Viewpoint Makes Meaninglessness Meaningful

Abstract

What makes some seemingly meaningless sentences frequently useful in the daily communication and thus meaningful? This paper proposes an innovative perspective of studying pragmatic meaning via considering the language users’ viewpoint, which influences and determines the extent of subjectivity in choosing appropriate meaning among multiple layers of meaning. It is argued that viewpoint makes vague or even meaningless language meaningful in that meaning is, first of all, multilayered; then it is optional and subjective, and finally it is chosen from all the possible options of meaning or meaning potential with regard to the language user’s various kinds of viewpoints.