creators_name: Allott, Robin
editors_name: Nöth, Winfried
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 2003-08-16
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:20
metadata_visibility: show
title: Language and the origin of semiosis
ispublished: pub
subjects: ling-sem
full_text_status: public
keywords: semiotics, language, Peirce, Saussure, Barthes, motor theory,perception, sign systems
abstract: Language is the type of semiosis which has been most closely examined and which has served as a model for considering other forms of semiosis. Semiotics has been based, certainly in the case of language, very much on the proposition of Saussure that the sign is arbitrary - a questionable idea (Holdcroft 1991) - and that the sign is conventional or social. If this fundamental idea of semiotics, and linguistics, is discarded, what does this do for semiotics, the 'science' of signs ? This paper seeks to trace out the implications for semiotics of a very different account from Saussure's of the origin, development and functioning of language, leaving it open whether one should conclude, in the light of this, that language does not constitute a paradigm or model for a general science of semiotics (and is not a typical or useful example of a semiotic system) or that language should be treated as the paradigm but a totally changed paradigm, so that the new view of language will require a restructuring of semiotics and lead to a much more biological and indeed neurological approach to the science of signs. 
date: 1994
date_type: published
publication: Origins of Semiosis: Sign Evolution in Nature and Culture
publisher: Mouton de Gruyter
pagerange: 255-268
refereed: TRUE
referencetext: Allott, Robin 1989 The Motor Theory of Language Origin. Lewes: Book Guild. 
Holdcroft, David 1991 Saussure: Signs, System and Arbitrariness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Koch, Walter A. (ed.) 1989 Culture and Semiotics. Bochum: Brockmeyer. 
Kristeva, Julia 1969 Semeiotike: Recherches pour une sémanalyse. Paris: Seuil. 
Locke, John 1706 [1972] An essay concerning human understanding. (5th edition.) [1972] 2 vols. London: Dent 
Morris, Charles 1946 Signs, Language and Behavior. New York: Prentice-Hall. 
Peirce, Charles S. 1931-1958 Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. 8 vols. Eds. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss and Arthur W. Burks. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 
Peirce, Charles S. 1982 Writings. Vol. I (1857-1865). Ed. Max H. Fisch et al. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 
Pinxten, Rik 1989 "Culture and Semiotics", in: Walter A. Koch (ed.), 34-35. 
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916 [1966] Course in General Linguistics. [Trans. Wade Baskin.] New York: McGraw-Hill.

citation:   Allott, Robin  (1994) Language and the origin of semiosis.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/3113/1/semiosis.htm