Words and the World: The Problem of Reference

What is it about?

Relevance theory, which argues that semantic representations are abstract mental structures that must be inferentially enriched, takes for granted the non-coincidence of words and the world, and language and phenomenal experience. De Man, on the contrary, suggests that the lack of coincidence between words and things problematizes the referential function of language. In this chapter I contest this argument, as well as de Man’s claim that because the relationship between words and things is conventional or contractual rather than phenomenal or constitutive, reference is always called into question by tropology. I equally dispute his assertion that grammar can only function by suspending reference, while texts in turn generate referents that subvert grammar, by reference to the hermeneutic principle of application, as developed by Gadamer. I also question de Man’s reading of Hegel’s remarks on deictics (words whose reference changes each time they are used), and his belief that this provides further evidence of the instability of the referential function of language.

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