Thought Transactions

As I sit here and write this, I know that my reader (if there happens to be one), is going to read the words in a linear fashion and then tie together the meaning at the end of the sentence. I think we all know this is how language "works." Because that is the way we read, it is simple to take advantage of this and write sentences that have virtually no meaning. Like this one. (That sentence didn't even have a verb.) But my point in writing this is not to make a joke on you, the reader, or show how clever I am. My point is to pique, and the pique in this piece is to look at the langauge itself. We use language all the time but how often do we really ask ourselves (or others) what it is. What is it that happens in this funny little transaction that we call communicating? How is it equally possible to write sentences that mean something as well as sentences that say virtually nothing? How often does communication actually occur?