On language and its limits

Abstract

I consider three positions regarding the limits of language: two (mutually incompatible) ‘segregational’ approaches, which I will contrast with the ‘integrational’ approach advocated by Roy Harris. I shall argue that an integrationist construal of the limits of language cannot be dissociated from the Harrisian concept of ‘radical indeterminacy’. The latter notion is highly controversial within the linguistic orthodoxy, as it sponsors the idea that ‘languages’ qua describable objects are theoretically redundant. In other words, human communication does not involve ‘languages’ from an integrational point of view. However, it is the very notion of ‘a language’ which makes it possible for linguists and philosophers to discuss the limits of language in the first place. My position, in turn, is that the notion of English (German, etc.) as having limits originates in decontextualized analyses at both the lay and professional levels of linguistic inquiry. I thus support the thesis that the limits of language cannot be contemplated independently of the human communicational infrastructure and that these limits are co-extensive with personal linguistic experience.