Language-game (philosophy)

This article is about the philosophical concept. For

systems of language obfuscation such as Pig Latin, see
Language game.
A language-game (German: Sprachspiel) is a famous
philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein
and Friedrich Waismann, referring to simple examples of
language use and the actions into which the language is
woven.
1 Description
In his work, Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig
Wittgenstein regularly referred to the concept of lan-
guage games.
[1]
Wittgenstein rejected the idea that
language is somehow separate, and corresponding to
reality and argued that concepts do not need to be clearly
dened to be meaningful.
[2]
Wittgenstein used the term
language-game to designate forms of language simpler
than the entirety of a language itself, consisting of lan-
guage and the actions into which it is woven (PI 7), and
connected by family resemblance (Familienhnlichkeit).
The concept was intended to bring into prominence the
fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or
a form of life (PI 23) which gives language its meaning.
The term 'language game' is used to refer to:
Fictional examples of language use that are simpler
than our own everyday language. (e.g. PI 2)
Simple uses of language with which children are rst
taught language (training in language).
Specic regions of our language with their own
grammars and relations to other language-games.
All of a natural language seen as comprising a family
of language-games.
These meanings are not separated from each other by
sharp boundaries, but blend into one another (as sug-
gested by the idea of family resemblance). The concept
is based on the following analogy: The rules of language
are analogous to the rules of games; thus saying some-
thing in a language is analogous to making a move in
a game. The analogy between a language and a game
demonstrates that words have meaning depending on the
uses made of them in the various and multiform activities
of human life. (The concept is not meant to suggest that
there is anything trivial about language, or that language
is 'just a game', quite the contrary.)
2 Examples
The classic example of a language-game is the so-called
builders language introduced in 2 of the Philosophical
Investigations:
Later this and there are added (with functions anal-
ogous to the function these words have in natural lan-
guage), and a, b, c, d as numerals. An example of its
use: builder A says d slab there and points, and
builder B counts four slabs, a, b, c, d... and moves them
to the place pointed to by A. The builders language is an
activity into which is woven something we would recog-
nize as language, but in a simpler form. This language-
game resembles the simple forms of language taught to
children, and Wittgenstein asks that we conceive of it as
a complete primitive language for a tribe of builders.
3 Postmodernist interpretation
Jean-Franois Lyotard explicitly drew upon Wittgen-
steins concept of language-games in developing his own
notion of metanarratives in The Postmodern Condition.
However, Wittgensteins concept is, fromits inception, of
a plurality of language games; their plurality is not taken
to be a feature solely of contemporary discourse. Ly-
otards discussion is primarily applied in the contexts of
authority, power and legitimation, where Wittgensteins
is concerned to mark distinctions between a wide range
of activities in which language users engage.
4 References
[1] Biletzki, Anat (8 November 2002; substantive revision
23 December 2009). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
Check date values in: |date= (help)
[2] Jago 2007, p. 55
[3] Michael Foord. Wittgenstein Philosophical Investiga-
tions - Aphorisms 1-10. Voidspace.org.uk. Retrieved
2013-12-12.
1
2 6 FURTHER READING
5 Sources
Jago, Mark (2007). Wittgenstein. Humanities-
Ebooks.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investi-
gations. Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1942). Blue and Brown
Books. Harper Perennial.
6 Further reading
Nicolas Xanthos (2006), Wittgensteins Language
Games, in Louis Hbert (dir.), Signo (online), Ri-
mouski (Quebec, Canada)
Philosophical Investigations
Language-games and Family Resemblance A de-
scription of language-games in the entry for Ludwig
Wittgenstein in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso-
phy
Logico-linguistic modeling. This is an application
of the language-game concept in the area of in-
formation systems and knowledge-based system de-
sign.
Forms of Life and Language Games (2011)
3
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