April 20, 2016

April 20, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006) Emilio Ribes-Iñesta writes that “language is a psychological phenomenon, and its morphology is central to any attempt to understand it.” With the word “morphology” linguists usually mean the form of language. Linguists haven’t paid any attention to how we sound while we speak, since they, like behaviorists, don’t distinguish between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  Like all modern academics they are mainly busy with writing and reading papers and books, but they don’t spend much time on investigating and exploring language while they speak and listen. 

Interestingly, Ribes-Iñesta tries to argue against “the general conception of language as a psychological phenomenon,” by putting forward the notion of Wittgenstein’s “Language Game” (1953). While behaviorism only focuses on behavior, “Wittgenstein’s writings are not structured treatises dealing just with one issue.” However, it is clear from his writing that Wittgenstein was more into talking than writing. All his examples are based on “our language practices or usages in the form of expressions or episodes.” 

Wittgenstein, like Skinner and Ribes-Iñesta, tries to stay as close to the data as possible. He was able to “raise questions in order to show inconsistencies between what we actually mean (or do not mean) when saying something and the conceptual distortions that derive from unwarranted assumptions and arguments about the meaning of language” (underlining added). As these remarks about meaning refer to the relationship between the speaker and listener, that is, the speaker and the speaker-as-own-listener (Skinner, 1957), they would never arise from NVB, in which this connection is completely ignored.

The questions which were raised by Wittgenstein refer to SVB, interaction in which our speaking and listening behaviors are joined and in which the speaker and the listener so to speak become one. The “inconsistencies” he talks about are characteristic for NVB, in which the speaker coerces his or her meaning onto the listener.  In NVB the speaker talks AT the listener, but in SVB, the speaker talks WITH the listener. These “inconsistencies” never even occur to the speaker in NVB as he or she is used to forcing others to listen to him or to her. Stated differently, in NVB the speaker doesn’t need to listen to him or herself as others are made to listen to him or to her.