The ‘language’ problem

When we talk metaphorically of language as a ‘thing’ or a ‘structure’, we are using a ‘systematically misleading expression’ [Ryle, G., 1951. Systematically Misleading Expressions. In: Flew, A. (Ed.), Essays on Logic and Language (I). Basil Blackwell, Oxford]. The term makes us think of human communication and understanding in ways that make it difficult to approach what actually happens for the persons engaged in communicating. What we are doing when understanding and acting on anything verbal must therefore also be analyzed psychologically. Some of the reasons for this claim and some consequences of it are sketched. Similar notions have been expressed by William James, Otto Jespersen, and Peter Naur.