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Language and Biosphere: Blurry Contours as a Condition of Semiosis

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Biosemiotic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics

Part of the book series: Biosemiotics ((BSEM,volume 13))

Abstract

The first part of this paper shows how our concepts (seemingly precise and clear-cut) in both linguistics and biology in fact represent very fuzzy and improperly defined entities that shimmer against the background of the world. The second part develops on such a knowledge: we argue that both language and evolution are distributed among many entities and processes on many time- and space- scales. As such, they can be grasped only by tools that allow extraction of meaning – like semiosis and/or narration.

In a collective world, individual experience acquires implicit content based on acting in a cultural landscape. […] Older structures shape impressions that prompt us to action. […] Intuitive dealings with the world are increasingly shaped by the shared content. With mimesis, hominids make bodily displays based in traditions as they become players on the stage of life. […] Indeed, the language is so embedded in action that transcription leaves the event opaque.

(Cowley 2012, pp. 20–21, 30)

Dispersers, for instance, bring not only their genes into their new population, but also their phenotype, which brings key information on the conditions that prevail outside of the population. They also bring their cultural habits (e.g., dialects), so that high immigration rates can lead to cultural meltdown in a single generation, which is equivalent to the loss of a genetic structuring. Such cultural meltdown should affect the inclusive heritability of a local population and, thus, its evolutionary dynamics.

(Danchin 2013, p. 356)

This research was supported by the Grant Agency of Czech Republic 13-24275S (AM), and by the grant CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0161, financed by the European Social Fund and the National Budget of the Czech Republic. We are grateful to Stephen Cowley who helped to comb the blurry contours of the manuscript and to Fatima Cvrčková (Figures ©).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf., e.g., Auerbach 1946; Blumenberg 1986.

  2. 2.

    Harris 2009.

  3. 3.

    Barbieri 2003, p. 94 sq.

  4. 4.

    Hoffmeyer and Emmeche 1991.

  5. 5.

    Cvrčková and Markoš 2005.

  6. 6.

    Markoš and Faltýnek 2011; Markoš et al. 2009.

  7. 7.

    Markoš and Faltýnek 2011.

  8. 8.

    Jakobson 1971, p. 678.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 681. The text does not seem to differentiate between language and script.

  10. 10.

    Eco 1976 [1979, p. 47].

  11. 11.

    Rawn 1989, p. 665; italics ours. – A.M., D.F.

  12. 12.

    For criticism of such a free interchange between the virtual/digital, and natural world/language, cf. Love 2004 and 2007; Port 2010; Markoš and Faltýnek 2011; Markoš et al. 2009.

  13. 13.

    E.g., Cowley and Vallée-Tourangeau 2013.

  14. 14.

    Harris 2009.

  15. 15.

    Priscianus circa 500 [2001].

  16. 16.

    E.g., Cowley 2012; Steffensen et al. 2010; Favareau 2008.

  17. 17.

    More on the ecosystem of protein shaping the behavior of its members, cf. Markoš et al. 2013.

  18. 18.

    As if introducing a diacritic of a sort, cf. Markoš and Švorcová 2009.

  19. 19.

    Similar knowledge can be gained from other types of analogue recordings, e.g., cuts in the vinyl of the gramophone records.

  20. 20.

    More about this, cf. Markoš and Faltýnek 2011; Markoš and Švorcová 2009; Markoš et al. 2013.

  21. 21.

    Sensu Kauffman 2000.

  22. 22.

    Danchin 2013, p. 351.

  23. 23.

    More on the topic cf. Kauffman 2000.

  24. 24.

    Danchin 2013, p. 352. Reflecting the origins of the term (meaning ‘incarnation’ or ‘embodiment’) but in conflict with the nowadays common usage sensu ‘virtual form taken by a material (human) entity’ known e.g. from virtual worlds such as Second Life.

  25. 25.

    Markoš et al. 2009.

  26. 26.

    Flegr 2008.

  27. 27.

    Kull 2000; Markoš et al. 2009.

  28. 28.

    Bachelard 1960 [1971, p. 107].

  29. 29.

    Heidegger 1927 [1962, §25].

  30. 30.

    Pátková et al. 2012.

  31. 31.

    Cowley 2012.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., p. 17; cf. also the epigraph.

  33. 33.

    Cf., e.g., Moore 2013.

  34. 34.

    As examples of an attempt to broaden the scope to non-human animals cf., e.g., Kleisner and Markoš 2005 and 2009; Markoš et al. 2009.

  35. 35.

    Markoš 2002; Markoš et al. 2009.

  36. 36.

    E.g., Cohn 1999.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Charles University, Praha, Czechia

    Anton Markoš

  2. Palacky University, Olomouc, Czechia

    Dan Faltýnek

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  1. Anton Markoš
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Correspondence to Anton Markoš .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Slavic and South Asian Studies, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Ekaterina Velmezova

  2. Professor in biosemiotics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Kalevi Kull

  3. Dept. of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Slagelse, Denmark

    Stephen J. Cowley

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Markoš, A., Faltýnek, D. (2015). Language and Biosphere: Blurry Contours as a Condition of Semiosis. In: Velmezova, E., Kull, K., Cowley, S. (eds) Biosemiotic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics. Biosemiotics, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20663-9_3

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