Posted on

Semiotic

“Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the study of sign processes (semiosis), which are any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the sign’s interpreter” (Wikipedia, retrieved November 2021).

Philosopher John Searle sees semiotics as the study of human intentionality expressed through signs and symbols including language (2020). In an essay titled “The Power and Peril of Language”, philosopher Suzanne Langer differentiates between sign and symbol:

“The difference between a sign and a symbol is, in brief, that a sign causes us to think or act in face of the thing signified, whereas a symbol causes us to think about the thing symbolized. A symbol does not announce the presence of an object, but merely brings this thing to mind” (1944, p. 52).

Symbols are immensely powerful even when spoken about in “mere sentences”, according to Searle. In a paper titled “Semiotics as a Theory of Representation” (2020), he states that when a symbol is accepted in its full meaning, as in the case of a crucifix or a swastika, one is committed to a certain set of values, and uses it as an expression of this commitment. Does the symbol presuppose other forms of communication to enunciate its shared understanding? Did language evolve from the inadequacies of using discrete symbols as tools of expression? Suzanne Langer calls its birth “the dawn of humanity” (1944, p. 53), while author and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker suggests it emerged synergistically with other human traits:

“It is certainly one of the distinctive traits of Homo sapiens. But I don’t think language would have evolved if it was the only distinctive trait. It goes hand in hand with our ability to develop tools and technologies, and also with the fact that we cooperate with non-relatives. I think this triad – language, social cooperation, and technological know-how – is what makes humans unusual. And they probably evolved in tandem, each of them multiplying the value of the other two” (2010, p. 230).

The deriving of symbolic, representational meaning is a human-defining process of cognition, of conceiving and conveying an idea, according to Langer, who alludes to problems of interpretation:

“The process of symbolic transformation that all our experiences undergo is nothing more or less than the process of conception, which underlies the human faculties of abstraction and imagination, and in the course of manipulating symbols we inevitably distort the original experience” (1944, p. 53).

Langer, S. K. (January, 1944), The Power and Peril of Language, from “The Lord of Creation” in Fortune. New York, United States: Time Inc., reprinted in Hoople, R. E., Piper, R. F., & Tolley, W. P. (Eds.), (1946), Preface to Philosophy: Book of Readings (pp. 50-53). New York, United States: The Macmillan Company (1952 ed.)

Pinker, S. (2010), in Paulson, S. (Ed.) Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science (pp. 229-243). New York, United States: Oxford University Press

Searle, J. R. (2020), Semiotics as a Theory of Representation, in Mimesis Journals, Volume 1, Number 20, 2020 (pp. 49-57), DOI: 10.7413/19705476017 [PDF document] retrieved November 2021 from https://www.mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/tcrs/article/view/589

Posted on

Language

Language is a coded system of information transmission whose specific origins are a mystery, according to author and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. It is a root example of representation, expressed both symbolically as various alphabets, as well as aurally via the myriad complex vocalizations used to similarly communicate ideas and emotions. Pinker colleague and noted linguist Noam Chomsky highlighted language’s important attribute of malleability, making it a creative tool of expression and understanding.

“Thought cannot go where the roads of language have not been built”, declared psychedelic philosopher and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, in one of his many insightful, wide-ranging rambles. In some abstract manner it must therefore form the bedrock of what we perceive as reality. Could this be part of the reason why we can have such a difficult time grasping complex ideas? Some of which, despite the descriptive latitude afforded by language and the visualization power of our imaginations, seem to simply escape understanding. In such cases, must conceptual understandings only exist in the realms of mathematics and binary code?

Language evolves not so much as a result of prescriptive top-down norms, but rather from the ground-up, often due to socio-cultural forces. What role does language play in the recent advent of the information age, where these coded systems of information transmission appear to be under some form of change, evolution, or as some argue, siege? How influential is the wider context of this rapidly shifting socio-cultural landscape in which we, or rather “for me”, are immersed on, “like, u know, r “ language and thought? To use his apt metaphors, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett calls language “the software we run on our neck-top” where “words are virtual machines designed by cultural natural selection”.

While presenting themselves with both transcendentally uniting and knowledge-sharing capabilities, as well as newly-evident narrowing and fracturing tendencies, have our new language and communication technologies leapt too quickly out of Pandora’s Box, before our being able to understand their full potentials? If this is the case, how can the negative potential be attenuated, so the positive attributes can be fully realized? The issue is vast, and central to it is language, which Pinker asserts is itself at the very nexus of thought, biology, social relationships, and human evolution.

Our current socio-cultural landscape is further complicated by philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s significant notion that “the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (1964, p. 24).

McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, United States: McGraw-Hill