Meaning comes first: languaging and biosemiotics
Keywords:
biosemiotics, languaging, semiotics, eco-evo-devo, meaning, distributed language
Abstract
In linking evolution, biosemiotics and languaging, analysis of meaning is extended by investigation of natural innovation. Rather than ascribe it to internal or external content, meaning comes first. Ecological, evolutionary and developmental flux defy content/ vehicle distinctions. In the eco-evo-devo frame, I present the papers of the Special Issue, pose questions, and identify a direction of travel. Above all, meaning connects older views of semiosis with recent work on ecosystemic living. Whilst aesthetics and languaging can refer to evolving semiotic objects, nature uses bio-signals, judging experience, and how culture (and Languages) can condition free-living agents. Further, science changes its status when meaning takes priority. While semiotics shows the narrowness of laws and recurrent regularity, function brings semiotic properties to causal aspects of natural innovation. By drawing on languaging one can clarify, for example, how brains and prostheses can serve human cyborgs. Indeed, given a multi-scalar nexus of meaning, biosemiotics becomes a powerful epistemic tool. Accordingly, I close with a model of how observers can use languaging to track both how self-fabricated living systems co-modulate and also how judging (and thinking) shapes understanding of changing ‘worlds.’ In certain scales, each ’whole’ agent acts on its own behalf as it uses epigenetic history and adjusts to flux by engaging with an ecosystem
References
Aplin, L.M., Sheldon, B.C., Morand-Ferron, J., (2013), «Milk bottles revisited: social learning and individual variation in the blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus», in Animal Behavior, 85 (6), pp. 1225–1232.
Andresen, J. L. (2013), Linguistics and evolution: A developmental approach, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Auletta, G. (2011), Cognitive biology: Dealing with information from bacteria to minds, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Barbieri, M. (2018), «What is code biology?», in Biosystems, 164, pp. 1-10.
Barron, E. Hartman L & Hagemann F. (2020), «From place to emplacement: the scalar politics of sustainability», in Local Environment, 25/6, pp. 447‒462.
Batisti, F. (this vol.), «An argument for languages in languaging», in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Becker, A. L. (1991), «Language and languaging», in Language & Communication 11(1), pp. 33–35.
Bergson, H. (1988), Matter and memory, translated by N. M. Paul & W. S. Palmer, Zone Books, New York [Originally published, 1888].
Berthoz, A. (2012). Simplexity: Simplifying principles for a complex world, translaed by G. Weiss, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.
Boon, M. (2017), «An engineering paradigm in the biomedical sciences: Knowledge as epistemic tool», in Progress in biophysics and molecular biology, 129, pp. 25-39.
Bondì, A. (2017), «Entre énaction, perception sémiotique et socialité du sens : phénoménologie de la parole et de l’activité de langage», in Signifiances (Signifyng), 1(2), pp. 5-19.
Bottineau, D. (2017), «Du languaging au sens linguistique», in Intellectica, (68), pp. 19-67.
Buzsáki, G. (2019), The brain from inside out, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Carroll, S. B. (2005), Endless forms most beautiful: The new science of evo devo and the making of the animal kingdom, WW Norton & Company, London.
Chemero, A. (2011), Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
Cowley, S: J., (2011), Distributed language, John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam.
Cowley, S. J. (2017), «Changing the idea of language: Nigel Love's perspective», in Language Sciences, 61, pp. 43-55.
Cowley, S. J. (2019a), «Wide coding: Tetris, Morse and, perhaps, language», in Biosystems, 185, 104025.
Cowley, S. J. (2019b), «The return of languaging», in Chinese Semiotic Studies, 15(4), pp. 483-512.
Cowley, S. J. (this volume), «Biosemiotics and ecolinguistics: two tales of scientific objectification», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Cowley, S., & Gahrn-Andersen, R. (2015), «Deflating autonomy: Human interactivity in the emerging social world», in Intellectica, 63(1), pp. 49-63.
Cowley, S. J., & Kuhle, A. (2020), «The rise of languaging», in Biosystems, 198, 104264.
Cowley, S.J. & Gahrn-Andersen, R. (in press), «Simplexifying: harnessing the power of enlanguaged cognition», to appear in Chinese Semiotic Studies.
Deacon, T. W. (1998), The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain, WW Norton & Company, London.
Deely, J. N. (1966), «The emergence of man: An inquiry into the operation of natural selection in the making of man», in The New Scholasticism, 40(2), pp. 141-176.
Deely, J. N. (2015), «What semiotics is», in Language and Semiotic Studies, 1/1. Available at: http://lass.suda.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/be/0d/3283c81f44fa822b29066a72fe9f/5a0fc96d-e6d9-406b-b9c6-64d22d8cec64.pdf downloaded 25 May 2021.
Dennett, D. C., & Kinsbourne, M. (1992), «Time and the observer: The where and when of consciousness in the brain», in Behavioral and Brain sciences, 15(2), pp. 183-201.
Di Paolo, E. A., Cuffari, E. C., & De Jaegher, H. (2018), Linguistic bodies: The continuity between life and language, MIT press, Cambridge MA.
De Jaegher, H., & Di Paolo, E. (2007), «Participatory sense-making», in Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, 6(4), pp. 485-507.
Floridi, L., & Chiriatti, M. (2020), «GPT-3: Its nature, scope, limits, and consequences». in Minds and Machines, 30, pp. 681-694.
Frigg, R. & Nguyen, J., (2017), «Models and representation», in Springer handbook of model-based science, Springer, London, pp. 49-102.
Gahrn-Andersen, R. & Prinz, R. (this vol.) «Languaging with cyborgs», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Griesemer, J. (2014), Reproduction and the scaffolded development of hybrids, in L.R. Caporael., J. Griesemer, & W.C. Wimsatt, (eds), Developing scaffolds in evolution, culture, and cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 23-56.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1997), «Linguistics as metaphor», in Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of the Language Sciences 4, pp. 3-28.
Ihde, D., & Malafouris, L. (2019), «Homo faber revisited: Postphenomenology and material engagement theory», in Philosophy & Technology, 32(2), pp. 195-214.
Ingold, T. (2015), The life of lines, Routledge, London.
Jacob, F. (1977), «Evolution and tinkering», in Science, 196(4295), pp. 1161-1166.
Kauffman, S. A. (2000), Investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kechagias, K. (2011), Teaching and assessing soft skills. The MASS project, Thessaloniki (Neapolis). Downloaded from: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10974306/teaching-and-assessing-soft-skills-mass-measuring-and-/5 30 July 2021
Kravchenko, A. V. (2020), «A critique of Barbieri’s code biology», in Constructivist Foundations, 15, pp. 122-134.
Kravchenko, A.V. (this vol.) «Approaching linguistic semiosis biologically: implications for human evolution», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Lassiter, C. (this vol.) «Empowering biosemiotics», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Li, Wei (2018), «Translanguaging as a practical theory of language», in Applied linguistics, 39(1), pp. 9-30.
Linell, P. (2009), Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making, Information Age Publishing, Charlotte NC.
Lee, T.K. (in press), «Memesis and contemporary Chinese poetry A distributed view on world literature», in The making of Chinese-Sinophone literatures as world literature, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong.
Love, N. (2004), «Cognition and the language myth», in Language Sciences 26(6), pp. 525–544.
Love, N. (2017), «On languaging and languages», in Language Sciences 61, pp. 113–147.
Malafouris, L. (2013), How things shape the mind, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA).
Markoš, A. (2004), «In the quest for novelty: Kauffman’s biosphere and Lotman’s semiosphere», in Σημειωτκή-Sign Systems Studies, 32 (1-2), pp. 309-327.
Markoš, A., Švorcová, J., & Lhotský, J. (2017), «Living as languaging: Distributed knowledge in living beings», in Cognition beyond the brain, Springer, Cham, pp. 193-214.
Marková, I. (2012), Objectification in common sense thinking. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19(3), pp. 207-221.
Maturana, H. R. (1988), «Reality: The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument», in The Irish Journal of Psychology, 9, pp. 25-82.
Menary, R. (2010), «Introduction to the special issue on 4E cognition», in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), pp. 459-463.
Montani, P. (2019), «Technical creativity, material engagement and the (controversial) role of language», in Aisthesis 12, pp. 27–37. doi: 10.13128/Aisthesis-10727
Newen, A., De Bruin, L., & Gallagher, S. (Eds.). (2018), The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition, Oxford University Press.
Putnam, H. (1975), The meaning of ‘meaning’, in K. Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 131-193.
Rączaszek-Leonardi, J., Nomikou, I. Rohlfing, K., & Deacon, T.W. (2018), «Language development from an ecological perspective: Ecologically valid ways to abstract symbols», in Ecological Psychology, 30(1), pp. 39-73.
Raimondi, V. (this vol.). «La matrice operazionale del languaging: un approccio radicalmente relazionale del linguaggio», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Raimondi, V. (2019), «The role of languaging in human evolution: An approach based on the theory of natural drift», in Chinese Semiotic Studies, 15, pp. 675-696.
Rama, T. (this vol.) «Biosemiotics at the bridge between Eco-Devo and representational theories of mind», in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Robuschi, C. (this vol.) «The Importance of Aesthetics for the Evolution of Language», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Sebeok, T. (1994), An introduction to semiotics, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Seiberth, L.C. (this vol.), «The transcendental role of Languagings in Sellars’ account of intentionality», in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Sellars, W. (1960). «Being and being known», in Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (1960), pp. 28-49.
Sellars, W. (1967), «Some remarks on Kant's theory of experienc», in The Journal of Philosophy 64, pp. 633-47.
Sidnell, J., & Enfield, N.J. (2012), «Language diversity and social action: A third locus of linguistic relativity», in Current Anthropology, 53, pp. 302-333.
Steffensen, S. V., & Cowley, S. J. (2020), «Thinking on behalf of the world: radical embodied ecolinguistics», in Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, Routledge, London, pp. 723-736.
Stibbe, A. (2015), Ecolinguistics: Language, ecology and the stories we live by, Routledge, London.
Sultan S. (2017), Eco-Evo-Devo. In: Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Springer International Publishing, London, pp. 1–13.
Swain, M. (2006), Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced language proficiency, in Heidi Byrnes (ed.), Advanced language learning: The contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky, Continuum, London, pp. 95 –108.
Theiner, G. (2013), «The symbol ungrounding problem», unpublished conference paper at Trends in interdisciplnary studies. An International Avant-Conference, Torun, Poland.
Von Uexküll, J. (1992). «A stroll through the worlds of animals and men: A picture book of invisible worlds», in Semiotica, 89(4), pp. 319-391.
Andresen, J. L. (2013), Linguistics and evolution: A developmental approach, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Auletta, G. (2011), Cognitive biology: Dealing with information from bacteria to minds, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Barbieri, M. (2018), «What is code biology?», in Biosystems, 164, pp. 1-10.
Barron, E. Hartman L & Hagemann F. (2020), «From place to emplacement: the scalar politics of sustainability», in Local Environment, 25/6, pp. 447‒462.
Batisti, F. (this vol.), «An argument for languages in languaging», in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Becker, A. L. (1991), «Language and languaging», in Language & Communication 11(1), pp. 33–35.
Bergson, H. (1988), Matter and memory, translated by N. M. Paul & W. S. Palmer, Zone Books, New York [Originally published, 1888].
Berthoz, A. (2012). Simplexity: Simplifying principles for a complex world, translaed by G. Weiss, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.
Boon, M. (2017), «An engineering paradigm in the biomedical sciences: Knowledge as epistemic tool», in Progress in biophysics and molecular biology, 129, pp. 25-39.
Bondì, A. (2017), «Entre énaction, perception sémiotique et socialité du sens : phénoménologie de la parole et de l’activité de langage», in Signifiances (Signifyng), 1(2), pp. 5-19.
Bottineau, D. (2017), «Du languaging au sens linguistique», in Intellectica, (68), pp. 19-67.
Buzsáki, G. (2019), The brain from inside out, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Carroll, S. B. (2005), Endless forms most beautiful: The new science of evo devo and the making of the animal kingdom, WW Norton & Company, London.
Chemero, A. (2011), Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
Cowley, S: J., (2011), Distributed language, John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam.
Cowley, S. J. (2017), «Changing the idea of language: Nigel Love's perspective», in Language Sciences, 61, pp. 43-55.
Cowley, S. J. (2019a), «Wide coding: Tetris, Morse and, perhaps, language», in Biosystems, 185, 104025.
Cowley, S. J. (2019b), «The return of languaging», in Chinese Semiotic Studies, 15(4), pp. 483-512.
Cowley, S. J. (this volume), «Biosemiotics and ecolinguistics: two tales of scientific objectification», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Cowley, S., & Gahrn-Andersen, R. (2015), «Deflating autonomy: Human interactivity in the emerging social world», in Intellectica, 63(1), pp. 49-63.
Cowley, S. J., & Kuhle, A. (2020), «The rise of languaging», in Biosystems, 198, 104264.
Cowley, S.J. & Gahrn-Andersen, R. (in press), «Simplexifying: harnessing the power of enlanguaged cognition», to appear in Chinese Semiotic Studies.
Deacon, T. W. (1998), The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain, WW Norton & Company, London.
Deely, J. N. (1966), «The emergence of man: An inquiry into the operation of natural selection in the making of man», in The New Scholasticism, 40(2), pp. 141-176.
Deely, J. N. (2015), «What semiotics is», in Language and Semiotic Studies, 1/1. Available at: http://lass.suda.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/be/0d/3283c81f44fa822b29066a72fe9f/5a0fc96d-e6d9-406b-b9c6-64d22d8cec64.pdf downloaded 25 May 2021.
Dennett, D. C., & Kinsbourne, M. (1992), «Time and the observer: The where and when of consciousness in the brain», in Behavioral and Brain sciences, 15(2), pp. 183-201.
Di Paolo, E. A., Cuffari, E. C., & De Jaegher, H. (2018), Linguistic bodies: The continuity between life and language, MIT press, Cambridge MA.
De Jaegher, H., & Di Paolo, E. (2007), «Participatory sense-making», in Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, 6(4), pp. 485-507.
Floridi, L., & Chiriatti, M. (2020), «GPT-3: Its nature, scope, limits, and consequences». in Minds and Machines, 30, pp. 681-694.
Frigg, R. & Nguyen, J., (2017), «Models and representation», in Springer handbook of model-based science, Springer, London, pp. 49-102.
Gahrn-Andersen, R. & Prinz, R. (this vol.) «Languaging with cyborgs», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Griesemer, J. (2014), Reproduction and the scaffolded development of hybrids, in L.R. Caporael., J. Griesemer, & W.C. Wimsatt, (eds), Developing scaffolds in evolution, culture, and cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 23-56.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1997), «Linguistics as metaphor», in Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of the Language Sciences 4, pp. 3-28.
Ihde, D., & Malafouris, L. (2019), «Homo faber revisited: Postphenomenology and material engagement theory», in Philosophy & Technology, 32(2), pp. 195-214.
Ingold, T. (2015), The life of lines, Routledge, London.
Jacob, F. (1977), «Evolution and tinkering», in Science, 196(4295), pp. 1161-1166.
Kauffman, S. A. (2000), Investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kechagias, K. (2011), Teaching and assessing soft skills. The MASS project, Thessaloniki (Neapolis). Downloaded from: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10974306/teaching-and-assessing-soft-skills-mass-measuring-and-/5 30 July 2021
Kravchenko, A. V. (2020), «A critique of Barbieri’s code biology», in Constructivist Foundations, 15, pp. 122-134.
Kravchenko, A.V. (this vol.) «Approaching linguistic semiosis biologically: implications for human evolution», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Lassiter, C. (this vol.) «Empowering biosemiotics», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Li, Wei (2018), «Translanguaging as a practical theory of language», in Applied linguistics, 39(1), pp. 9-30.
Linell, P. (2009), Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making, Information Age Publishing, Charlotte NC.
Lee, T.K. (in press), «Memesis and contemporary Chinese poetry A distributed view on world literature», in The making of Chinese-Sinophone literatures as world literature, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong.
Love, N. (2004), «Cognition and the language myth», in Language Sciences 26(6), pp. 525–544.
Love, N. (2017), «On languaging and languages», in Language Sciences 61, pp. 113–147.
Malafouris, L. (2013), How things shape the mind, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA).
Markoš, A. (2004), «In the quest for novelty: Kauffman’s biosphere and Lotman’s semiosphere», in Σημειωτκή-Sign Systems Studies, 32 (1-2), pp. 309-327.
Markoš, A., Švorcová, J., & Lhotský, J. (2017), «Living as languaging: Distributed knowledge in living beings», in Cognition beyond the brain, Springer, Cham, pp. 193-214.
Marková, I. (2012), Objectification in common sense thinking. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19(3), pp. 207-221.
Maturana, H. R. (1988), «Reality: The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument», in The Irish Journal of Psychology, 9, pp. 25-82.
Menary, R. (2010), «Introduction to the special issue on 4E cognition», in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), pp. 459-463.
Montani, P. (2019), «Technical creativity, material engagement and the (controversial) role of language», in Aisthesis 12, pp. 27–37. doi: 10.13128/Aisthesis-10727
Newen, A., De Bruin, L., & Gallagher, S. (Eds.). (2018), The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition, Oxford University Press.
Putnam, H. (1975), The meaning of ‘meaning’, in K. Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 131-193.
Rączaszek-Leonardi, J., Nomikou, I. Rohlfing, K., & Deacon, T.W. (2018), «Language development from an ecological perspective: Ecologically valid ways to abstract symbols», in Ecological Psychology, 30(1), pp. 39-73.
Raimondi, V. (this vol.). «La matrice operazionale del languaging: un approccio radicalmente relazionale del linguaggio», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Raimondi, V. (2019), «The role of languaging in human evolution: An approach based on the theory of natural drift», in Chinese Semiotic Studies, 15, pp. 675-696.
Rama, T. (this vol.) «Biosemiotics at the bridge between Eco-Devo and representational theories of mind», in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Robuschi, C. (this vol.) «The Importance of Aesthetics for the Evolution of Language», to appear in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Sebeok, T. (1994), An introduction to semiotics, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Seiberth, L.C. (this vol.), «The transcendental role of Languagings in Sellars’ account of intentionality», in Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio.
Sellars, W. (1960). «Being and being known», in Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (1960), pp. 28-49.
Sellars, W. (1967), «Some remarks on Kant's theory of experienc», in The Journal of Philosophy 64, pp. 633-47.
Sidnell, J., & Enfield, N.J. (2012), «Language diversity and social action: A third locus of linguistic relativity», in Current Anthropology, 53, pp. 302-333.
Steffensen, S. V., & Cowley, S. J. (2020), «Thinking on behalf of the world: radical embodied ecolinguistics», in Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, Routledge, London, pp. 723-736.
Stibbe, A. (2015), Ecolinguistics: Language, ecology and the stories we live by, Routledge, London.
Sultan S. (2017), Eco-Evo-Devo. In: Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Springer International Publishing, London, pp. 1–13.
Swain, M. (2006), Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced language proficiency, in Heidi Byrnes (ed.), Advanced language learning: The contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky, Continuum, London, pp. 95 –108.
Theiner, G. (2013), «The symbol ungrounding problem», unpublished conference paper at Trends in interdisciplnary studies. An International Avant-Conference, Torun, Poland.
Von Uexküll, J. (1992). «A stroll through the worlds of animals and men: A picture book of invisible worlds», in Semiotica, 89(4), pp. 319-391.
Published
2022-01-23
How to Cite
Cowley, S. (2022) “Meaning comes first: languaging and biosemiotics”, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 15(2). doi: 10.4396/2021200.
Section
Introduction
Copyright (c) 2021 Stephen Cowley
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Works published in RIFL are released under Creative Commons Licence:Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
