The humanistic approach developed its views in opposition to the Semantic theory, which was earlier called the Grammarian School. The humanistic approach looks at communication an undivided unity; and so it rejects the dualistic analysis of the language. Consequently, it opposes the idea that sentences are understood when symbols are understood.

The point of view of the humanistic approach is just the opposite of the semantic approach: because we understand the sentences, we can make sense of the symbols; because we understand the meaning, we can explain how this meaning is conveyed. With a beautiful metaphor: "it is because we sing that we are able to speak" (Benedetto Croce).

The humanist approach maybe more difficult for academic students to understand because it is more sophisticated and because it destroys a number of prejudices that are well entrenched in common sense. In order to follow this approach, one has to renounce the temptation of standardising reality. Students and teachers searching for fix standards will not like this approach much.

It is a more relativistic view, according to which human beings, not words, posses meaning. In communication, it is not important which tools we use, but the result we obtain. The purpose of the semantic theory is to standardise the linguistic process into recurring patterns; the humanistic approach says that you can’t standardise the language. The semantic approach is technical; the humanistic approach is aesthetic.

There is no independent reality in the "structure". Structures are not universals.

Two people meet: they communicate and, by their meeting and communicating, they build their own structure.

The structure is not there before the process of communication, but it is created by communication. So each community re-creates its own new structure, based on common standards, but modified in order to establish their own peculiarities. What is left over (or remains) from the process of communication is "language". Communication makes language possible and not the other way round. Communication attributes value to single expressions, not the opposite.