Fixing Communicative Meaning

This article attempts to stabilize the concept of communicative meaning, responding to theorists who maintain that meaning has lost its moorings, that historical and linguistic forces disturb the idea of meaning so thoroughly it is impossible to achieve. In the first section, I argue that the assumption of semantic realism is necessary to any intellectual or disciplinary concept of communication. This section also distinguishes between meaning and significance: Meaning is a purposeful and constrained sharable message, and significance is the relationship of the message to other realms of importance. The second section outlines a coherentist epistemology for meaning by addressing issues in intelligibility, order, and verification. The final section contrasts a message perspective with a code perspective and explains how a theory of communication, not language, can use various considerations pragmatically (e.g., referential rules, intentionality, context) to bound meaning and keep it from slipping into incessant semiosis.