Abstract
The functional approach to natural language (FANL) emerged in the late 1960s. It focused on the use and the sub-use of language expressions, taking into account role of the language context and the extra-linguistic situation of a given statements. This approach referred, both conceptually and methodologically, to the tradition of British analytical philosophy of language on the one hand, and to the achievements of the Lvov-Warsaw School on the other. It seems that despite the passage of more than half a century since its inception, this approach has lost nothing of its relevance and its cognitive value, and may even provide inspiration for the exploration new research areas concerning the formulation of language utterances. The aim of this article is to show the potential applications of the FANL as a specific semiotic concept in the field of the philosophy of social sciences. The paper points out how the functional conception can be successfully used in methodological analyses of the logical methodology of social sciences. The case studies presented in the article refer to the research practice of social sciences. Examples of the use and sub-uses of terms are discussed in the light of the polyparadigmatic structure of social sciences and the differences in research patterns accepted by given scientific collectives.
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© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- An introduction: use and meaning – a special issue of Semiotica devoted to Jerzy Pelc
- Research Articles
- Functional logical semiotics of natural language
- The manner of use, the uses and sub-uses of terms in social sciences: from the functional approach to natural language to applied semiotics and the philosophy of science
- Investigations of an anti-semiote: Stanisław Lem’s semiotic ideas in light of semiotic functionalism of Jerzy Pelc
- Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language
- Four puzzling paragraphs: Frege on ‘≡’ and ‘=’
- On how to legitimately constrain a semantic theory
- Łukasiewicz, determinism, and the four-valued system of logic
- The representation of gappy sentences in four-valued semantics
- Fictional names, their use and pragmatic interpretations
- Names of places
- Groundwork for a pragmatics for formalized languages
- Token reflexivity and logic
- Indexicals and essential demonstrations
- On the logical form and ontology of inferences in conversational implicatures
- Omnipresent meaning-interdependence and ubiquitous analyticity
- Are representations glorified receptors? On use and usage of mental representations
- Sounds and gestures of linguistic reference: the endurance of reality in the poetry of Wallace Stevens
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- An introduction: use and meaning – a special issue of Semiotica devoted to Jerzy Pelc
- Research Articles
- Functional logical semiotics of natural language
- The manner of use, the uses and sub-uses of terms in social sciences: from the functional approach to natural language to applied semiotics and the philosophy of science
- Investigations of an anti-semiote: Stanisław Lem’s semiotic ideas in light of semiotic functionalism of Jerzy Pelc
- Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language
- Four puzzling paragraphs: Frege on ‘≡’ and ‘=’
- On how to legitimately constrain a semantic theory
- Łukasiewicz, determinism, and the four-valued system of logic
- The representation of gappy sentences in four-valued semantics
- Fictional names, their use and pragmatic interpretations
- Names of places
- Groundwork for a pragmatics for formalized languages
- Token reflexivity and logic
- Indexicals and essential demonstrations
- On the logical form and ontology of inferences in conversational implicatures
- Omnipresent meaning-interdependence and ubiquitous analyticity
- Are representations glorified receptors? On use and usage of mental representations
- Sounds and gestures of linguistic reference: the endurance of reality in the poetry of Wallace Stevens