Meaning and the real life of language—Learning from “pathological” cases in science classrooms
Abstract In this study, a contribution to the nature of language and its implication for linguistics in education, I take up Vygotskij's (1934) and Volosinov's (1930) discussion of an episode from the diary of Dostoevsky, in which six drunken workers have a (pathological?) “conversation” that exists only in the six-fold repetition of the same profane word. The analysis of these discussions leads to a critique of the notion of “meaning” (private or shared) associated with and denoted by words. I articulate a pragmatist approach to language, including the call for abandoning the concept altogether (Wittgenstein, Davidson, Rorty). Fragments from science classrooms are used to exemplify the need to go beyond the literal sense of words and the associated divorce of thought from the fullness of life. Implications for research and practice are sketched.