Uexküll, Peirce, and Other Affinities Between Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics

Abstract

. While both programs share theoretical influences and historiographical parallels in their mid-century origins continuing throughout the late twentieth century, recent articulations of biosemiotics and biolinguistics privilege different intellectual styles and methods of inquiry that define their future objectives as intellectual movements. The goal of this paper is to show that, in spite of the different scholarly agendas of biosemiotics and biolinguistics, both movements share a theoretical and philosophical core in Peirce and Uexküll.

On the Origin of Language

“…Chomsky argued that syntax is the crucial component of language and that syntax is based on very general principles of economy and simplicity that are similar to the Principle of Least Action in physics and to the rules of the Periodic Table in chemistry. Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics have been built in this way on different foundational principles and have become two increasingly different research programs. At the same time, they both advocate a scientific study of language (Augustyn 2009) and should be able therefore to reach similar conclusions. The purpose of this paper is precisely to show that such a convergence is possible.…”

What Connects Biolinguistics and Biosemiotics?

“…They also share a philosophical core that is anchored in the concepts of Peircean abduction and Uexküllian Umwelt (cf. Augustyn 2009) on the one hand, and an interest in the building blocks of life and its underlying principles that has connected language to research in cell biology (cf. Barbieri 2010) on the other hand.…”

A more developed sign: interpreting the work of Jesper Hoffmeyer

“…(cf. Augustyn 2009) For what distinguishes Bruner from Chomsky is the fact that Bruner conducted empirical research on mother-infant communication in order to gain a better understanding of language acquisition, while Chomsky has been promoting, for over half a century, the three factors that constitute the human language faculty as being:…”