Gertrude Stein's Limitations Of Language

Language is oft misconstrued, the dissonance of meanings ironically effectively preventing the intended clarity of the messages, but nonetheless, these chosen meanings reflect contethe ideology of the speaker. It is human nature to want simple means of communication as humans are social creatures and language has been particularly useful in this endeavour. It has allowed for thriving human civilizations and the fruit of progress that we are enjoying in this modern day and age. Language, in this sense, will mean any method of human communication that uses words and adheres to generally accepted conventions of syntax and meaning (varying, of course, based on the society in question). As such, the written word and the spoken word are within the purview of human communication. Language is the primary means by which we, as humans, understand and classify the world around us and because it seems so essential to the human existence it seems difficult to explore its limitations. Because language is so intrinsically tied to our understanding of the world, the language we use is also reflective of us, as people. Due to the subjective nature of these varying understandings, the very act of understanding requires …show more content…
Stein, a writer, tried to manipulate words so as to rid them of their meaning entirely. She wrote pages and pages of sentences and phrases that held no meaning but it was all for naught. Her “experiment” of sorts was, in her mind, a failure because she couldn’t stop the words from having meaning. That the meaning of the individual words were retained, even if the sentence itself didn’t make sense, is indicative of some innate part of the brain that is responsible for understanding structure in language. In this sense, it seems that the possibilities in language are endless because if meaning prevails, then doesn’t everything make sense