Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In one instance,
library
was conceived primarily as referring to a physi-
cal place for information-related expenditures. Similarly,
university
was
understood spatially, and
finance
represented a definable, related activ-
ity. Saussure critiqued the view of language as a nomenclature, arguing
that a word obtains its value from a “network of forever negative differ-
ences” (Culler 1988, 52). Experience with information retrieval systems
has tended to confirm Saussure's proleptic insight, particularly regarding
his view that we cannot understand language fully as a nomenclature.
We can trace the persistence of the ordinary discourse notion of lan-
guage as a nomenclature, possibly experientially eroded now by modern
information retrieval, to inculcation into written literacy. In Saussure's
exemplification of this conception of language, equivalence is indicated
between words and pictures of objects, corresponding to a child's alpha-
betic primer. The relation between word and image is known to break
down when tested by more abstract entities— how could the Research
Assessment Exercise be drawn?—but we may still assume a similar
relation of equivalence between word and concept. In a similar way to
Saussure's exemplification of language as a nomenclature, Augustine's
description of the acquisition of language implies a relation of equiva-
lence between spoken sounds and visually perceived objects:
I can remember that time, and later on I realized that I had learnt to speak. It was
not my elders who showed the words by some set system of instruction, in the way
that they taught me to read not long afterwards; but, instead, I taught myself by
using the intelligence which you, my God, gave to me. For when I tried to express
my meaning by crying out and making various sounds and movements, so that my
wishes should be obeyed, I found that I could not convey all that I meant or make
myself understood by everyone whom I wished to understand me. So my memory
prompted me. I noticed that people would name some object and then turn towards
whatever it was that they had named. I watched them and understood that the
sound they made when they wanted to indicate that particular thing was the name
which they gave to it, and their actions clearly showed what they meant, for there is
a kind of universal language, consisting of the expressions of the face and eyes, ges-
tures and tones of voice, which can show whether a person means to ask for some-
thing and get it, or refuse it and have nothing to do with it. So, by hearing words
arranged in various phrases and constantly repeated, I gradually pieced together
what they stood for, and when my tongue had mastered the pronunciation, I began
to express my wishes by means of them. In this way I made my wants known to my
family and they made theirs known to me, and I took a further step into the stormy
life of human society, although I was still subject to the authority of my parents and
the will of my elders. (498/1961, 29 § I.8)
