It's all in the context

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke discusses language in terms of imperfections and areas of confusion. It becomes clear that Locke believes one of the main factors for the flaws in our system of communication is based on the simple fact that people interpret ideas differently. This can specifically be seen in Locke’s argument when he draws attention to the notion that words will only be successful in conveying one’s thoughts if “they excite in the hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker” (Locke 818). When thinking of the way in which people speak to one another, this seems like a nearly impossible task for words have different meanings to different interpreters.

Locke addresses this issue briefly when he touches on the ways one generally learns language: imitation and direct association. While Locke presents examples such as simple nouns, this seems fairly accurate; if a child is shown an apple, and told the word apple, it is not hard to believe that the name has been learned for the specific object. This idea is complicated when considering “moral words, [where] the sounds are usually learned first” (819). For instance, in Locke’s terms, an example of a moral word would be ‘love,’ for it most likely has a different meaning to each individual person based on perspective.

So, Locke is able to portray some of the imperfections through language, but he only touches on nouns in terms of objects and ideas; he fails to even introduce verbs and the role they play in communication. When it comes down to it, oftentimes verbs, the action words, may have numerous different meanings, but it is the context of the conversation that provides the understanding, rather than a dictionary definition of the word. Take for example the phrase, ‘he runs;’ in this case, the subject is performing the action ‘to run;’ however, the audience is unaware of if he is physically running, or perhaps ‘running a meeting’ in terms of management.

Overall, it is interesting to me that Locke pays such close attention to simple miscommunications of language, but fails to focus in on other aspects. His arguments successfully represent the flaws of language, and force people to acknowledge that errors in communication occur often. Although, because of his lack of discussion on the idea of context, it seems that he places a greater importance on one’s need to understand based on perspective; otherwise, words just “fill one another’s heads with noise and sounds” instead of meaning and comprehension (819).