Language and biosemiosis: Towards unity?

Abstract

The paper reviews and extends the debate at the core of Language and Interaction. Having endorsed John Gumperz's descriptions of contextualization, I consider how this is theorized. With his critics, I find the compelling accounts to be linked with inadequate explanation of events. Mistakenly, Gumperz invokes ‘cues’ or physical invariants. In fact, as Thibault suggests, the indexicality of talk is grounded in material practice. The incompatibility of description and explanation takes us to the limits of analysis. Rejecting appeal to ‘meaning potential,’ therefore, I turn to cognitive science. Stressing that much cognition is occurs beyond skin and skull, I posit that contextualization arises from interpersonal dynamics. Viewing it as unintended meaning that occurs between acting subjects, I endorse Sebeok's view that communication extends the sensorium. On this distributed view, I sketch a theory based on three main sources. By stressing interpersonal dynamics, I link Kirsh and Maglio's work on epistemic action, Damasio's theory of core-consciousness, and Barbieri's model of biosemiosis. This enables me to leave Gumperz's description intact by focusing — not on cues — but a subject's life history. During talk, we integrate vocal and visible dynamics with judgments arising from how experience impacts on our updating feeling-of-what-happens.