The crucible of language : how language and mind create meaning From the barbed childish taunt on the school playground to the eloquent sophistry of a lawyer prising open a legal loophole in a court of law meaning arises each time we use language to communicate with one another. How we use language to convey ideas make requests ask a favour and express anger love or dismay is of the utmost importance; indeed linguistic meaning can be a matter of life and death. In The Crucible of Language Vyvyan Evans explains what we know and what we do when we communicate using language; he shows how linguistic meaning arises where it comes from and the way language enables us to convey the meanings that can move us to tears bore us to death or make us dizzy with delight. Meaning is he argues one of the final frontiers in the mapping of the human mind