1 Reference

Abstract

Reference 1. The phenomenon of reference In a paper evaluating animal communication systems, Hockett and Altmann (1968) presented a list of what they found to be the distinctive characteristics which, collectively, define what it is to be a human language. Among the characteristics is the phenomenon of "aboutness", that is, in using a human language we talk about things that are external to ourselves. This not only includes things that we find in our immediate environment, but also things that are displaced in time and space. For example, at this moment I can just as easily talk about Tahiti or the planet Pluto, neither of which are in my immediate environment nor ever have been, as I can about this telephone before me or the computer I am using at this moment. Temporal displacement is similar: it would seem I can as easily talk about Abraham Lincoln or Julius Caesar, neither a contemporary of mine, as I can of former president Bill Clinton, or my good friend John, who are contemporaries of mine. This notion of aboutness is, intuitively, lacking in some contrasting instances. For example, it is easy to think that animal communication systems lack this characteristic—that the mating call of the male cardinal may be caused by a certain biological urge, and may serve as a signal that attracts mates, but the call itself is (putatively) not about either of those things. Or, consider an example from human behavior. I hit my thumb with a hammer while attempting to drive in a nail. I say, "Ouch!" In so doing I am saying this because of the pain, and I am communicating to anyone within earshot that I am in pain, but the word ouch itself is not about the pain I feel. If, on the other hand I say, with unnatural calmness, "Pain is present in my thumb", then I am in this instance talking about pain. Such intuitions have, for the most part, been extremely compelling, in fact so compelling that the CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF MEANING has, since classical times, in one form or another, been by far the most persistently pursued notion of how meaning in language is best characterized. Not to put too fine an edge on it, this is quite simply the idea that the significance or import of natural language utterances is found in the ways