"Relax. Concentrate.
Dispel every other thought.
Let the world around you fade"1.
In the previous unit, we have seen some aspects of
semiosis strictly connected to a psychic, subjective vision. Let us now
take a look at Ogden and Richards' context theory of interpretation.
After sensory recognition and the distinction between prose
text and poetry text, the initial sign is identified with a word, a change
occurring thanks to the new psychological context of the sign. While
recognizing a sound, or a shape, as such, involves a context consisting of
similar, previously experienced sound and visual sensations, recognizing a
sign "as a word requires that it form a context with further experiences2"
other than sounds or graphemes. For this to occur, we must learn to
associate a sign to experiences. This kind of association occurs in our
minds, often in an unconscious way, even before we have learned to speak.
Without realizing it, we learn to classify the occurrence of a
given word as a sign, linked to a reaction similar to those elicited by
the associated experiences. In this case, too, interpretation is
unconscious, provided that no difficulties arise, because then the
perceptual automatism can get stuck and conscious interpreting procedures
come into play.
In a sense we could say that the fewer difficulties we face in
understanding words, the less we are conscious of the processes we use in
order to do so, and the less equipped we are to address a deviant exposure
to words (in the case of spoken language a pronunciation different from
that we are used to, in the case of written language a spelling that varies
from the one we are used to; in both cases, abnormal syntactic uses, i.e.
unusually constructed sentences, with reference to what each of us considers
the standard construction).
Once a sound is identified as a word, its importance as a sound
is not placed in the background. Some phonic (tone, volume, speed, timbre,
intonation, musicality) and graphic features (type-face/handwriting,
spacing, dimension, layout, graphics) become part of the message content
and, as much as two encounters with the same word can prove to be different,
they must share that common character necessary to identify them as
occurrences of the same word. Only thanks to this shared part the two words
have a similar psychic context and hence can be perceived in a similar way.
Such psychic contextualization occurs, particularly in the first,
simpler stages, in an unconscious way. "Difficulty or failure at any level
of interpretation leads in most cases to the re-emergence of the lower
levels into consciousness"3,
and to a preoccupation with such usually automatic mechanisms, distracting
from the interpretation of the message at a pragmatic, functional, outer
level.
When is the case of more complex utterances, of more developed
languages, new questions arise. The example chosen by Ogden and Richards is
that of the expression "my relatives", an abstract notion because it
implies something more than having known single subjects and having learnt
their names. The acquaintance with single relatives does not necessarily
imply any knowledge of the degree of consanguinity, nor can it be taken for
granted the kind of relation usually existing in a given culture between
two relatives in the different possible cases. The notion is, therefore,
the result of different groupings of experiences; such difference is what
causes the common elements to be evident by contrast.
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This process of selection and elimination is always at work in the
acquisition of a vocabulary and the development of thought. It is rare for
words to be formed into contexts with non-symbolic experience directly, for
as a rule they are learnt only through other words4.
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We learn to use our language as we learn the language
itself; it is not a simple matter of acquiring synonyms or alternative
expressions, but to learn the nuances of many senses and particular
connotations created by the context, such activity of identification of
affinities and differences is endless.
Such activity continually refines our abstraction capabilities,
teaches us to use metaphors, "the primitive symbolization of abstraction".
Metaphor is described as the application of a single verbal expression to
a group of objects that are different but share something. The use of
metaphor is not considered from the stylistic, but from the cognitive point
of view: it helps the identification of a similar relation in another group.
For all practical purposes, metaphor is seen as a signification relation
that appropriates the context of another relation.
When we speak of "a sea of troubles", we are concerned just
with a part of the sea, while other parts are discarded. If we are nor able
to think at the sea as an abstract entity, we cannot understand what the
expression "a sea of troubles" can mean. The abstraction capability
necessary to get to the metaphor is just the same, in the two British
researchers' opinion, as that necessary to put an adjective near a noun,
or to use prepositions or verbs. And the metaphorical aspects of a great
part of language prove that, the higher the level of education of an
individual, more words acquire a context through other words. The down
side of such sophisticated acquisition of meanings lies in the fact that
meanings, built on such abstract references, are bound to muddle our minds
more often.
Bibliographical references
CALVINO I. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, translated by William Weaver, London, Vintage, 1998, ISBN 0-7493-9923-6.
OGDEN C. K. e RICHARDS I. A. The Meaning of Meaning. A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism.
London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960 [first edition 1923].
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