Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics
This article focuses on an epistemological analysis, Bachelardian and Saussurean, of the problematics of biosemiotics. This discipline is first characterized in its general features, and in contrast with biolinguistics – a characterization that allows us to see its foundation on the traditional def...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Tartu Press
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Sign Systems Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/sss/article/view/19012 |
| _version_ | 1818243199065391104 |
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| author | Anne-Gaëlle Toutain |
| author_facet | Anne-Gaëlle Toutain |
| author_sort | Anne-Gaëlle Toutain |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
This article focuses on an epistemological analysis, Bachelardian and Saussurean, of the problematics of biosemiotics. This discipline is first characterized in its general features, and in contrast with biolinguistics – a characterization that allows us to see its foundation on the traditional definition of the sign. Then, the Saussurean break with this traditional definition is explained, and with it the theorization which is constitutive of the Saussurean concept of language (la langue), explaining the given: the idioms. Biosemiotics appears in this “recurrent light” as a scientific ideology in the sense of Georges Canguilhem. It is a counterpart of structuralism, another scientific ideology, which emphasized the notion of structure, whereas this time it is the sound/sense relationship that is at the heart of the elaboration. Its commonality of problematics with and its singularity in relation to biolinguistics appear at the same time: if biolinguistics and biosemiotics both ignore the heterogeneity and the discontinuity constitutive of language, the reductionism of biosemiotics takes the form of a dissolution instead of the organicism underlying biolinguistics.
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| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T13:57:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-35849b3462364b42994608473092e1c0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1406-4243 1736-7409 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T13:57:19Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | University of Tartu Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sign Systems Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-35849b3462364b42994608473092e1c02022-12-22T00:22:25ZengUniversity of Tartu PressSign Systems Studies1406-42431736-74092022-06-0150110.12697/SSS.2022.50.1.06Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemioticsAnne-Gaëlle Toutain0University of Bern, Institute of French language and literature This article focuses on an epistemological analysis, Bachelardian and Saussurean, of the problematics of biosemiotics. This discipline is first characterized in its general features, and in contrast with biolinguistics – a characterization that allows us to see its foundation on the traditional definition of the sign. Then, the Saussurean break with this traditional definition is explained, and with it the theorization which is constitutive of the Saussurean concept of language (la langue), explaining the given: the idioms. Biosemiotics appears in this “recurrent light” as a scientific ideology in the sense of Georges Canguilhem. It is a counterpart of structuralism, another scientific ideology, which emphasized the notion of structure, whereas this time it is the sound/sense relationship that is at the heart of the elaboration. Its commonality of problematics with and its singularity in relation to biolinguistics appear at the same time: if biolinguistics and biosemiotics both ignore the heterogeneity and the discontinuity constitutive of language, the reductionism of biosemiotics takes the form of a dissolution instead of the organicism underlying biolinguistics. https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/sss/article/view/19012semiosisvaluefunctioningontogenyphylogenyorganicism |
| spellingShingle | Anne-Gaëlle Toutain Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics Sign Systems Studies semiosis value functioning ontogeny phylogeny organicism |
| title | Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics |
| title_full | Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics |
| title_fullStr | Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics |
| title_short | Sign, function and life: Thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics |
| title_sort | sign function and life thinking epistemologically about biosemiotics |
| topic | semiosis value functioning ontogeny phylogeny organicism |
| url | https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/sss/article/view/19012 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT annegaelletoutain signfunctionandlifethinkingepistemologicallyaboutbiosemiotics |