ABSTRACT
A central assumption underlying this book is that language matters; that is, that the words used by speakers and writers and the way they put those words together make a difference – they have an effect on the world. The first two sections in this book explore the effects of the conceptual (Section I) or contextual (Section II) meanings that hearers and readers derive from what people say. This section deals with another kind of meaning, which can be derived “directly” from what comes out of people’s mouths or keyboards, without reference to the sense they are trying to make. This kind derives not from what the words denote, but rather from the form that they take – the exact quality of the sounds uttered, which particular string of sounds or letters are used, how the words are combined. For example, an English person who pronounces the vowel in the word “bath” in the same way s/he pronounces the vowel in words such as “trap” or “gas” gives off the “meaning” that s/he is from somewhere in the north of England; a person who refers to the item of furniture used to hang up shirts, dresses and the like as a “press” (rather than as a “cupboard”) can be placed as probably from Ireland; and when the room in which people wash themselves is referred to by stringing together the letters “b-a-t-h-r-o-o-m” (rather than, for example, the letters “b-a-d-k-a-m-e-r” or “s-a-l-l-e-d-e-b-a-i-n”), those able to decode this string of letters will recognise the language being used as English (and not Dutch, French or anything else).
