If we say Newcastle people use different rules from London people, it is the third kind of difference - most of the rules are in common but each group has some which the other group does not have. If we say children have different rules from adults, it is generally the second kind of difference; the children's rules are all adult rules but they do not have all the adult rules.

If we say that Japanese people use different rules from Russian people, it is the first kind of difference - there is no overlap between them.

ii) There are also accompanying `natural signs'. From people's written language we can often tell things about their levels of education and, sometimes, about their personalities - things which they are not intending to convey to us. From their spoken language we can generally learn a great deal more - what area they come from, what social class they belong to, how confident they are......again things which are not part of the message which they are deliberately sending - unless, e.g., somebody deliberately accentuates his Welsh accent to let people know (in addition to whatever he is telling them) that he comes from Wales.

b) In this case he is using two sets of `rules' simultaneously (and with the same tokens). In fact, mainly in spoken communication, we all do use several different `sets of rules' at the same time - and they work, like any other symbols, only to the extent that the recipients recognise and know them. Here think of -

i) Tones of voice which signify `this is important' or `don't be stupid'......Think also of sarcasm; `You are a clever chap', addressed to a man who has just spilt his soup over the table, will generally be understood as `you are a clumsy idiot' - but, addressed to a child in the same circumstances, may well leave the child puzzled as to why he is being praised. (See 2 a) i above)

ii) Selection of vocabulary and style - in English there are many ways of saying the same thing but the way it is said can convey all kinds of additional messages. That is why people study `business English', `creative writing' and such.

iii) The nods and winks and facial expressions and gestures which are often called `body language'. Here caution is needed; often these days people use the term `body language' to describe all the signs people provide for other people by their bodily behaviour or appearance. But many of these are just `natural signs' which the people in question do not realise they are `making' - and probably would prefer not to make. Involuntary stuttering or blushing or finger-twisting, for instance, may show things about someone which he would much rather not have shown. These are body-signs but not body-symbols - and, therefore, not `body-language'. If, on the other hand, I accompany my utterence `Get to hell out of here' with a shaking of my fist, the shaken fist is just as much a symbol (recognised within that set of rules) as is the utterance.

This possibility of using different sets of symbols simultaneously is why face-to-face communication is so much `richer' and more effective than other forms. Consider the symbols that are available in

i) talking to somebody face-to-face

ii) talking to somebody by telephone

iii) writing to somebody

and consider how much more clear these notes would be if you had previously had a face-to-face lecture on the topic as the previous recipients had.

c) So - `natural languages' do involve the use of symbols, but only by the same criteria as shop-signs, posters, badges or any of the other examples we considered. Very simply:

i) A symbol is a sign deliberately used to communicate -

ii) it is functioning as a symbol only insofar as it is communicating (to somebody) what it was intended by its utterer to signify -

iii) this can be achieved only if the sender and receiver are operating by the same set of rules -

iv) these `rules' may be as simple as identifiable gestures (e.g. thumbs up - yes, thumbs down - no) or as complex as sophisticated English -

v) It follows, then, that there cannot be a symbol outside of (independent of) a set of rules (for the use of symbol-tokens).

Here a note of caution. A symbol cannot be characterised simply as a man-made sign. Although it is obvious why people might say this, it fails as a definition on both counts -
i) non-men (e.g. dogs, birds) can and do use symbols -

ii) men often `make' signs (i.e. originate sign-tokens) which are quite unintentional and, therefore, not symbols. If Jones (quite involuntarily) scratches his nose, this could well signify to Brown that Jones has an itchy nose.



3. It has been seen that symbols can occur (can function as such) only within communication. There cannot be symbols without communication; there cannot be communication without symbols. (Much as there cannot be a middle without ends or ends without a middle). So we shall now briefly examine the concept of communication.

a. We saw that signification is 3-termed - X (the token) signifies Y (the expected state of affairs) to Z (the observer). Communication is 4-termed. For there to be communication, somebody must be communicating some message by some means to somebody else. Thus we must have: the communicator, the proposed state of affairs, the symbol and the communicatee.

[Contrary to the popular slogan, the medium is not the message; it is merely the mode of conveyance of the message.]

b. Communication is an achievement (like winning), not merely a process (like running). When we run a race we can attempt to win, but fail. Similarly we can (and often do) attempt to communicate, but fail. We know what counts as (succeeding in) winning a race; it is less obvious, however, what counts as (succeeding in) communicating.

Suppose Jones tells Brown that his (Brown's) shoelace is undone and Brown promptly does it up. Here, pretty plainly, communication has occurred (even if Jones's `telling' was merely pointing to Brown's foot).

But, if Brown does nothing, makes no response at all, does this establish that communication has not occurred? He might, for Instance, think Jones is a nosey-parker and deliberately ignore him. But, in this case, we can say he did nothing (nothing that Jones or we could see him doing) - but can we say that he `made no response'?

The fact that other people cannot observe his response to the symbol-token does not imply that he cannot observe his response to it. Here refer back to the discussion (1.c) above) of expecting. To believe is to expect - and manifests in behaviour modification (whether this is observable by other people or not). Unless there is some response, there can be no modification of belief. Now, if Brown's believing is in no way modified (changed, expanded) by Jones's utterance, then there is absolutely nothing which could count as Jones communicating information to Brown. And to communicate is to give information. (If Brown were already aware that his shoelace was undone, Jones could not inform him of this fact)- though he could (and would) indicate, in a natural-sign way, that he was unaware that Brown knew about his undone shoelace .

Let us say, then, that all that can count as successful communication is the deliberate engendering of belief in one person by another person. And all that can show that an attempt at communication has been successful is a behavioural response by the communicatee which indicates such modification of his believing.

There may appear still to be problems here. If a hopeless candidate tells me that he will win the election, I do not believe that he will, nor do I believe that he believes that he will though I do believe that he is pretending to believe this. This is possible, however, only because I do understand `I will win this election'. Here we would need to consider very carefully just what (if anything) is being communicated and what is being learned from `natural signs' (albeit man-made ones).

c. A lot of difficulties arise from the (generally unrecognised) assumption that communication must be a two-way affair. Because it is between people it is expected that each will be communicating to the other. This might happen - but it does not need to. When the S.E.C. communicates to Jones that the price of electricity has gone up, there is no need for Jones to reply for the communication to be successful - though there is little doubt he will `respond appropriately'. In this case Jones is aware that the S.E.C. is telling him something as well as being aware of what it is telling him. But this is not necessary for there to be communication. Think of a clever dog that has learned to use pedestrian lights to cross the road. It is most unlikely that the dog thinks `some nice people have put these lights here to tell me when it is safe to cross'. So far as the dog is concerned this is just a natural sign: When that light turns green the traffic stops. But this does not alter the fact that the lights were placed there deliberately to signify that the traffic will stop - and that they are doing just that. So the traffic authority is communicating to that dog.

This is no trifling point. It makes clear that, at the receiving end, all anybody can be doing is responding to signs - i.e. recognising customary complexes. Whether or not a sign is a symbol is determined at the sender end - it is a symbol if it was made deliberately (within a set of rules made deliberately, the complex in question) to signify a specific message and does so. Granted that this occurs, there has been communication, whether the communicatee realises this or not.

d) Frequently, however, attempted communication is not successful - or not wholly successful (by which we mean that not all of the message was received). And it is useful to consider ways in which it can break down in relation to the four elements of communication we have identified: the communicator, the message, the symbol and the communicatee.

Suppose:

i) The communicatee mishears or misreads the symbol-token itself. This can happen all too easily in lectures. Students have been known for instance, to mishear `memory-feel' as `memory field' and gain a totally wrong idea of what is being said. They have the right set of rules but the wrong token.

ii) Something very similar can occur at the `sender end' - the slip of the tongue. People often say `Sorry! Did I say ....; I meant.....' And sometimes, of course, they make such mistakes without noticing - and are, accordingly, misunderstood. We might call this the inadvertent use of the wrong token (for the assumed set of rules).

iii) The major problem, however, is confusion about the set(s) of rules themselves. People assume that they are both applying the same set of rules when, in fact they are applying two marginally different sets of rules.

Here refer back to 2 a): - it is this kind of difference we are mainly concerned with. Since the rules are always tacitly understood, never completely, fully stated and learned (It is hard to imagine what could count as this!), such differences would apply to some extent between any two people. What it amounts to is that the symbol/concept relationships for the communicator are, in some minor ways, different from those for the communicatee. Put crudely, they use terms a little bit differently.

We cannot say that one is right and the other wrong; correct usage is simply that usage which works - i.e. achieves communication - and natural languages are constantly developing. If enough people persist in using `home' where others would feel `house' is the correct term, and speaking of `eating breakfast' instead of eating eggs when they breakfast, then these usages are absorbed into the language and generally accepted. But (and here think again of the perils of the M/N gap - this set of rules is an X if it has any M of the N X-rules) whenever such marginal differences occur, there must be the danger of communication breakdown. It is not that the two people have different `batteries of concepts' from each other, nor yet that they employ different symbol-tokens in their sets of rules; it is simply that they relate those concepts to those symbol-tokens differently. If Jones (who adopts modern jargon) says to Brown (who doesn't) `I'm going to my home' there is little likelihood of misunderstanding. But if Brown says `When Alice and I are married we shall concentrate on building a home together' there could easily be total misunderstanding. Jones would probably think that Brown and his Alice were intending to be fellow labourers in a house-construction endeavour.

Problems can arise also when the marginal differences between sets of rules are of this kind, though here it is more often in the syntax than in the vocabulary that the difference lies. An example of this would be a layman reading and misunderstanding a legal document because, although his syntactical rules are understood by the lawyer who drafted it, not all of the lawyer's syntactical rules are understood by him. People, for instance, who have never grasped the niceties of comma-placement can quite misunderstand the intended significance of written sentences.

iv) In i, ii and iii above, we have assumed that the communicator was using one `set of rules' but, as seen earlier (2 b) above), people generally use several `sets of rules' simultaneously. In Western movies people say things like `You've got to smile when you say that' (or else!). Here they are indicating that those words accompanied by a smile have a totally different significance from the same words said with a straight, earnest face. When people know and recognise one set of rules but do not know, or fail to recognise, another set of rules which is also being used, some breakdown in communication is very likely.

v) Finally, there can be a conceptual problem which is quite different from (not to be confused with) iii above. In that case the two people were assumed to have equivalent `batteries of concepts' but to line them up differently with symbol-tokens. But some people simply `have' concepts which other people don't `have' (have never developed). Jones might use the symbol-token X for such a concept and, whereas Brown is familiar enough with that symbol-token (simply as a sound) he just has no concept of X-ness - so, for him, `X' does not really signify anything. Imagine that a small child has heard and learned the word `promiscuous' (children like learning words). Sue asks her mother `Why don't you like that lady?' and is told `Oh! Because she is so promiscuous'. The child nods sagely - but hasn't understood a thing, except that her mother disapproves of promiscuity, whatever that may be. But the problem is not confined to children. I know the words `God is omnipotent' - but have no concept whatsoever of what state of affairs is (allegedly) asserted by them. Since they have been used, quite seriously, by people who are certainly not mad, I must assume that those people have a concept which I have simply failed to develop. Philosophy is very largely concerned with the development of concepts (or of precision of conceptual function - which is really the same thing) and that is why it is so hard to teach; until students develop a concept of, say, necessity, communication with them about necessity is a very hit and miss affair.

e. It should be noted that, whereas people can fail totally in their attempts to communicate (e.g. shouting after somebody who is already out of earshot), there can't really be a total breakdown of communication, since there would then be no communication to break-down. Here compare mistake-making - mistakes occur only at a given level of precision. A breakdown in communications is in fact a mistake - somebody taking what somebody else is attempting to communicate to him as something (marginally) different. Again, we are looking at the (so important and pervasive) precision/vagueness factor. Some message generally gets through (as intended) but not at the intended level of precision. We might want to say, therefore, that there is communication, but not total communication.

But what could `total communication' be? Nothing can overcome the problem (if one so sees it) that concepts are necessarily private (personal) whereas symbols are necessarily public (inter-personal). One person cannot give another person his concept - all he can hope for is to stimulate in that other person a concept effectively equivalent (vis-a-vis expectations about the world out there) with his own. And nothing could ever establish, in a permanent, immutable kind of way, just how effectively equivalent their concepts are. All we can have is a behavioural response which (for us) is evidence that the message was received.

We should not ask, therefore, whether communication was received but, rather, what has apparently been communicated.



4. We should now look, more broadly, at language. Plainly the concepts of symbol, communication and language are necessarily inter-related - though they are all categorially different concepts.

a. It should by now be totally clear that the significance (to somebody) of a symbol is dependent upon (his) recognition of it as within a given system of symbols (set of rules) with which he is familiar.

Thus we see that `there is a symbol' implies `there is a system'. The `system', however, is not (strictly) of symbols; rather it is of symbol-tokens since the system is logically prior to the functioning of the tokens as symbols. It is because it is a system of symbol-tokens that the system is, in an important way, an entity in its own right.

This is important because a system of symbols - any system of symbols - is a language (or vice-versa - a language just is a particular system of symbols ,a set of rules for communication).

[This is not a discovery; it's a `what counts as']

b. So - to summarise:

i) A sign is any observable (token) which is functioning as the sign of something other than itself to somebody

ii) A symbol is a sign deliberately created as such in order to communicate - and can function as a symbol only by virtue of being (and being recognised as being) within a particular system of symbol-tokens.

iii) A language is any system of symbol-tokens. From which it follows that -

i) If communication is occurring then some language is being used - i.e. someone is responding, as intended, to symbols within a system - But

ii) The existence of a language does not imply communication (although language `exists' only for communication) since the `system' is of symbol-tokens. Thus a `dead language' is still a language. It could be learned and used.

c. It is important to distinguish between what is a language in its own right and what is merely an `alternative symbolisation' for an existing language.

In race-course tick-tack, for instance, each gesture is a complete message so that the system can be learned and used without reference to any other language. Semaphore and morse-code, on the other hand, are merely different ways of using existing `natural languages'. It is, therefore, a misunderstanding to think of these as being languages. It is not a matter of being simple or complex, but of being self-contained. An individual language can be of any degree of complexity - from a simple set of rules that a red flag flying signifies `don't come in' and a green flag flying signifies `do come in' to the most intricate of sophisticated natural languages - like English.

d. The complexity of a natural language (like English) can, however, lead to misunderstandings. Here think back to the analysis of communication: the symbol must signify the same message (or an effectively equivalent message) about the world to the sender and the receiver for the communication to be effective. Words (as such) do not normally signify messages at all. Except in some cases (such as `Go!') a particular word is not, therefore, a symbol. The words (vocabulary) along with the sequencing of those words and the punctuation, are really part of the set of rules (the system). In the English language (or any other language) the symbol is the sentence - i.e. that which conveys a proposition (an assertion that some state of affairs pertains).

Remember that thought is necessarily propositional - and a `message' must be that a possibility is an actuality (that this X is a Y).

This should become clearer in the next section when we re-examine the inter-relationship between fact, proposition, statement and sentence. For the present, however, the important point to grasp is that the `unit of language' which functions as a symbol is that which conveys a (propositional) message from the communicator to the communicatee - and that this is what we call a sentence.

Thus, in a very simple language like International Code each flag or group of flags is a sentence within that language - e.g. a particular blue and white flag signifies that a particular ship has a pilot on board. In the same way an infant utters simply `cat' meaning `This is a cat', then, in that infant's language (the relationship with our own) `Cat' is a sentence. But, in our `full-blown' English language, with its very complex rules `With a stutter he replied to the man' is a quite different sentence (symbol, message) from `He replied to the man with a stutter'.

e. Consider, very briefly, the learning process we all go through with our own natural languages. Initially this is merely the association (in a natural sign kind of way) of certain uttered sounds and certain observed situations. Then we start using the same sounds ourselves to inform other people of our wants - i.e. using symbols. But, from very early on, we `employ language to learn language' - so that the `customary complexes' signified to us are both of observable situations and of sequences of symbol-tokens - put very crudely: sentences become signs for further sentences.

Whereas this type of development is no doubt vital for the successful mastery of complex languages, it does have certain dangers. We can easily come to feel that any collection of words in normal sentence-form must `carry some message' so long as it `fits naturally' into its own context of sentences. Thus quite vacuous utterences can achieve an air of significance. We must remember that a sentence is a symbol only if it conveys an intelligible message about a state of affairs - i.e. if the recipient knows clearly (in simple perceptual terms) what situation would count as the proposition conveyed being true and what situation would count as its being false.

f. It is also important always to remember that, although, as language users, we tend to `think in language', language must follow thought, it cannot precede it. We cannot `attach symbols to concepts' until we have those concepts. And our `attachments' can only be to our own concepts. Thus, whilst through the experience of communication we are constantly both expanding our conceptual frameworks and refining our concept/symbol relationships in a way which moves continually towards greater `effective equivalence' between `message sent' and `message received', total `equivalence' can never be guaranteed.

In the use of language to communicate there will always be two `M/N gaps' -

i) In the communicator's selection of symbol - Is this precisely the symbol (within my rules) approporiate to this particular situation?

ii) In the concept/symbol relations employed by the communicator and the communicatee - Does he attach to this symbol exactly the significance I attach to it?

When misunderstandings are seen to occur, we`sort it out' - which is the self-adjusting communication process referred to above. But no amount of correction or adjustment can ever guarantee that further corrections or adjustments will not be necessary.