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levels of his signal-sending and -gathering activity. A national culture is
itself seen as being made up of an elaborate, highly arbitrary communica–
tions system, which is so ritualized that we become aware that it is a
"language" when we move to another culture and realize that we are no
longer able to read the signals of others accurately and cannot convey
what we wish to say about ourselves. UNESCO has proven one of the
most interesting areas of observation for Hoggart in this respect, for here
in
this international agency there is no common culture and therefore no
central language or system of signals. Everyone is terribly worried about
what everyone else is saying, but never quite entirely sure of what has
been said or should be said, which seems to raise the level of anxiety
considerably. Hoggart describes in a most interesting way the develop–
ment of a strange language of "officialese," which is an abomination to
ou tside ears but within the organization itself serves the primary social
functions of any language system: "There is a pressure in international
organizations to find a form of language which, though its users hope it
says what has to be said, avoids unnecessary incidents, insoluble prob–
lems, time-wasting arguments, accusations of bias."
The longest chapter of the book deals with another area where the
struggle over the "language" to be used is continuing: the public media,
and most particularly television. This is an area where Hoggart has
worked before with great insight, and he again reminds us of the
extraordinary importance of the decision about what the media are going
to say, and of the unusual lack of intelligence which is brought to bear
on the question. He does not bewail the actual content of television so
much as attack the failures of the communicators to consider what it is
they.are actually doing and, above all, what they ought to be doing.
This "ought" is the crucial term in the book as a whole. Hoggart
shares, of course, his conception of the world as an elaborate set of
communications systems with a great many other critics and writers of
the day. A French critic, like Roland Barthes, will define the field as a
set of sign systems, and then proceed as objectively as possible, to
analyze the nature of communications systems in general, trying by
logical means to isolate the
langue
which generates the individual
paroles.
But Hoggart, on the other hand, noting the same facts, quickly passes on
to a consideration of moral questions involved such as, "What kinds of
communications systems are good and right, and what kinds are wrong?"
He cannot endure the logical abstraction or the possibility that any
communications system might finally be judged entirely on such struc–
tural grounds as the coherency of the component parts or the economy
and elegance of the basic rules. "Roots" is a key term for Hoggart. He
wants rhetorics that have their roots deep in the individual self, that
