Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system
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Zdzisław Wąsik
Abstract
The subject matter of this paper constitutes a historical-evolutionary approach to language as an individual property of its speakers and learners. Language, here, is viewed from the perspective of its ‘becoming’ in ecologically determined speech communities. The notion of becoming is referred to as the continuous changeability of language through its discursive realization in texts, understood as collective assemblages of meaningful enunciations, as well as through transgenerational transmissions of inborn linguistic aptitudes and conventionally established means of verbal signification and communication. The discussion starts with an enumeration of observable and inferrable modes in which language exists as a semiotic system against the background of divergent evolutionism or convergent diffusionism, stating that languages have a mixed character while splitting up into new branches, or influencing each other through the dissemination of changes. The semiotic expressivity of humans is shown to be a conflation, or a set of binary relations, formed by a multiplicity of interconnected points, or linkage positions, in intentional productions and utilizations of verbal signs, referring to virtual, or actual, things and states of affairs, which form the signified and communicated reality of everyday life. Thus, the natural and cultural layers of language are regarded as potential tiers originating from the innate character of the speech faculty. This faculty is embedded in the hereditarily neuronal centres of human brains enabling people to communicate by the use of verbal means of signification through the implementation of certain physiological techniques. It is assumed that these layers might have emerged as a result of evolutionary adaptations of human organisms to their natural and artificial surroundings, through the extension of communicational abilities that already existed in their genetic memory.
Abstract
The subject matter of this paper constitutes a historical-evolutionary approach to language as an individual property of its speakers and learners. Language, here, is viewed from the perspective of its ‘becoming’ in ecologically determined speech communities. The notion of becoming is referred to as the continuous changeability of language through its discursive realization in texts, understood as collective assemblages of meaningful enunciations, as well as through transgenerational transmissions of inborn linguistic aptitudes and conventionally established means of verbal signification and communication. The discussion starts with an enumeration of observable and inferrable modes in which language exists as a semiotic system against the background of divergent evolutionism or convergent diffusionism, stating that languages have a mixed character while splitting up into new branches, or influencing each other through the dissemination of changes. The semiotic expressivity of humans is shown to be a conflation, or a set of binary relations, formed by a multiplicity of interconnected points, or linkage positions, in intentional productions and utilizations of verbal signs, referring to virtual, or actual, things and states of affairs, which form the signified and communicated reality of everyday life. Thus, the natural and cultural layers of language are regarded as potential tiers originating from the innate character of the speech faculty. This faculty is embedded in the hereditarily neuronal centres of human brains enabling people to communicate by the use of verbal means of signification through the implementation of certain physiological techniques. It is assumed that these layers might have emerged as a result of evolutionary adaptations of human organisms to their natural and artificial surroundings, through the extension of communicational abilities that already existed in their genetic memory.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XIII
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Section 1: Semiotic epistemologies
- Welcome to Semiosistan! 1
- Beyond teleonomy: Towards a biology of semiotic realism 13
- Risky heuristics 39
- The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry 59
- Transdisciplinarity as a solution to the challenges of the contemporary world 75
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Section 2: Contemporary schools of theoretical semiotics
- Notes towards a semiotic theory of learning 87
- Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction 111
- Applied ecosemiotics: Ontological basis and conceptual models 129
- The anthropological dimension of Greimas’ narrative semiotics 151
- What happens? The Zemic model in existential semiotics 169
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Section 3: Applications and practical discussions
- Intermedial narrative as communication media: Imagination, narrative, and selfhood from Peirce’s semiotic perspective 205
- Icons of modernity in belle époque Bucharest 227
- Glimpses into Peircean event imaging: Episode-simulation as a scaffold for right-guessing 249
- Development of agency as semiotic empowerment: A Peircean analysis 273
- On the corposphere: Body, eroticism and pornography 299
- Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system 311
- Index 337
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XIII
-
Section 1: Semiotic epistemologies
- Welcome to Semiosistan! 1
- Beyond teleonomy: Towards a biology of semiotic realism 13
- Risky heuristics 39
- The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry 59
- Transdisciplinarity as a solution to the challenges of the contemporary world 75
-
Section 2: Contemporary schools of theoretical semiotics
- Notes towards a semiotic theory of learning 87
- Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction 111
- Applied ecosemiotics: Ontological basis and conceptual models 129
- The anthropological dimension of Greimas’ narrative semiotics 151
- What happens? The Zemic model in existential semiotics 169
-
Section 3: Applications and practical discussions
- Intermedial narrative as communication media: Imagination, narrative, and selfhood from Peirce’s semiotic perspective 205
- Icons of modernity in belle époque Bucharest 227
- Glimpses into Peircean event imaging: Episode-simulation as a scaffold for right-guessing 249
- Development of agency as semiotic empowerment: A Peircean analysis 273
- On the corposphere: Body, eroticism and pornography 299
- Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system 311
- Index 337
