e., the semantic shift from determinate to
vague. Probably both factors play a role in the process. On the
one hand, literacy progressively exhausts its potential. On the
other, new contexts make it simultaneously less suited as the
dominant medium for expression, communication, and signification
of ideas. For instance, the establishment of a vague meaning of
democracy in political discourse leads to the need for strong
contexts, such as armed conflicts, for ascertaining it. In the
last 10 years we have experienced many such conflicts, but we
were not prepared to see them in conjunction with the forces at
work in facilitating higher levels of efficiency according to
the new scale that humankind has reached.
There is also the attempt to use language as context free as
possible-the generalities of all demagogy (liberal,
conservative, left or right, religious or emancipated) can serve
as examples. But so can all the crystal ball readings, palm
readings, horoscopes, and tarot cards, revived in recent years
against the background of illiteracy. None of these is new, but
the relative flourishing of the market of vagueness and
ambiguity, reflective of a deviant functioning of language, is.
Together with illiteracy, they are other symptoms of the change
in pragmatics discussed in this book.
These and other examples require a few more words of explanation
regarding changes in the functions of language.
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