What does a word mean? Is meaning found in the object to which a word refers, in the mental representation it produces, or in the way we use it? Meaning may not be understood by considering a word in isolation, but rather as part of a broader process: communication.
One of the classical approaches understands meaning as reference. A word has meaning because it refers to something. The word “tree,” for example, can be related to the trees that exist in the world. But this explanation encounters difficulties with words such as “justice,” “time,” or “nothing,” which do not point to a concrete object.
Another possibility is to understand meaning as a mental concept. In this case, “tree” does not need to refer to a specific tree; instead, it activates in our minds a representation of what we understand a tree to be. This perspective helps explain the relationship between language and thought, although it introduces another difficulty: two people may associate different representations with the same word.
Wittgenstein (1953) argues that the meaning of a word is related to the way it functions within language and within particular human practices. This helps explain why the same word can acquire different meanings depending on the situation.
“Cold” can describe a temperature: “It is cold.” It can describe an emotional characteristic: “She is cold.” And in another context, it can acquire a different meaning: “The engine is still cold.”
When someone says something, there is not merely a word or a sentence. There is a person speaking, another person interpreting, a context, an intention, prior knowledge, and a relationship between the participants.
A seemingly simple expression can communicate something different from its literal meaning. Someone asks, “Can you open the window?” From the standpoint of its linguistic form, the question appears to concern the listener’s ability to open it. Yet, in a normal communicative situation, it functions as a request.
This concern with context and with what we do through language is one of the central areas of pragmatics. As Levinson (1983) explains, understanding a linguistic expression requires considering much more than its strictly linguistic content.
Traditional models of communication, such as Jakobson’s (1960), tend to represent the process through relatively defined elements: sender, message, receiver, code, channel, and context. Jakobson’s model allows us to identify the components of a communicative act, but its representation does not seek to show how those components transform through successive exchanges.
Suppose A says something to B. Before the message, B possesses certain knowledge, expectations, emotions, experiences, and associations. After receiving and interpreting the message, B has incorporated a new experience. B remains the same person, but no longer occupies the same cognitive and interpretive position that existed before receiving the message.
B may respond, change the subject, remain silent, or interpret the message in a way A did not expect. Therefore, A does not remain the same either. The next message emerges from conditions different from those of the previous one.
After each exchange, there are new forms of knowledge, new interpretations, new expectations, and a new relationship between the participants. This idea bears some resemblance to transactional models of communication, which moved away from a strictly linear conception of sender and receiver and began to consider how participants continuously influence one another.
A spiral adds a particular dimension: the cumulative transformation of the process. This transformation affects the people involved and can also change the interpretation of the message. Imagine that someone says, “Don’t worry.” Initially, it may be interpreted as an expression of reassurance. But if the other person responds, “Why should I worry?” the first statement acquires a new dimension retrospectively. The response reveals that both were interpreting the situation differently. The meaning was not determined when the sentence was spoken. It develops through interaction.
Furthermore, reducing communication to the relationship between two people would be insufficient. Human beings also use language to communicate with themselves: we organize thoughts, remember, plan, interpret experiences, and make decisions through forms of inner speech. Vygotsky (2012) argued that children’s private speech is not simply an insignificant stage, but participates in the process through which social language gradually becomes inner verbal thought.
The communicative spiral does not need to involve two people. It can also occur within a single person. We think something. We formulate it. By formulating it, we modify our own understanding. We return to the idea. We reformulate it. We discover a contradiction. We change our minds. The sender and the receiver can be the same person, yet they are not the same at every moment of the process.
Where is meaning? What does this word mean? How is meaning constructed within a communicative process?
Meaning does not disappear from the word. What changes is our understanding of its place within a larger system. The word, the sentence, the context, the intention, shared knowledge, interpretation, response, and even the absence of a response are all elements that continually modify the process.
Communication becomes a process of transformation. Each exchange changes the people involved, changes the relationship between them, and may change the interpretation of what has already been said. The process is a spiral that can continue indefinitely.
References
Contino, L. (2026). Communication as a Spiral: Theory and Linguistic Perspectives.
Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. En T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in language. MIT Press.
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (2012). Thought and language. MIT Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Basil Blackwell.