Michael - I don't see why Chomsky's linguistic analysis doesn't fit into
Peircean semiosis. After all, the underlying grammatical infrastructural
capacity can be argued as Thirdness, and for Peirce, Thirdness is evolutionary.
And after all, is it the logical infrastructure of language that evolves, or is
it the verbal superstructure, so to speak? I'd have a problem with considering
that the logical infrastructure evolves, but linguistic expression does (eg,
Breal, M - and I'm sure you know his work)..
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Shapiro
To: CSP
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2015 6:45 AM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] material relevant to Peircean linguistics
List,
Ben Udell and Gary Richmond have suggested that I occasionally post material
on the use of Peirce's whole philosophy for the founding of a new linguistics.
Here is the first installment. (Glosses are supplied in order to aid
comprehension by readers whose first language is other than English.)
Semeiotic Neostructuralism and Language
GLOSSARY
bootless, adj.: to no advantage or avail
cortex, n.: outer layer of neural tissue in humans and other mammals
diagram, n.: a type of sign in which relations at one level (form) are
replicated at another level (meaning)
diagrammatization, n. < diagrammatize, v.: make (into) a diagram (of)
fortuitous, adj.: occurring by chance without evident causal need or relation
or without deliberate intention
nota bene: mark well (Latin); used to call attention to something important
paradigm, n.: a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific
school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and
the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a
philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind
phenomenalist, n. > phenomenalism, n.: a mode of thought which considers
things from a phenomenal viewpoint, or as phenomena only; the metaphysical
theory or belief that (actual or possible) phenomena are the only objects of
knowledge, or the only realities; also: spec. the theory that statements about
physical objects can be analysed in terms of, or reduced to, statements about
(actual or possible) sensory experiences and their contents
pleonasm, n.: iteration or repetition in speaking or in writing; the use of
more words than those necessary to denote mere sense (as the man he said, saw
with his own eyes, true fact); esp. the coincident use of a word and its
substitute for the same grammatical function
postbiotic, adj.: pertaining to the period following the appearance of life
pragmaticism, n.: the pragmatic philosophy of C. S. Peirce
semeiotic, adj. < semeiosis, n.: the process whereby something functions as a
sign
teleology, n.: a metaphysical doctrine explaining phenomena and events by
final causes
vignette, n.: a short literary sketch chiefly descriptive and characterized
usually by delicacy, wit, and subtlety
Readers of this book [The Speaking Self: Language Lore and
English Usage, 2nd ed., in preparation] who have an interest in the conceptual
underpinnings of its vignettes may benefit from being reminded of some of the
main points in which the doctrine christened “semeiotic neostructuralism” (in
the spirit of C. S. Peirce’s pragmaticism) by the author differs fundamentally
from the dominant paradigm of contemporary linguistics, which is nominally
identified with Chomsky and his followers––regardless, nota bene, whether these
latter-day practitioners have renamed their particular enterprise (e. g.,
“Optimality Theory” or “Cognitive Linguistics;” ALL linguistics is necessarily
‘cognitive’, hence CL is a flagrant pleonasm) so as to differentiate it from
what was originally called “tranformational” or “generative” grammar.
Chomsky has a rather mechanistic/mechanicalist view of language,
for all that he understands that the freedom to compose sentences that are
original, unpredictable, and yet intelligible is different from the unoriginal,
predictable products of strictly mechanical action. His view is mechanistic
nonetheless because he simply posits underlying structures by which sentences
are to be generated. Possibly in a wider perspective, Chomsky is no more
reductively mechanistic than a semeiotic neostructuralist, in a wider
perspective, is a phenomenalist. For he no doubt admits (or would admit) that
the linguistic universals in our brains are not just there, period, but
evolved, with the brain’s evolution, as chance variants that were ‘selected’ by
the principle of reproductive success. Similarly, the intentions or needs or
felt urgencies to speak or to achieve certain outcomes might explain––but only
in a context wider than Chomskyan linguistics––why language’s generative
mechanisms are used in this way rather than in that.
But if we focus simply on the linguist’s study, as diversely
conceived by Chomsky and the semeiotic neostructuralist, then there is this
difference: for the one, the teleology of language is excluded from linguistic
explanation, while for the other it is the very stuff of explanation. For the
one, linguistic phenomena conform to a describable structure of highly abstract
laws, while for the other linguistic phenomena exhibit an intelligible if less
abstract, more complicated structure. For the one, the system is a given, and
any changes in it are accidental, while for the other development is essential
to language––development is more the reality than is any one system of
rules––and that development is also intelligible and not merely given.
That is the conflict. The reason the semeiotic neostructuralist
approach is, if it is successful, superior is that it can be used to explain
the very evolution of the brain-mechanism or linguistic capacities and
universals that Chomsky can at best describe. That is, given creatures somewhat
sociable, exchanging signs as their way of life, then the survival value of
their communicating more elaborate and precise diagrams would explain the
retention of those fortuitous variations, say, in brain structure that promote
exactly such powers of expressible diagrammatization. That is, the principle of
this evolution will be itself linguistic, and continuous with the principles of
postbiotic, strictly linguistic evolution.
The thought here is not unlike that which refuses to postulate
linguistic intentions separate from the capacity to exercise those intentions.
Just as there could be no desire to speak without an ability to speak, so also
there could be no evolution of linguistic capacities––even, or especially, at
the physiological level––except among those who, already speaking to one
another, will more likely survive as a species if they speak more effectively.
Thus, instead of a neurophysiological explanation of language, we have a
linguistic explanation of the higher cortex––and probably not just the speech
centers either, since so many of our capacities for sensation and action would
be bootless without our capacities for speech.
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