Page 141 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

116 Guy Poitevin

of interbreeding escaping the time and space boundaries of the initial
speech event, through a process of communicational reinterpretation.
This process may be understood with reference to basic principles of
linguistic.

A Model of Interpretation

Language as a Double System of Significance
According to Benveniste (1974: 64), language operates through two
different modes of significance, the semiotic mode and the semantic
1
mode (Ricœur 1969: 64–97): first, the significance of the words that
2
are particular and formally distinct signs or units, and, second, the
significance of the sentence or phrase that refers to a given situation
as to speak is always to ‘speak about’, in other words make statements
about some reality that stands beyond the language. In brief, Ricœur
(1969: 92–93) states that the meaning of a phrase is its idea, whereas
the meaning of a word is its use.
A semantics of the sentence is distinct from a semiotics of the sign:
the semiotic—the sign—stands by itself and ought to be recognized; the
semantic—the phrase—ought to be understood. Both of them represent
the two fundamental modes of the linguistic function, namely, to the
semiotic the role of signifying and to the semantic the role of commu-
nicating. The distinction of meaning and reference is equally essential
and a matter of common experience. One may, for instance, perfectly
understand the meaning of the words while remaining absolutely
unable to understand the meaning that results from the set of words
pieced together to construct a sentence and a discourse. The meaning
of a phrase is the idea that the sentence articulates; the referent of the
phrase is the state of affairs that prompts the sentence, the situation
in which the discourse takes place or refers to. Such circumstances are
always particular. The phrase is always a singular event of speech.
This double essential distinction is consonant with a concept of myth
as a combination of elements pieced together as to construct a meaning
of a different order. Myth is a set of morphemes, lexemes, semantemes,
phrases, sets of phrases and mythemes, which as a whole gives the
elements that it borrows from nature, social life, psychological experi-
ence, imaginary representations, historical events, etc., a meaning