Information Technology Reference
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nal. Conceptually, eliminating the transmitter and decoder is preferable
because it reduces the number of entities and corresponds to real historical
developments, in which practical understandings of coding precede theo-
retical articulation, functions, and entities distinguished in information
theory—such as the message and signal—separate from a previous lack of
differentiation (Warner 2003). For the purposes of the current discussion,
the message is understood as a single entity and no differentiation is made
between the message for sending, the signal, and the message as recon-
structed by the receiver; the transmitter and decoder are eliminated from
the model. Although significant, these conceptual considerations do not
affect consideration of the message's characteristics (including statistical
characteristics). We will focus on choosing from messages for selection to
construct the message and the implications of this process for understand-
ing the structure of the message
Particularly on the understanding adopted, the message is both analo-
gous with and can be differentiated from the syntagma. Shannon's refer-
ences to the message as a sequence are reminiscent of Saussure's insistence
that sequentiality forms the syntagma (Shannon 1948/1993, 6). The ter-
minological similarity suggests conceptual congruence. A partly implicit
rather than fully explicit assumption, rather than a principle, of linearity
is similarly present in the model of communication in information theory,
with communication proceeding in time from messages for selection to the
destination. Linearity is implicitly observed in telecommunication prac-
tices for oral messages, presumably independently of Saussure's insight
but influenced by similar considerations. If it is to remain ordinarily intel-
ligible, an oral message must be received by the human destination in the
same sequence as the message for transmission; graphic messages (includ-
ing written language) can be received by the destination in parts over time,
as long as an adequate correspondence to the message for transmission is
finally reconstructed. Later modifications of the model incorporated feed-
back loops that allowed modification of linearity. In contrast to the con-
cern of linguistics with levels of signifier, sign, and signified, information
theory focuses exclusively on the signifier, or expression. Even when lin-
guistics anticipated the combinatorial perspective of information theory
in its view of speech as marked by freedom of combination, it was con-
cerned primarily with complexes of signifier, sign, and signified, not the
