Tracing Locke

Locke discusses language as a tool for communication and a skill (accuracy). I found the ability for language to "fail" as an interesting concept. Locke’s statement that lack of significance (absence of idea which is the keystone of communication, and communication achieved by verbal words or text) imply that without idea to justify words the words are viewed inaccurate and ambiguous, leaving the listener (or reader) to dismiss the words completely. “He that hath words of any language without distinct ideas…. Only make a noise without any sense or signification” (Locke 825). So without meaning or significance there is an apparent failure of language. However it is interesting that as a child, once we begin to use language, our inaccuracy does not matter and we are praised nonetheless.

Which leads me to my next point of the failure of language. Locke states, " Observe how children learn languages… to make them understand what the names of simple ideas or substances stand for, people ordinarily show them the thing wherof they would have them have the idea: and then repeat to them the name that stands for it… then…to know complex ideas…they are either beholden to the explication of others, or are left to their own observation and industry” (Locke 819) I believe this is where the inconsistency and failure of language lies. Knowledge itself is independent of language, therefore the failure is not (always) the failure of communication, but the means of communication itself and the vast diversity of attainment of language.