Word meanings are social facts no individual user can unilaterally change.

Evidence

Language is a social institution. Its successful functioning depends upon commonly accepted responses to particular verbal symbols used in particular kinds of contexts. These responses are social facts. A particular user of the language may play tricks with it, and assign his own private meanings to particular symbols in it. But he cannot unilaterally alter the social facts of other people’s responses. He can affect those responses, if at all, only as people generally come to understand and accept his own originally private meanings. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1471

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes meaning as socially grounded, framing how statutory interpretation treats word meaning.
• XREF: Connects to the Vol 1 ‘listening as method’ thread and to interpretive communities — also resonates with legal realism’s critique of formalism. — connects to: Word meanings shift slowly or fast based on social change — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2399; Statutory language is a social institution constraining what words can mean — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 3510; Cultural symbols carry no fixed meaning; meaning shifts with the social field — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1012 (+4 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Statutory language is a social institution constraining what words can mean #corroborates (0.82) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3510
• Word meanings shift slowly or fast based on social change #expands (0.78) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2399
• Arbitrary conceptual distinctions become inviolable norms through social forces, not inherent validity #corroborates (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 361
• Cultural symbols carry no fixed meaning; meaning shifts with the social field #qualifies (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1012
• All utterances carry meaning shaped by irrecoverable social-historical context #expands (0.74) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 102
• Everyday speech conceals society’s domination over language as hidden meaning #complicates (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 669
• Words become one’s own only through intentional appropriation and accenting #qualifies (0.72) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1544