Language as Relational Technology: 1 From Construal to Coordination

The previous series, Language Without Interiors, dismantled a pervasive intuition: that meaning resides inside minds, waiting to be transmitted. We traced the homunculus, clarified construal, and located explanatory work in system networks, register, and histories of use. With that foundation laid, we can now ask: once meaning is understood relationally, how is coordination actually achieved in discourse?

Construal as Relational Actualisation

Construal is not an interpretive act performed by a subject; it is the relational alignment between semiotic resources and situations of use. In every utterance, choice actualises a potential: a distinction is made, a relation is foregrounded, a function is realised. Meaning is not transported from mind to mind; it is brought into being through the act of semiotic selection itself.

This is the first step in coordination: construal structures the possibilities available in a situation, shaping what can be taken up, responded to, or extended. Each act of semiotic choice is simultaneously an act of differentiation and an invitation to alignment.

Coordination Without Interiors

If meaning is not in heads, how do speakers understand one another? Coordination is not a matter of matching inner contents; it is the alignment of construals within shared semiotic and situational structures. Three mechanisms make this possible:

1. System Networks – Patterns of choice constrain what distinctions are available, stabilising some options and marginalising others.

2. Register – Functional alignment between choices and situation types channels selection in ways that are locally coherent.

3. Context and Histories of Use – Past patterns of interaction create expectations, making certain interpretations probable without appealing to private thought.

Alignment emerges when participants navigate these structures in parallel, actualising distinctions in ways that are mutually intelligible. Misalignment occurs when different construals clash, revealing divergence in semiotic practice rather than a failure of interior understanding.

From Corrective to Generative

Where the first series was corrective, this post begins to explore the generative possibilities of relational meaning. Once construal is freed from the interior, language becomes a technology for orchestrating coordination. Each act of actualisation not only differentiates experience but also structures the potential for subsequent acts.

In practice, this means:

• Communication is less about transmitting pre-formed meanings and more about opening and shaping possibilities.

• Innovation occurs not in minds but in the relational space between choices, situations, and histories.

• Analysis focuses on how distinctions are made and taken up, rather than speculating about intentions.

Implications for Analysis

Analysts who adopt this perspective can predict, describe, and interpret patterns of coordination without appealing to unverifiable inner states. The relational lens shifts attention outward: to the architecture of semiotic choice, the probabilities of uptake, and the histories that stabilise or destabilise distinctions.

This post, then, is the bridge from critique to application. By seeing construal as the engine of coordination, we move from dismantling myths about interior meaning to understanding how language actively structures social and semiotic possibility.

In the next post, we will explore the mechanics that make this coordination possible, focusing on system networks as semiotic infrastructure — the scaffolding that channels choice and actualises potential across texts, genres, and communities.