Alberto Delmonte

Language and Communication

An idea that does not find a linguistic formula for its expression remains no more than an idea because it does not attain significance. This is because significance is, precisely, an idea expressed by means of a signifier.

Accordingly, all significative activity needs a language; without it, there is no communication.

Signs constitute the essence of a language; within them hides man’s faculty to give testimony to thoughts, and by extension, to produce creations of the spirit.

In order for men to communicate with one another, however, an agreement between them regarding the mode in which it will be exercised is needed. In other words, a system must be created. The faculty of language is therefore attained through a system.

Any language presents determined characteristics, in accordance with its point of evolution (era and medium).

However, there is also an aspect beyond time and place that refers to the language’s way of being, its system.

And this system includes syntax (relationship between signs, word construction), semantics (significance of the language’s elements) and pragmatics (relationship between signs and subjects).

Thanks to these relationships, we clearly understand that an idea and a group of sounds cannot be placed on the same level.

And we also know that phonemes, syllables and words are also groups of sounds that make up the phonic chain, but that when relating to one another according to a language system, they can be integrated to constitute an expression, an idea.

And this is true in oral and written language. If we accept the existence of a plastic language, then, I ask myself why is that language so atypical as to be liberated from all relationship demands? Could it be because in plastic language, the sounds and ideas are on the same level?

I simply allow myself to remember that without relationships, there is no expression, without expression there are no ideas with content, and without them, there is no communication.

Translation: Tamara Stuby