Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Towards a Holo-Semiotic Framework for the Evolution of Language

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Meanings & Co.

Part of the book series: Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress ((NAHP,volume 6))

  • The original version of this 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 correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91986-7_14

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Change history

  • 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. 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.

References

  • Barbieri, Marcello. 2008. Biosemiotics: A new understanding of life. Naturwissenschaften 95 (7): 577–599.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bolhuis, Johan J., Ian Tattersall, Noam Chomsky, and Robert C. Berwick. 2014. How could language have evolved? PLoS Biology 12 (8): e1001934.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chandler, Daniel. 2007. Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dacke, M., D.E. Nilsson, C.H. Scholtz, M. Byrne, and E.J. Warrant. 2003. Animal behaviour: Insect orientation to polarized moonlight. Nature 424 (6944): 33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, Terrence. 2004. Memes as signs in the dynamic logic of semiosis: Beyond molecular science and computation theory. Conceptual Structures at Work, 236–236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, Terrence. 1998. The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the Human Brain. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, Daniel C. 1996. Darwin’s dangerous idea. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donald, Merlin. 1991. Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitch, W. Tecumseh. 2010. The evolution of language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goody, Jack. 1977. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartley, John, and Jason Potts. 2014. Cultural science: A natural history of stories, Demes, knowledge and innovation. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmeyer, Jesper, and Frederik Stjernfelt. 2016. The great chain of semiosis. Investigating the steps in the evolution of semiotic competence. Biosemiotics 9 (1): 7–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, Hurford. 2008. Animal syntax? Implications for language as behavior. Scotland: University of Edinburgh (ms.).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirby, Simon. 2017. Culture and biology in the origins of linguistic structure. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 24 (1): 118–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kull, Kalevi. 2009. Vegetative, animal, and cultural semiosis: The semiotic threshold zones. Cognitive Semiotics 4 (Supplement): 8–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kull, Kalevi, and Ekaterina Velmezova. 2014. What is the main challenge for contemporary semiotics? Σημειωτκή-Sign Systems Studies 4: 530–548.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kull, Kalevi. 2001. Jakob Von Uexkull: An introduction. Semiotica-La Haye Then Berlin- 134 (1/4): 1–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, Philip. 2002. On the nature and evolution of the neural bases of Human language. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 45: 36–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, Philip. 2007. The evolution of Human speech: Its anatomical and neural bases. Current Anthropology 48 (1): 39–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, Philip. 2015. Language did not spring forth 100,000 years Ago. PLoS Biol 13 (2): e1002064.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maran, Timo, Dario Martinelli, and Aleksei Turovski. ed. 2012. Readings in zoosemiotics. Semiotics, communication and cognition, vol. 8. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maran, Timo. 2003. Mimesis as a phenomenon of semiotic communication. Σημειωτκή-Sign Systems Studies 1: 191–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Otokura, Mari, Kenji Leibnitz, Tetsuya Shimokawa, and Masayuki Murata. 2016. Evolutionary core-periphery structure and its application to network function virtualization. Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications, IEICE 7 (2): 202–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pessoa, Luiz. 2008. On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9 (2): 148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Potter, Vincent G. 1967. Charles S. Peirce on norms & ideals. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sebeok, Thomas A. 1985. Zoosemiotic components of communication. In Semiotics: An introductory anthology, ed. Robert E. Innis, 294–318. Indiana, USA: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schulze, Ernst-Detlef. 2012. Flux control in biological systems: From enzymes to populations and ecosystems. London: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, William S-Y. 2010. Conference on Evolutionary Linguistics II, Nankai University. Incomplete preliminary draft presented May 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1954. Philosophical investigations. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Jeremiah Cassar Scalia

Authors
  1. Jeremiah Cassar Scalia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeremiah Cassar Scalia .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. International Semiotics Institute, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Alin Olteanu

  2. International Semiotics Institute, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Andrew Stables

  3. Faculty of Communication and Public Relations, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania

    Dumitru Borţun

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

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

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91986-7_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91985-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91986-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation