The code model of communication: a powerful - SIL International

2. Model as Metaphor 23
Communication is the process by which information is transmitted from a source (usually
a person) to a receptor (usually another person, or group of people). It requires, therefore, that
the source and the receptor share some knowledge about the code being used to transmit the
information, whether that code is verbal, visual, or otherwise. (Questionnaire response; March
28, 1998.)
These two responses are in many respects typical of the code-model based responses
provided.
After the survey and initial research for the study had been completed, those portions
were presented as a paper at an academic conference (Blackburn 1998). Specifically, the
presentation covered the history of the code model and its permeation through linguistics.
Following the session, a fellow presenter commented, “I taught this [model] to my
students just last week, but you know, before today, I’d never given any thought to the
model or where it came from.”
A third and perhaps even more illuminating type of response has often arisen in the
context of personal conversation concerning the study. When colleagues have been
asked, “How do you think communication works?” a majority have responded with a
code model-based answer. But if, instead of eliciting their description of communication,
they were given a synopsis of the study, many responded with debate. The standard
response went something like, “Oh, that’s how we talk about communication, but I don’t
think it really has much bearing on how we do linguistics.”
These responses are interesting, but they should not be surprising. The code model of
communication serves to embody presuppositions, and those presuppositions can indeed
guide the analyses of the linguists holding them. Considering the significance of the role
thus served, one might expect that the model would be well documented and thoroughly
“digested” in discussion. It’s structure has been observed and addressed by a few
theoreticians (Berge 1994; Harris 1981:10–13; Harris 1987:205–208; Harris 1990;
Schiffrin 1994:391–393; Sperber and Wilson 1986:2–6ff.), but more frequently it is
employed in a naïve manner, rarely being explicitly identified or discussed. Instead, it is
assumed a priori, being adopted and incorporated as tacit knowledge. Indeed, some
linguists report that they cannot conceive of communication operating in any other way
than that spelled out in the model.
2.5. Reified metaphor
Consider the following admonition from Eugene Nida’s Presidential Address to the
Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in December 1968, wherein he
warns against the tendency to employ models without a keen awareness of the metaphors
upon which they depend:
Perhaps part of the difficulty in linguistics, as in all branches of science, is not having
fully recognized certain inadequacies in our models. Turbayne 1962 has clearly pointed out
the metaphorical nature of so-called scientific models. They are essential aids to comprehension,
but they must not be permitted to dictate the nature of what they are supposed to
explicate. It is particularly dangerous to employ mechanical models as ways of describing the