Abstract
The chapter develops the view that a global semiotic lens spanning biology and culture (thus spanning the phenomenal and emergent processes of life generally) is a particularly vital non-dualistic frame for inquiry into the origin and evolution of language. It is further suggested that such inquiry, in its turn, could prove critical to navigating beyond long-standing dichotomies between biological and cultural studies, and of affirming the perspectival salience of a semiotic theory of life. With respect to this view, a “holo-semiotic” framework (with roots in the global semiotic tradition of Thomas Sebeok ) is developed wherein the object of the origin of language is approached and located within a semiotic coevolutionary complex of physio-anatomical force-relations (kinesio-/eco-semiotic) whereby a capacity for symbolical insight (anthroposemiotic) could phenomenally emerge out of biological impulse (bio-/zoo-semiotic). Based in the logic of a holo-semiotic model of language evolution, it will be argued that evolutionary semiotic processes hinge crucially on the inherent role that mimesis (as a principle function of semiosis and primary mode of information transmission) plays in both culture and biology—in its social imitative sense and in its biological replicative and adaptive senses.
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24 September 2022
The original version of the chapter was revised. The errors in the abstract along with a minor correction (the word ascribing changed to adhering) in the second sentence of the first paragraph on page 92 have been corrected.The chapter and book have been updated with the changes.
Notes
- 1.
Maran goes on to reference a potential parallelism between notions of semiosis and mimesis, citing Charles Morris who defined semiosis as a sign process consisting in “that which acts as a sign, that which the sign refers to, and that effect on some interpreter” (2003: 211). This parallelism is assumed but not extensively explored in this article, and going forward should prove critical to the development of semiotic theory of language and its origins.
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Scalia, J.C. (2019). Towards a Holo-Semiotic Framework for the Evolution of Language. In: Olteanu, A., Stables, A., Borţun, D. (eds) Meanings & Co.. Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91986-7_6
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