Slip of Tongue

“Why do we use language?” This question can generate thousands of answers. One of the commonest answers is “to communicate our ideas.” But philosopher George Berkeley doesn’t agree with such a simplistic answer because for him communicating ideas “is not the chief and only end of language” rather it raises “some passion”, excites or deters from an action.

Though there is no consent among linguists and philosophers regarding the function of language, it is a basic though complicated tool for human communication. This is the definition of language in the plainest sense. It is a complicated instrument though, because there are innumerable cases where it betrays its own definition and brings into question the semantic function of language. Often, there is no guarantee of speech act; sometimes communication misfires. The use of words, however correctly and precisely they might have been arranged in a syntactic order—be it in written or spoken language—the exercise leads to an inevitable ambiguity, vagueness or imprecision when it comes to meaning. The result is a defective communication or no communication.

Sometimes hitherto unthought-of complexities induced by the confusing uses of language trigger our mind and compel us to muse upon them regardless of the time spent. We need not go away in search of such baffling expressions; our surroundings are more than enough. Some five months ago, while I was walking with my brother nearby the Patan Hospital, I encountered a board that read, rokna nished (don’t stop). Pointing to the same board my brother asked me, “What does it mean?” I simply explained its meaning that it is a restricted area, so nobody is allowed to stop their vehicles nearby. But my answer didn’t satisfy his query and he added, “What happens if someone keeps driving across this board, and crisscrosses this restricted area time and again, without stopping anywhere? Is not he abiding by this very instruction?” I was answerless. This helplessness not only bemused me but also raised my curiosity to study more on the subject.

Another time, I saw that schools paste notices on the road area in their vicinity: Vidhyalaya kshetra, bistarai haknus/gati seemit (school area, drive slow/speed control). Apparently this notice is a sincere suggestion to ruthless drivers, placed there thinking about the safety of the students. But what does this expression mean? Does it mean that the drivers are free to drive in any speed except in school area? If a driver driving more than 80 kilometers per hour slows down the speed to 60 kilometers per hour because he sees the notice, can we say he follows the instruction? Or alternatively, is the word ‘limit’ so precise that every driver understands it at the same digit? Is not it a relative term? Does the notice call for this common sense all the time?

While going to Ilam from Kathmandu a few weeks ago, I noticed such seemingly misleading and ambiguous notices almost everywhere; be it in the plain of Tarai or in the hills of Ilam. An expression in hoarding boards that reads Hami banauchhau Nepallai, posted by a cement company is one the most readily noticeable to any passenger commuting across that region. Every time I saw it, I got puzzled for my inability to distinguish whether it is an advertisement of cement or a satire to our leaders who time and again utter similar expression claiming themselves to be the servants of the nation having the prime function of ‘making’ it but are never practically prepared to turn a stone.

In the same visit to Ilam, I was baffled to read a line on the back of a bus: “Ilam Non Stop Kathmandu.” As a matter of fact the journey from Ilam to Kathmandu takes at least 15 hours. In such a long journey if the bus doesn’t stop anywhere then certainly no one would like to ride it because passengers need to respond to the nature’s call from time to time. Moreover this need is more urgent for the patients of diabetes, if any of the passengers is suffering from the same.

All these seemingly simple but deceptive expressions from our surroundings are not only widely discussed by postmodern thinkers but also have made a tentative compromise to receive meanings pluralistically. Stressing upon plurality or multiplicity Richard Tarnas, a postmodernist, concludes “all human understanding is interpretation and no interpretation is final.” So is the argument of Jacques Derrida, a deconstructionist, in his seminal essay “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” when he concludes, signification is not fixed and language is always at play.

Even at this stage we do have a pertinent question at hand: if language always brings at least dual meanings, then how can we understand the meaning and communicate with each other? Nevertheless communication is taking place, ideas are being shared and speech act practically happens. The crux is that participants of a speech act understand languages contextually, or they conceive meanings set in their minds by commonsense than by the denotative meaning of the words they hear or read. In some other cases, perhaps, what is understood is midway between what is said and what stands as its opposite. This is what actually happens with most advertisements on the television, perhaps.