ABSTRACT
This chapter begins to explore, in a preliminary way, aspects of meaning in language practices, concentrating on cultural patterns and relating these to the idea of “dark matter,” as discussed by the linguist Dan Everett. Everett has opposed Noam Chomsky’s theory of a universal grammar as a domain of cognitive hard-wiring that supposedly distinguishes humans from other species, preferring instead to posit flexible learning capacities as the hallmark of humanity. Language usages can be a means of establishing and defining communities, and language intersects with culture generally in the construction of what Hymes called communicative competence. The rubric under which discussions of meaning have often been undertaken in the past has centered on the meanings of words.
