Limits of a Code Theory of Language

Abstract

The traditional empiricisms of the sciences and the applications of technology and mathematics serve as paradigms for illustrating a code or a representational theory of language. Such a view of a code theory of meaning is modeled by the semiotics (science of signs) of C. S. Pierce where meaning is defined by a threefold relationship between sign, reference., and referent. Meaning is defined by reference. We have much the same theory expounded in Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (1947) using the semantic triangle of Pierce.