its reconceptualization as a meaning-for-somebody, a

subject- and context-dependent construction. Meaning is no longer seen as a

pre-existent abstract entity which is activated whenever language is used, but

it is rather an ongoing construction which therefore depends on a myriad of

factors, such as paralinguistic and non-linguistic cues, corporal and emo-

tional arousal, comprehension background, and so on.

It is important to note that pragmatization of meaning is a consequence of

any theory that is distanced from a computational or mechanistic view of the

mind. Examples are current research programs like embodied cognition(Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Thompson & Varela, 2001; Varela, Rosch, &

Thompson, 1991) and affective neurosciences (Damasio, 1999). In both

cases, the radical foundation of mental processes on neurobiological and




17/25

basic corporal processes leads to the replacement of the disembodied

meaning-in-itself by a pragmatized meaning. Similarly, within the boundedrationality research program (Gigerenzer & Goldstein, 1996), there are

interesting attempts to deal with the categorization problem, which leads toabandoning the view of meaning as abstract representation. In this direction,

a categorization model has been proposed which is based on a simple

heuristic that stops looking for features to categorize a particular stimulus as

soon as there is sufficient information to make a specific categorization, so

that it is not necessary to compare all of the stimuluss features to ideal

profiles stored in memory in order to make a categorization (Berrety, Todd,& Martignon, 1999). Aside from the advantages of the model in terms of

psychological plausibility, it shows that categorization can occur without the

activation of an abstract representation, on the basis of a few cues.

Categorization is in this sense contextually guided. Furthermore, consistent

with an ecological view of rationality, concepts should be contextually

sensible in the stronger sense, that is, the correctness of the categorization

should be judged considering the environment in which the concept is used.

Thus, a particular object could, in principle, be categorized in different waysaccording to the present ecological needsin this regard see Olsons (1970)

classical work.

The second correction involves solving the problems of idealistic subjectiv-

ism. If human individuality is formed in society, an ontological difference

does not exist between subjective and intersubjective forms of meaning-fulness. Subjective consciousness is not transcendental, but rather it

develops in the play of intersubjectively determined meaning constructions.Now, if we ask for the material of the social constructions which constitute

consciousness, we arrive at the concept of sign, whose social, but at the

same time experiential, nature allows an adequate access to meaningfulness.

This movement implies the semiotization of meaning, that is, its revision as

a complex subjective construction which employs a diversity of semiotic

(and consequently intersubjective) elements, and which is permanently

modified in communicative use. Meaning also requires an interpretationprocess, and therefore an interpreting subject. From this fact it does notfollow, however, that meaning is an interindividually different content.

Rather, internal comprehension processes are based upon socially shared

interpretive possibilities. Although to mean and to understand are internal

processes, they are supported by many social elements, whose relative

weight can vary interindividually depending on the context of use. From this

point of view, subjective comprehension always occurs through the use of

the internalized social instrumental, and hence the subjective space remains

at all times within the limits and possibilities of intersubjectivity.Approaches like the epidemiology of representations (Sperber, 1996)

and memetic theory (Blackmore, 1999; Dawkins, 1976; Dennett, 1995)

have also defended a socialized view of the mind. Although with different




18/25

nuances, they all propose gene-like or virus-like units of information

(memes or mental/public representations), characterized by a tendency toself-reproduction or self-spreading. Individual minds are seen as an optimal

medium where these can subsist. Fashion, scientific theories, gestures andideas are all examples of self-replicators. The framework undoubtedly

overcomes the false dichotomy between mental contents and social contents.

Nevertheless, these theories are not capable of explaining the individual use

of language; diachronic variability of meanings and the contextual flexibility

of language use are questions that cannot even be formulated within this

framework. The reason is the exclusion of ontological subjectivity from theclass of natural phenomena.5 The naturalization of the mind proposed by

memetic theory and its variants implies the reconceptualization of the mind

as a receptacle of elements that are meaningful in themselves, described

from a third-person perspective, and therefore decontextualized. Thus, thestructuralist/generativist hard core remains the same. The price to pay for the

elimination of subjectivity is the creation of a metaphysical realm inhabited

by representations that are intrinsically meaningful.6

It could be counter-argued that the second proposed correction leads to the

negation of subjectivityin the sense of individuality. However, properly

considered, subjectivity as an attribute of psychic life is not neglected byarguments against an individual/society dichotomization; rather, what is

abandoned is the very idea that consciousnesss subjectivity consists of a

dominium proprium, apart from the objective, and is therefore unable to beapproached for scientific inquiry. It is still undeniable that the contents of

consciousness are in a sense private, that is, that thoughts, feelings, pains,

and the like, are accessible to the thinking, feeling subject in a way which is

completely different from that of an eventual external observer. What is to

be questioned, however, is the conclusion, reached from the qualitativecharacter of such phenomena, that they constitute an epistemically non-

objective domain.

The pragmatization and semiotization of meaning allow us to account for

both its variability and its objectivity. On the one hand, meaning is alwayscontextually determined, because it is a content of consciousness and

consequently it is construed within the experience of a subject, which is

always contextualized. On the other hand, the comprehension process

utilizes multiple conventionalized cues. Even though their degree of con-ventionalization can vary, semiotic elements are always the result of

internalizations of language games with others.

Conclusions

I have tried to show that the way in which cognitive psychology and

psycholinguistics use the concept of linguistic meaning is empirically




19/25

dubious and inconsistent with basic psychological knowledge shared by

these very disciplines. Most cognitive psychologists claim that linguisticmeaning is in some way contained in linguistic forms and, at the same time,

that the meaning of an expression is the final product of an active andconstructive process on the part of the subject. Thus, a linguistic signs

meaning is, at the same time, dependent on and independent of the subject.

This contradiction has its origins in the illegitimate introduction into

psychological language of distinctions coming from the realm of linguistics

(where they were valid). Many cognitive models are based on two assump-

tions: (a) that the scholastic maxim aliquid stat pro aliquosomethingstands for something elseexhaustively defines the sign; and (b) that this

dyadic unitusually in the form of signification/signifieris stored in the

mind and is recovered every time the sign is used. Besides the empirical

anomalies of this kind of model when trying to use a static model of sign to

account for the contextual flexibility of meaning in daily use, this way of

understanding linguistic meaning confounds two different logical levels,

namely the structural description of the intersubjective form/content regu-

larities and the phenomenological experience of meaningful comprehension.This confusion often goes unnoticed by psychologists, who frequently use

the term semantics to refer to experiential meaningfulness and not to

linguistics superindividual meaning-in-itself.

This is not to say that the concept of meaning-in-itself is totally without

basis. Actually it is based on empirically observable regularities betweenlinguistic forms and mental contents. However, based on its objectivity,

linguists, philosophers and psychologists have concluded that meaningcannot be a content of consciousness. The mental contents of consciousness

that are conventionally associated with given linguistic forms are thus taken

out of subjective experience and fixed within a dyadic model of the sign,

which leaves subject and context in parentheses. When placed outside

the head, the meaning-in-itselfreified and de-psychologizedleads

towards the creation of a Platonic third realm (Ryle, 1957/1990, p. 371);

inside the head, it produces two kinds of entia mentalis(epistemically)objective contents and (ontologically) subjective contents.

I have argued that overcoming the contradiction between the two uses of

meaning requires us to realize the perspective taken towards the intention-

ality of consciousness in both language games: when using linguistic

meaning referring to meaning-in-itself, one observes the phenomenon from

outside the intentional experience of the subject who understands; when one

talks about meaning-making or making sense, one observes the phenomenon

from within the experience of meaningfulness of the subject who under-

stands. Both perspectives emphasize different aspects of the same phenom-enon: on the one hand, the intersubjectively valid regularities of some

formcontent associations; on the other, the intrinsically individual quality

of the linguistic comprehension process. Throughout this paper I have




20/25

questioned the ubiquitous idea that the subjective and objective aspects of

meaning are mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite: both aspects can beintegrated once we go beyond a Robinson Crusoe view of the human

being, that is, the Cartesian idea of logical pre-existence of the subject oversociety.

Notes

1. Currently, the clearest instance of the assumption of the langue in the head is

the hypothesis of a mentalese or language of thought (Fodor, 1975).

2. In this sense can the famous dictum of Putnam be understood: Cut the pie any

way you like, meanings just aint in the head! (Putnam, 1975, p. 227).

3. From Lewis CarrollsAlice in Wonderland.

4. Conventional in P1 refers to the descriptive fact that the same word produces

similar contents; it does not allude to the prescriptive determination of how and

when a word is to be used. The determination of the correct use of a language

is always historically and ontogenetically posterior to the spontaneous use of

language.

5. This point is already explicit in Dennetts (1987) theory of intentional systems,

where intentionality is understood as an attribution made by an external

observer about the behavior of an organism or system. Hence, it is an observer-

relative property, not a factual one, as physical states are. According to this view,

the sentence The child forgot to do her homework has exactly the same

referential status as This clock forgot how to work; both of them refer to non-

factual properties.6. Sperber strictly represents the marriage of Durkheimian structuralist thought

expressed by the concept of social representation (Sperber, 1989)with the

functionalist philosophy of mind through the concept of mental representation.

Since both viewpoints propose characteristically third-person descriptions, Sperb-

ers theory cannot account for intentionality and ontological subjectivity: Be-

cause of these interactions [physical interactions with the environment], mental

representations are, to some extent, regularly connected to what they represent; as

a result, they have semantic properties, or meaning, of their own (Sperber,

1996, p. 80).

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Acknowledgements. Preparation of this manuscript was supported byGrant C-13680/3 from the Fundacion Andes. I would like to thankKatherine Strasser, Luke Moissinac and three anonymous reviewers fortheir comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Carlos Cornejo (PhD, Cologne University, 2000) is Assistant Professorin psychology of language and theoretical psychology at the PontificiaUniversidad Catolica de Chile. His research interests include theoreticaland empirical aspects of meaning construction/processing, figurative lan-guage and pragmatism in psychology. Address: Escuela de Psicologa, P.Universidad Catolica de Chile, Vicuna Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile.[[email protected]]


0916cornejo 2004 who says what words say

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