The code model of communication: a powerful - SIL International

3. The Code Model Decoded 33
1. IDEAS (OR MEANINGS) ARE OBJECTS.
2. LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS.
3. COMMUNICATION IS SENDING.
Noting the intuitive satisfaction these metaphors and their related expressions endue,
Lakoff and Johnson comment:
In examples like these [selected from Reddy 1979] it is far more difficult to see that there
is anything hidden by the metaphor or even to see that there is a metaphor here at all. This is
so much the conventional way of thinking about language that it is sometimes hard to imagine
that it might not fit reality. But if we look at what the CONDUIT metaphor entails, we can see
some of the ways in which it masks aspects of the communicative process.
First, the LINGUISITIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING aspect of the
CONDUIT metaphor entails that words and sentences have meaning in themselves,
independent of any context or speaker. The MEANINGS ARE OBJECTS part of the metaphor,
for examples, entails that meanings have an existence independent of people and contexts. The
part of the metaphor that says LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING
entails that words (and sentences) have meanings, again independent of contexts and speakers.
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980:11–12)
For native speakers of English, at least, there should be no cause for debate regarding
the pervasive nature of this metaphor. In the common vernacular the metaphor is
unequivocally the dominant means of expression regarding communication.
3.2.1.1. Diffusion of the conduit metaphor in linguistic thought and
literature
Is the conduit metaphor an active conceptual metaphor in linguistic theorizing?
Obviously it is still active in common language, and there is no reason to think it will
(nor should) become otherwise; however, its use in linguistic metalanguage and
metatheory is another issue entirely. For example, consider common metaphors used by
natural scientists. The metaphors “sun rise” and “sun set” are good examples. English
speaking astronomers most surely use these metaphors in everyday speech. But what sort
of astronomy would have developed if they persisted, even unwittingly, in using these
metaphors in constructing their theories? Needless to say, there would be certain
paradoxes that theories so formed would never be able to handle. And this was exactly
the situation before Copernicus (and subsequently Galileo) identified anomalies and
proposed a new explanation for the solar system.
For some familiar with Reddy’s argument, the conduit metaphor is readily
recognized and its use considered passé. For example, Gary Palmer writes:
The conduit metaphor, by now something of a straw man, construes linguistic meaning as
consisting of discrete, stable objects contained in words and sent from speaker to hearer. But
the model is surely wrong, because, as Langacker (1987:162) pointed out, “nothing travels
from speaker to hearer except sound waves.” (Palmer 1996:39; also see Langacker 1991:508)
While Palmer may be well acquainted with arguments concerning the metaphor, it is
difficult to evaluate just how broadly such awareness extends through the linguistic