(PDF) General Linguistics and Communication Sciences: Sociocomplexity as an Integrative Perspective [Lingüística general y cienc

(PDF) General Linguistics and Communication Sciences: Sociocomplexity as an Integrative Perspective [Lingüística general y ciencias de la comunicación: la sociocomplejidad (sociocompléxica) como perspectiva integradora] [Lingüística i ciències de la comunicació]
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General Linguistics and Communication Sciences: Sociocomplexity as an Integrative Perspective [Lingüística general y ciencias de la comunicación: la sociocomplejidad (sociocompléxica) como perspectiva integradora] [Lingüística i ciències de la comunicació]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
2013, Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication, and Society.
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Abstract
The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century demand that we reflect on our own paradigms in the light of the great changes in the other disciplines. The elements must not be represented as being outside those of the others, separate and independent, since the interdependencies and integrations are the foundation of reality. We need a dynamic ‘ecologization’ and 'complexification' of thinking, in order to consider the contexts of phenomena in an integrated manner with the phenomena themselves. We are unlikely to be able to understand human behaviour if we do not bring the mind-brain into the foreground of our analyses, as it is where reality is perceived, processed cognitively and emotively, and where – consciously or otherwise – the courses of action that an individual takes are decided. A science that sees language not as an ‘object’ but from a (socio)complexity perspective has a much greater chance of succeeding in the task of making linguistic and communicative phenomena intelligible.
Key takeaways
AI
Adopt a complexity perspective to understand linguistic and communicative phenomena holistically.
Integrate findings from diverse disciplines like physics and biology to renew linguistic theories.
Recognize the interdependence of mind, language, and society in understanding human behavior.
Embrace interdisciplinarity to overcome limitations of traditional compartmentalized approaches in social sciences.
Linguistic phenomena should be viewed as dynamic systems influenced by socio-cultural contexts.
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11 General Linguistics and Communication
Sciences: Sociocomplexity as an Integrative
Perspective*

Albert Bastardas-Boada

Departament of General Linguistics,
Complexity, Communication and Sociolinguistics Group,
CUSC – University Center of Sociolinguistics and Communication,
Universitat de Barcelona

Abstract. The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century demand that we reflect on
our own paradigms in the light of the great changes in the other disciplines. The
elements must not be represented as being outside those of the others, separate and
independent, since the interdependencies and integrations are the foundation of re-
ality. We need a dynamic ‘ecologization’ and 'complexification' of thinking, in
order to consider the contexts of phenomena in an integrated manner with the
phenomena themselves. We are unlikely to be able to understand human behav-
iour if we do not bring the mind-brain into the foreground of our analyses, as it is
where reality is perceived, processed cognitively and emotively, and where – con-
sciously or otherwise – the courses of action that an individual takes are decided.
A science that sees language not as an ‘object’ but from a (socio)complexity per-
spective has a much greater chance of succeeding in the task of making linguistic
and communicative phenomena intelligible.

1 Introduction: The Need for a Perspective of Complexity
Language exists like a great tree whose roots are in the subsoil of the life of society
and the lives of the brain, and whose leaves blossom in the noosphere.

Edgar Morin1

Understanding all the phenomena dealt with by linguistics and communication
sciences is not solely a formidable task because of their originality and heteroge-
neity and because of the interdependencies that they maintain, but also because of
the absence of any appropriate general paradigms of thought for handling this
level of non-simple phenomena. Based on fairly readily observable material facts
that are external to the mind, traditional forms of scientific thinking have crystal-
lized in certain modes and principles of understanding the world that might not be
This chapter was supported by a research grant from the ICREA Acadèmia program.
1991.

152 A. Bastardas-Boada

the most appropriate for understanding what are more specifically human acts,
such as mental and socio-cultural phenomena.
While it is true that linguistics – together with psychology and sociology – has
tried to follow the traditional scientific procedures of the natural and material sci-
ences, we cannot fail to note the increasingly severe symptoms of crisis that mani-
fest themselves if this approach is adhered to blindly and unthinkingly, treating the
phenomena of psycho- and socio-linguistics as being more or less identical to
those that the traditional sciences have sought to shed light on. Moreover, the very
evolution undergone by the theoretical paradigms of those disciplines constitutes
in itself a very important change in classical theoretical assumptions, making in-
novations that are highly attractive for the linguistic and psycho-socio-cultural
sciences. We find ourselves, therefore, facing the need to revise our traditional
principles and formulations so that we might be led to questions and theorizations
that are perhaps more pertinent and suited to the phenomena that we seek to
understand (Serrano 1983).
A rapid look at these other scientific disciplines – more closely concerned with
the material facts of reality and, traditionally, leaders in the renewal of the para-
digms with which we examine the objects and phenomena of the world – makes us
realize just how beneficial it might be for the sciences of language and communi-
cation (and all socio-cultural disciplines, for that matter) to observe and study the
evolutions that they have gone through over the last century. Following Chom-
sky’s earlier attempts, examining afresh the theoretical and conceptual innovations
of other disciplines, such as theoretical physics and biology, could prove to be
enormously motivating for the renewal of the paradigms of linguistics and the
fields it includes. Physics scholars such as Ilya Prigogine (1992 and 1996), David
Bohm (1987) and Fritjof Capra (1985 and 1997), who can be read without pos-
sessing a great technical understanding, can, I believe, shed light on questions and
ideas for the renewal of the conceptual images of the socio-cultural disciplines.
One of the most interesting frameworks – given its thought-provoking and
integrative nature – to have been developed in recent years for a field such as lin-
guistics is that of the so-called ‘perspective of complexity’. Although based on
contributions from various authors and fields, the formulation of ‘complexity’ that
best fits our needs is, as we shall see, the one constructed by the French anthro-
pologist and thinker Edgar Morin: "There is complexity when the different com-
ponents that constitute a whole (the economic, the political, the sociological, the
psychological, the affective, the mythological) are inseparable and when there is
an interdependent, interactive and inter-retroactive weaving between the parts and
the whole, between the whole and the parts" (1999:14). Based principally on the
ideas contained in his works that I have found to be best suited to our lines of re-
search, together with other ideas from the evolutions undergone by theoretical
physics, biological ecology, and other fields, I seek to explore, provisionally and
tentatively, in these pages some ideas that might be useful for the integral devel-
opment of the various themes that make up a comprehensive and open linguistics.

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 153

2 Towards a Paradigm of Complexity

2.1 Constructing a World. The Representation of Reality, and
Scientific Activity
Perhaps, in the spirit of Magritte, every theory of the universe
should have in it the fundamental statement “This is not a universe”.

David Peat2

What we first need to establish is our point of departure in tackling scientific
knowledge. I consider it fundamental to establish that scientific activity does not
escape the basic constrictions of human cognitive activity, but rather it is merely a
more conscious and more carefully contrasted product of it. As this cognitive
product depends on our models of reality and on the conceptual architecture that
sustain our understanding of the world (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1992), under
no circumstances should we believe that this constitutes the sole and definitive
‘truth’. Today, the great scientific theories, although they have been regularly
tested against reality, no longer enjoy the status of permanent, definitively estab-
lished knowledge but rather of provisional, substitutable knowledge that can be
improved on by other paradigms and conceptual models yet to be created. We,
therefore, give birth to – or rather we construct perceptively – a world represented
by our limited senses and faculties.
Based on this awareness of the provisional nature of our scientific constructions
we become conscious of the centrality of our models of the world, of our mental
configurations of reality. We need not only to pay attention to the data but also to
the representations which we (pre)sustain or which we create based on our obser-
vation of reality. Although absolutely indispensable to the scientific task, since
Einstein we have known of the limitations of data: more and more observations on
their own would never have led to the theory of relativity. What was required was
a daring, creative ‘theoretical leap’ to a new paradigm, a new representation of a
fundamental part of physical reality (Holton 1985). As Einstein himself pointed
out, “concepts can never be regarded as logical derivatives of sense impressions”
(1986). The earlier Newtonian representation, exhaustively “tested” empirically,
was no longer the only possible model. It was now linked to an alternative vision,
one that was more potent and comprehensive (and one subjected equally to em-
pirical tests), which made us aware of the centrality of our representations, of our
cognitive architecture, of reality. Science would now never again be about ‘real-
ity’ but rather about our understanding of reality.
In the framework of the socio-cultural and communication sciences a paradox
arises. The desire to act in accordance with the dictates of the ‘scientific method’
(given the extraordinary advances in the material sciences) led to the unthinking
acceptance of the theoretical and methodological assumptions of 19th-century
physics in many of the paradigms that prevailed throughout the 20th century. The
adoption of this mistaken hyper-empiricism, for example, led many of its schools

Bohm & Peat 1989:9.

154 A. Bastardas-Boada

to reject mental phenomena – ideas, emotions, meanings, etc. – as part of the real-
ity that they should take into consideration in their research. This led to patently
absurd situations: not just sociology without the mind, but even psychology with-
out the mind. The only thing that existed from this scientific perspective was what
was ‘externally’ observable, without realizing that there can be no ‘external’ ob-
servation without the mind of some observer who perceives and represents it. The
analytical and reductionist procedures and the frequently separate, static and uni-
dimensional images of reality derived from this early physics were still blindly
followed even when the new physics began to distance itself from them. Thus, the
English physicist David Bohm was able to write that we have reached “the very
odd result that in the study of life and mind, which are just the fields in which
formative cause acting in undivided and unbroken flowing is most evident to ex-
perience and observation, there is now the strongest belief in the fragmentary at-
omistic approach to reality” (1987:37).
Linguistics, as is only natural, also failed to escape unscathed from these tenden-
cies, which only came to be questioned – and then only partially – late in the sec-
ond half of the 20th century. Its objects are still frequently described and conceived
internally, at levels of analysis that are barely integrated and which overlook their
dynamic reality, as closed systems. Thus, linguistic ‘signs’ appear to exist without
signifiers, as if they were independent containers that might transport their meaning
materially, and verbal structures are studied analytically, breaking them down into
smaller parts, isolated from their socio-cognitive context, and tending to ignore any
changes and evolutions. While this has certainly led to substantial advances in the
structural description of language communication systems, we now need to adopt a
complementary perspective that incorporates, as I shall point out, the contexts of
existence of linguistic forms and conventions as open systems.

2.2 (Re)thinking Reality
Chaos theory brought chance and uncertainty not only into our everyday life, but even
to planets, stars and galaxies. (...) It allows nature (including man) to engage in her
creative games with abandon, to produce novelty that was not implicitly included in her
previous states. Her destiny is open, her future being no longer determined by the
present or the past. No longer is the melody composed once and for all.
Rather, it develops as it goes along.

Trinh Xuan Thuan, Le chaos et l’harmonie3

During the second half of the last century, we grew increasingly aware – and not
just from within the sciences – of the different possibilities of representing reality
and of the potential diversity of cultural models and cognitive landscapes that hu-
manity can sustain. From the perspective of the scientific task as well as from that
of everyday human activity, it is worth recalling the words that Carlos Castaneda
puts into the mouth of his character Don Juan: “The world doesn’t yield to us

Cited by Spire 1999:64-65.

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 155

directly; the description of the world stands in between”4. Our maps of reality be-
come, as a result, as important as the world that we seek to understand. Our para-
digmatic lenses determine to a large extent the conceptual constructions that we
believe we see.
Thus, an essential question for characterizing any educational project would run
as follows: from which paradigm or paradigms do we look at the world? With
which perspectives and visions of reality can we approach an understanding of
socio-communicative phenomena? I believe that I have been lucky in my years in
academia in that I have come into contact with ideas and authors who have en-
abled me to learn of the existence and development of new paradigms that I con-
sider highly appropriate for obtaining a richer understanding of socio-cultural and,
particularly, of linguistic-communicative phenomena. Although originating from
different fields and distinct lines of research, these authors are constructing a per-
spective that has come to be known as the ‘theory of complexity’ (Morin 1980,
1991, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2004; Wagensberg 1985; Waldrop 1992; Gell-Mann
1996; Holland 1995, 1998; Eve 1997; Jörg 2011), perhaps the most appropriate
name from those currently available, which include among others ‘ecology’
(Margalef 1991), ‘chaosology’ (Flos 1995; Bernárdez 1995), or ‘systemic’ (Von
Bertalanffy 1981; Lugan 1993). I should say that what attracts me to these contri-
butions is the possibility they afford of seeing the world via new concepts and
from new angles, which are much more comprehensive and cross-disciplinary
than those employed in classical scientific traditions. Primarily, what I see in them
are the possible foundations for a ‘third culture’, that is the possibility of studying
scientifically and with greater rigor human events, in an integrated and ‘consilient’
way with all other disciplines – as Edward Wilson called for (1999) – so as to real-
ize the colossal complexity that human beings, their existence and productions
represent.
The new paradigms that are emerging, albeit incipiently, question many of the
assumptions that we have maintained in our attempt at making socio-cultural phe-
nomena, considered from a general perspective, intelligible. "Neither the presenta-
tion in mathematical formulae nor classical physics can retain the rôle of dominant
models that they possessed in the philosophy of August Comte", as Arnaud Spire
points out (1999:58). The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century physics, the
contributions made by biology to our understanding of living beings, the concep-
tual constructions built around the theories of systems, self-organization, chaos
and complexity implore that we reflect on our own paradigms in the light of the
great changes in the other disciplines.
An important task awaits linguistics today – and, obviously, all the other sci-
ences of communication, society and culture. In first place, we need to ask
ourselves which changes inspired by those in contemporary physics should be in-
corporated within our own theoretical representations; at the same time we need to
study which contributions from biology (as a discipline that confronts the com-
plexity of living beings) might also help us understand our phenomena; and, in
turn, how we should create our new paradigms and concepts that, by drawing on
Castaneda, Carlos. Tales of Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974. Quote taken
from Talbot (1986).

156 A. Bastardas-Boada

the creativity of these other disciplines, and on other equally innovative theoriza-
tions, can lead us to a better understanding of the phenomena with which we
should be concerned. A contemporary scientific perspective “which highlights the
random, the plurality of possibilities and irreversibility, breaking down the tradi-
tional symmetry between the past and the future" (Spire 1999:89), must perforce
be enlightening and motivating for the linguist and for the advanced conceptuali-
zation of the discipline.

2.3 Wholes and Parts
The hologrammatic principle shows that in all complex phenomena,
the whole is as much in the part as the part is in the whole.

Edgar Morin5

An excessively mechanistic image of the world has virtually led us to see analysis,
the breaking down of phenomena into their constituent parts, as the scientific pro-
cedure par excellence. As with a machine, if we are able to see the elements of the
whole unit and its ‘internal’ assembly, we are better able to explain the object and
understand how it works. While this ‘reductionism’ of wholes to their constituent
parts might have led to an enormous increase in our knowledge of the workings
and organization of reality (especially of our physical-chemical world), it also pre-
sents limitations and shortcomings when we confront the more dynamic and com-
plex dimensions of life and the psycho-socio-cultural world. An excessive reliance
on this scientific procedure and the neglect of its complementary line of research –
synthesis – can be negative for the advancement of knowledge as it ignores or dis-
cards altogether such important aspects as the context – the environment – in
which the phenomenon or the ‘emergent’ (i.e., that which occurs not only because
of an ordered juxtaposition of the parts but because of a non-simple interaction be-
tween them or between them and other fundamental elements in the environment)
are produced.
In fact, throughout most of the 20th century, analytical procedure has probably
been predominant in both biology and in linguistics. In the reduction to the basic
elemental units, we believed we would find the fundamental answers for under-
standing phenomena. And certainly the amount of knowledge generated has been
impressive. But more recently we have also seen its limitations. Discovering the
sound formants of human languages, for example, allows us to know vital aspects
of the ‘material’ plane of verbal codes, but it tells us little about their socio-
significant function. I firmly believe, therefore, that alongside a linguistics that
looks ‘inward’ there should also be a linguistics that looks ‘outward’, or one even
that is constructed ‘from the outside’, a linguistics that I refer to elsewhere as ‘ho-
listic’ (Bastardas 1995 and 1995b), but which could just as well be referred to by a
different name. My current vision, therefore, is based on the idea of promoting si-
multaneously the perspective that goes from the part to the whole as well as that
which goes from the whole to the part – i.e. top down and bottom up. Climb up to

1999b.

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 157

study the mind – as Chomsky has beseeched us – but continuing further, to find
human beings in their socio-cultural (inter)relations, or alternatively beginning
from this plane – from that of the whole – to come into contact with the knowl-
edge obtained by those who take the route that leads upward.
This is how we should understand the term ‘holistic’, not just simply eliminat-
ing the parts of our theorization to design a simple, amorphous whole but rather,
as Morin suggests, interrelating the whole with its parts and its parts with
the whole – a holistic perspective that has an awareness of its parts. Morin, in
adopting his eco-socio-cognitive complexity, succeeds in a fully integrative for-
mulation: the part is in the whole which is in the part. Part and whole as inclusive,
mutually defining, elements: “Complex thinking is a thinking that joins together
opposites (...). Joining together opposites and going beyond them by the principle
of the self-generating recursive loop (...). This principle of the recursive loop helps
to understand things that we tend to separate and isolate –such as the individual
and the species or the individual and the society” (1999b).
This approach enables us to overcome the long-standing antinomies that im-
pede our understanding of reality and which distract us with sterile debate. What is
real, therefore, is co-existent and co-dependent: the individual is in the society
which is in the individual; the mind is in the culture which is in the mind; the lan-
guage is in the society which is in the language. What we intuit as occurring is
thus ‘sayable’ or formulable: the interdependencies, the imbrications, the reality of
the elements that evolve mutually influencing and determining each other. Like-
wise for the physicist David Bohm the metaphor of the hologram – in which each
of its parts contains information about the whole object6 – is illustrative of this
way of seeing the world more fruitfully, as I already said in my precedent chapter.
Bohm (1987) distinguishes between seeking to understand reality via an ‘expli-
cate’ or ‘implicate’ order. Seen from the first perspective things are unfolded and
are only found in their own particular regions of space and time, and outside,
therefore, of the regions to which other things belong. The elements are repre-
sented as being outside those of the others, separate and independent. By contrast,
in the ‘implicate’ order, as in the hologram, "everything is enfolded into every-
thing", the interdependencies and integrations are the foundation of reality, and the
universe is seen as an "undivided whole in flowing movement".
Thus, linking up with quantum physics and related to the problem of wave-
particle duality, Bohm & Peat reached the conclusion of the preeminence of ‘field’
over the particles that it might contain: “Instead of taking a particle as the funda-
mental reality, start with the field”, or what amounts to the same thing, “the parti-
cle is no longer used as a basic concept, even though the field manifest itself in
discrete units, as if it were composed of particles” (1989:182).
The possibility that an approach to general linguistics based on the ‘field’, that
is, on the whole rather than on its individual constituent elements, might lead
us to necessary and important contributions for a better understanding of
socio-communicative phenomena seems not only clear but indispensable to me.
In the hologram, unlike a normal photograph, each section contains information of the
whole of the object, so that if we were only to light up one part we would still obtain an
image of the whole (see Bohm & Peat 1989, p. 175.)

158 A. Bastardas-Boada

Conceiving of linguistic phenomena starting from a wholeness constituted by hu-
man beings-in-society-within-a-world and from there to unfold the different inter-
connected dimensions and elements that form this whole appears, therefore, a
truly thrilling task. Bringing together the different planes developed to date by lin-
guists into one common, integrative orchestral or polyphonic score, in an aware-
ness of the distinct emergent phenomena7 with new properties and functions that
appear in their harmonic combinations, should be one of the fundamental tasks for
linguistics in the 21st century.
Clearly, here, the application of metaphors or theoretical images of complexity
will be of great use. By visualizing the different levels of linguistic structure not as
separate entities but rather as united and integrated within the same theoretical
frame, by seeing their functional interdependencies, by situating them in a greater
multidimensionality that includes what for a long time was considered ‘external’ –
the individual and his mind-brain, the socio-cultural system, the physical world, etc.
– and expanding in this way our normal score, we should be able to make important,
if not essential, theoretical and practical advances. Norbert Elias, working in the so-
cial sciences, was a precursor of this idea: “I tried to show that a society is indeed
composed by individuals, but that the social level possesses rules that are unique to
it and which one cannot explain only on the basis of individuals” (1991:83).
Certainly this expansion of the dimensions included in our scope leads us to the
theory of systems and complexity, by means of which we can integrate both
wholes and their parts, including the subsystems and supra-systems of our level of
analysis, and seeing at the same time the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ inter-influences
of our focus of attention, distinguishing but not separating, as Edgar Morin re-
quires of us. This perspective allows us to consider the possibility of incorporating
within linguistics the conceptualization based on the systemic and developed in
understanding biological wholes. Indeed, this is Morin’s proposal when he com-
pletes with the ‘eco’ prefix the concept of ‘self-organization’, the latter having
been created to provide an awareness of the development of human beings and to
transcend the theory of organization implicitly present in early cybernetics and in-
formation theory. If the idea of ‘self-organization’ emphasizes the individuality
and autonomy of living systems, we discover in turn its weakness as it separates
the self-organizing system from its environment. While more autonomous, living
systems are at the same time more dependent on their environment. As
Schrödinger points out, they need food, matter/energy, but also information, order.
The environment is in their interior. It cannot be a ‘closed’ system but rather an
‘open’ one since “it can only be totally logical by introducing into itself the for-
eign environment. It cannot close itself off, it cannot be self-sufficient” (Morin
1992:46).

“A property of an entity or complex system is said to be emergent if it cannot be defined
or explained in terms of the properties of its parts, or if it is not reducible to these proper-
ties and their relations”. In quantum physics the concept is transcendental and has impor-
tant theoretical implications given that the material world can be seen from a completely
new perspective. I believe that in linguistics the idea is also important. In fact, “nothing
can ever be wholly reduced to the sum of its constituent parts. There is a surprising, crea-
tive edge to all existence” (Marshall & Zohar 1998:137-39).

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 159

Allow me to say that here I find a fundamental analogy with linguistics. Al-
though linguistic systems are certainly not biological systems, “the environment is
in their interior” and they cannot be understood unless we include within them
their environment of human beings organized socio-culturally. There is no mean-
ing without a signifier, and without a world to which we can refer, there are no
languages without speakers-thinkers. Thus, the language is in the society-of-
humans which is in the language - mutually interconnected, one within the other
and the other within the one, fertilizing each other so that they can continue exist-
ing. We should, therefore, ‘ecologize’ linguistic thinking, stop taking linguistic
systems as being ‘closed’ and open them up to their intimate connections with
human beings, who after all are being constituted socio-cognitively by them. In
fact, this ‘ecologization’ of thinking, this consideration of the contexts of phenom-
ena in an integrated manner with the phenomena themselves, is not only a
challenge for the sciences of language and communication but for all the human
sciences (see the Commission Gulbenkian 1996). Sociologies – and even psy-
chologies – without the mind, psychologies without society/culture, economies
without human beings and the environment, medicines without emotions or feel-
ings, etc. have dominated most of the paradigms of the 20th century. We should
quickly abandon the conception of homo clausus in favor of homo non clausus,
substituting it, as Norbert Elias says, for that of an “individual fundamentally in
relation with a world, with that which is not him or herself, with other objects and
in particular with other people....” (1991:111).

2.4 Time
The classical paradigm is that of certainty. It interpreted economics rather as one did in
Newtonian mechanics, like a machine that always moves towards equilibrium (towards
economic equilibrium). I think the opposite, that we should take account of randomness
... and with randomness the idea of risk, the idea of choice. This randomness is an integral
part of the very structure of the universe. This is the message of the second
principle of thermodynamics:
We must give a positive sense to what we attributed to ignorance.

Ilya Prigogine8

Another of the great paradigmatic changes that has emerged most clearly since the
end of the 20th century is that of the assertion of the dynamic and historical di-
mension of reality. Prigogine, for example, reminds us, should we have forgotten,
of the inevitability of time and the fragile nature of the balances that lend phenom-
ena their appearance of stability. From here arises the need to incorporate fully
within our theorization this dynamic and procedural vision, as Norbert Elias from
within sociology has similarly urged. Thus, like contemporary physics, we know
today that the world we study is not “an eternal truth but rather a simple moment
in the evolution of the cosmos” (Prigogine & Stengers 1996:9). Prigogine speaks
also of the processes of spontaneous organization, given that we find ourselves in
Cited by Spire 1999.

160 A. Bastardas-Boada

an “irreducibly random world” (1996:40), in which “irreversibility is the source of
order, the creator of organization” (1996:45). The new science is, like physics, a
science of non-equilibrium, of the passage from determinism towards probabili-
ties, which leads us to think of reality as a “world in constant change, a world in
which the ‘emergence of the new’ takes on irreducible meaning” (Prigogine &
Stengers 1992:11). These changes in the vision of reality lead as a result to a
change in the very conception of science and the ‘laws of nature’. These, hence-
forth, become “the laws of an open universe (...) that can affect the probabilities of
evolution, within a future that they do not determine” (Prigogine & Stengers
1992:iv).
It is my assertion that linguistics should also adopt this perspective, following a
20th century that focused more on a static image, giving little consideration to the
facts related to existential temporality. Linguistic phenomena should be seen as
dynamic structures in evolution whose processes of maintenance should be ex-
plained as well as their processes of change, and thus overcome the criticism made
by Henri Bergson in L’Évolution creatrice, as summed up by Prigogine: "Science
(...) has been productive whenever it has managed to deny time, to provide itself
the objects that allow the affirmation of a repetitive time, the reduction of the fu-
ture to the production of the same by the same. But when it removes its favourite
objects, when it undertakes to take up the same type of intelligibility which, in na-
ture, translates the inventive power of time, it is merely a caricature of itself"
(1992:19).
(Socio)linguistic structures and situations, therefore, should be seen as poten-
tially changing and subject to constant reorganization, so that ‘languages’ them-
selves, as organizations of human communicative activity, become unstable
dynamic systems in a kind of changing equilibrium. Thus, from the linguistic tra-
dition, ‘synchrony’ and ‘diachrony’ – or ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ in sociology –
should not be seen as opposite, completely dichotomous conceptualizations, but
rather as, mutually inclusive, integrated points of view. Research in the evolution-
ary dynamics of linguistics should be strengthened so that we might understand
the processes that maintain and/or modify their structures, their fundamental fac-
tors and their interrelations with the rest of the elements of reality. Yet, languages
do not change nor maintain themselves on their own, but rather they are in com-
plete interrelation with the human beings on whom they depend and whom they
serve. Together with Elias, we should reflect on “the organization of succession”,
on “the specific organization inside which a subsequent phenomenon flows from a
previous specific succession” so that we might understand, for example, “how a
form of economics, a form of thought and, more generally, a form of life in socie-
ty can be born from a previous form” (1991:126).
Taking a similar perspective, David Bohm, basing himself on the ideas of Ein-
stein, suggests that we ought to renounce, therefore, the vision in which the world
is constituted by basic building blocks, and that, “rather one has to view the world
in terms of universal flux of events and processes” (1987:31). Bohm goes on to
say, “relativity and quantum theory agree, in that they both imply the need to look
on the world as an undivided whole, in which all parts of the universe, including
the observer and his instruments, merge and unite in one totality” (1987:32). Seen

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 161

in this light, “each relatively autonomous and stable structure (e.g. an atomic par-
ticle) is to be understood not as something independently and permanently exis-
tent, but rather as a product that has been formed in the whole flowing movement
and that will ultimately dissolve back into this movement. How it forms and main-
tains itself, then, depends on its place and function within the whole” (1987:36).
I consider the ideas of Bohm to be of great interest for linguistics. His metaphor
for seeing reality as “a flowing stream, whose substance is never the same” is per-
fectly suited to a dynamic conceptualization of linguistics and communicative
codes in general. Organizations of systems of meaning used between humans,
which, although subject to constant intergenerational replacements, maintain (or
not) the former in operation and modify them in accordance with their global
socio-communicative needs. Linguistic structures live, therefore, in this incessant
flow, just as the socio-meanings that are adhered to them, changing and innovating
in accordance with the vicissitudes of the general socio-cultural current of the
peoples. Our challenge, therefore, is to go beyond prevailing perspectives that are
more static than dynamic, and to incorporate all the contributions and to imagine a
new conceptualization that takes into account the flowing dynamicity of all phe-
nomena.
Contrary to what occurs today, socio-historic research into the linguistic evolu-
tion of humanity needs to bring together the various lines of investigation and
make a qualitative theoretical leap. The most pressing need is to communicate and
integrate research into language change, innovation, shift, and extinction, which
until today have in the main been produced separately in mutual ignorance of each
other. We need to understand much better how linguistic reproduction is possible,
how and why language structure can be maintained to such a high degree, how
this evolves and for what reasons, etc. It goes without saying just how important
studies of the evolution of language contacts and of the phenomena to which they
give rise become (pidginization, creolization, emergence of new forms, reorgani-
zation of systems, etc.).

2.5 Human Beings: The Centrality of the Mind/Brain
We are beginning to understand the game, but we still know nothing about the player.

P. Vendryes9

Up to this point we have seen the various challenges and innovations that the sci-
ences of matter and living organisms have made over the 20th century and which I
believe must be adopted without fear by linguistics and integrated in our basic
conceptualization. The other great revolution that we await, however, is the con-
quest of the understanding of the human being by the classic non-material disci-
plines. As Ilya Prigogine points out within the field of physics, “the human
sciences have long been attracted by the model of the exact sciences. As long
as the only model of the exact sciences was deterministic, the tendency was also

Cited in Morin 1980:111.

162 A. Bastardas-Boada

towards a deterministic model in the human sciences. Now that we see that even
in the Universe there are non-deterministic models, that time is a reality, we have
other possibilities to envisage human action” (see Spire 1999:76).
Now, therefore, that the model par excellence of the exact sciences has incor-
porated elements that are clearly useful and closely related to socio-cultural and
communicative phenomena, challenging long-established principles that had been
adhered to precisely by the disciplines closest to human realities, it is time to re-
vise our very foundations. In the light of the new bio-physical-chemical para-
digms, the developments in the cognitive sciences and innovative research lines in
linguistics, we should be bold in imagining new theoretical landscapes which, in-
tegrating all that has been achieved to date, would allow us to advance resolutely
towards a much greater intelligibility of linguistic phenomena and communicative
phenomena in general.
The time is ripe for the whole of scientific knowledge to advance towards an
understanding of this human plane, now that the foundations of intelligibility of
the physical-chemical and biological processes have been laid. The great chal-
lenge now is to understand what might emerge from the interaction of these planes
with the world of human operations. It is clear, however, that this theorization of
human behavior requires a much greater degree of complexity than that which to
date we have been capable of formulating with respect to the world of ‘nature’ –
understood until now in a reductionist sense, excluding from it any human socio-
cognitive phenomena. Scientists have tended to look at the ‘external’ material
world, then at organisms and natural ecosystems, and now they ought to turn their
attention to what are more properly speaking the human dimensions, although they
belong just as much – albeit as ‘emergents’ from a distinct level – to the ‘natural’
world.
One of the main questions for scientific thought is, therefore, the integration of
the mind/brain. As mentioned above, it is included as the necessary ‘origin’ of all
scientific knowledge – there is no science without an observer, as Heisenberg said
– but the challenge is to understand its activity globally in the plane of the phe-
nomena that exist in and between human-beings-in-society. We must, therefore,
make the leap from the mind that comprehends to the mind that is comprehended.
To make this leap we must first perhaps rid ourselves of those assumptions that
we have held onto for so long because they suited the phenomena of the non-
mental material plane – simpler and of quite distinct properties – but which will
act as a break on our advancement if we continue to adhere to them for under-
standing socio-cognitive phenomena. Some have already been called into question
by investigations in theoretical physics into the plane of micromatter. The ‘particle
vs. wave’ problem that we mentioned above also highlights the limits of Aristote-
lian logic and points to the need for new distinct logics, such as those currently be-
ing developed (for example, fuzzy logic). In the socio-mental world this is crucial
for critically examining the principle of contradiction (see De Bono 1994). Things
are not in one place or in another, things are not this or that, but rather they can be
– in their own way – in two places at once and can have two distinct categoriza-
tions. When I observe someone, this person is both within me and outside me, in
my mind and in my physical area of perception. I can have an identity ‘X’ without

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 163

ceasing to be ‘Y’ also, given that we are dealing with conceptual categories and
not physical material objects that occupy space. Thus, the things of the mind can
be one within the other, interlaced, at times proving very difficult to distinguish. In
the mind, distinguishing with the use of conceptual labels should never directly
imply a separation or independence, as they are typically used in the classic world
of matter. The mind, therefore, might need other less disjunctive logics and ones
that are more firmly based on the ‘and’ than on the ‘or’, as the paradigm of com-
plexity rightly advocates.
John Searle (1985) pointed out some years ago four traits of mental phenomena
that are not readily included within the scientific conceptions derived from the
study of the ‘material’ world: consciousness, ‘intentionality’ -“the feature by
which our mental states are directed at, or are about, or refer to, or are objects and
states of affairs in the world other than themselves”-, ontological subjectivity and,
finally, mental causation. The traditional scientific approach fails to tackle each of
these phenomena – considered quite real by all parties – because they present
characteristics and properties such as being ‘externally’ unobservable, the reality
as representation, the subjective interpretation of the perceptions, the teleological
decisions of the system, etc., which are not easily understood from within the clas-
sical paradigms. In fact, the socio-cultural sciences, in general, cannot satisfy three
of the ambitions achieved by the natural sciences, namely, prediction, regulation
and quantifiable precision (Commission Gulbenkian 1996:56). However, the new
scientific paradigms come to our aid by also recognizing that absolute predictabil-
ity does not exist in the material sciences. Thus, one of the great tools of the new
sciences is the concept of the “inherently unpredictable situation” and not only be-
cause of the limitations of its observer. We can therefore propose that we go right
ahead with this specific scientific approach to human facts, given that “unpredict-
able does not necessarily mean 'unintelligible'” (Turner 1997: xiv).
The mind-brain processes, then, can and should be the object of, if possible,
suitably renewed, scientific attention in its procedures and assumptions so that we
might account for the transcendental phenomena that occur in this dimension. “If
the fact of the subjectivity runs counter to a certain definition of ‘science’, then it
is the definition and not the fact which we will have to abandon”, John Searle
would say (1985:30). We can and should examine just how ‘meaning’ is possible,
how it is related to the audible physical units that we utter to each other, what rela-
tions are maintained with the rest of the perceived reality, how language
intervenes in the interpretation of reality, how inter-subjective ‘communication’ is
possible, etc., etc. It is in this direction that we should seek to broaden the lines of
research that Chomskyian thought has successfully been exploring to date (see
Chomsky 2000).
Likewise, the centrality of the mind-brain is diaphanous if we wish to understand
human (inter)action, given that, as Searle also declares, “what the person is really
doing, or at least what he is trying to do, is entirely a matter of what the intention is
that he is acting with” (1985:77). We are unlikely to be able to explain and under-
stand human behavior if we do not bring the mind-brain – whatever this might turn
out to be – into the foreground of our analyses, as it is where reality
is perceived, processed cognitively and emotively, and where – consciously or

164 A. Bastardas-Boada

otherwise – the courses of action that an individual takes are decided. In the human
plane, we must never forget the centrality of what is qualitative: as Max Wertheimer
writes, “living organisms do not perceive things in terms of isolated elements but in
terms of Gestalten, that is, as meaningful wholes which exhibit qualities that are
absent in their individual parts”. A quotation by Tagore clearly illustrates the peculi-
arity of man: "There is the reality of paper, infinitely different from the reality of li-
terature. For the kind of mind possessed by the moth which eats that paper literature
is absolutely non-existent, yet for Man’s mind literature has a greater value of Truth
than the paper itself. In a similar manner if there be some Truth which has no sen-
suous or rational relation to the human mind, it will ever remain as nothing so long
as we remain human beings" (taken from Prigogine 1992:39).

2.6 Interdisciplinarity
Progress in the sciences is linked not only to disciplinary specializations
but also to the transgressions of specialization,
to the construction of general theories and, today, to multidisciplinary groupings.

Edgar Morin10

Another of the more important aspects in which new scientific paradigms can re-
new our way of seeing things is in their questioning of disciplinary divisions in the
academic world. Excessive specialization and compartmentalization can eventu-
ally be counterproductive for the progress of knowledge. Cutting up a highly in-
terdependent and overlapping reality into different sections can lead to absurdity,
and eventually nowhere, if it is not complemented by a broad vision of phenomena
and by the study of their mutually sustaining integrations. We should, therefore,
distinguer sans disjoindre, as Morin would say.
Distinguishing, focusing, emphasizing, but without separating, without break-
ing what is real, is one of the great challenges facing the socio-cultural sciences
and those of communication in the contemporary world. To continue with the
division and the all too frequent lack of communication between the various scien-
tific communities is to engage in a sterile activity and can lead to an enormous de-
lay in our understanding of the phenomena that interest us. This is clearly visible
in the case of human phenomena, and even more so in the psycho-socio-cultural
dimensions in which the cutting up into different and distant faculties and depart-
ments leads us to failure and to an inadequate intelligibility of realities of this
type. That sociology can be broadly unaware of psychology or vice versa, that lin-
guistics can be unaware of sociology and vice versa, or that the cognitive sciences
can overlook the contributions of anthropology or sociology is clearly of no bene-
fit to anyone. But even more grave is that within linguistics itself the lines of spe-
cialization follow parallel paths with virtually no communication or interchange,
and, for example, that there is very little dialogue between the scholars of interper-
sonal communication and those of mass communication.

10
Morin 2001:176.

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 165

This highly fragmentary approach is unjustified today in any discipline since in
all fields of knowledge there is an obvious need for a contextual and systemic per-
spective that takes into consideration the environment in which the phenomena
and their interconnections with other planes and facts of reality occur. Economics
needs to include the natural environment and human beings; equally medicine
needs to include the biosocial environment and people’s cognitive-emotive dimen-
sions, as well as having an awareness of the interdependencies of the different
subsystems acting in human beings, which are currently compartmentalized in dif-
ferent specialties, etc. Likewise, the socio-cultural sciences have to be able to rein-
tegrate themselves so as to become aware of human phenomena. Linguistics
should not be afraid of taking these steps and the field should advance with re-
solve towards a greater communication and exchange between its specialist
branches, identifying the interconnections in the process of emergence that leads
to the linguistic-communicative phenomena.
Nor should it be afraid of entering into contact with other co-lateral disciplines
– as it has already begun to do so – so that they might be mutually enriching and
integrate mutual knowledge. It is important to enter into or maintain a constant
dialogue with biology, psychology, the cognitive sciences, sociology and anthro-
pology, but also with history, law and the political sciences, on subjects of mutual
interest. In the linguistic sciences, moreover, interdisciplinarity is paradigmatic
and constitutive, given the ubiquity of and the interconnections displayed by our
phenomena with many other aspects of reality. In fact, as Norbert Elias also
pointed out, “sooner or later it will become necessary to examine critically the
present division of labor between the human and social sciences”, since “the na-
ture of language cannot be properly explored by a type of psychology that is cen-
tered on the individual. Nor does it fit into mainstream sociology which to date
has neglected the paradigmatic information which the 'knowledge-language-
memory-thought' complex requires” (quoted in Bastardas 1996). A new unified
paradigm needs, therefore, to emerge, one that is capable of showing an awareness
of the complex character of linguistic phenomena and communication in general.
As for matters of methodology, socio-cultural research requires that qualitative
strategies complement those of a more traditional quantitative nature. Thus, in lin-
guistics, depending on the research questions and the state of the investigation, the
two should be combined. While the quantitative methods can give us the neces-
sary ‘extension’, handling large quantities of quantified data using computerized
systems of support, the qualitative methods provide us with ‘intention’ and depth,
by analyzing in detail the cognitive-emotive experience of individuals. Quantifica-
tion takes us into the framework of statistical data procedures, providing us with
essential information about the relationships between factors and phenomena;
qualitative methods allow us to take a phenomenological and interpretative ap-
proach to human experiences and meanings. Here, I am in favor of a marked
eclecticism à la Bourdieu, assembling the results provided by the different strate-
gies and putting them at the service of the intelligibility of the phenomena that we
wish to understand (see Bourdieu 1979, for example).

166 A. Bastardas-Boada

I suspect that we still have a long way to go in developing our qualitative meth-
odologies and, in particular, in obtaining the type of data that we wish to evaluate.
Further, the level of the emotions and feelings is still looked on with excessive
scorn in the academic world and, thus, ignored, when, on the contrary, it is my be-
lief that it plays a transcendental role in the configuration of reality and in human
behavioral decisions (see Damasio 2000; Barbalet 2001). The task here is made
much greater by the confusion regarding the nature of the science that should be
practiced in the socio-cultural sciences, given that for many researchers it remains
closely tied to the classical approach of the natural sciences. The situation is very
similar still to that described by Norbert Elias: “The mere fact that the type of
theory that I have sought to develop is different from what is traditionally consi-
dered as a theory based on models of physical sciences still creates enormous mi-
sunderstandings. But I genuinely think that future models in the human sciences
will be more in the direction that I have taken than towards physical models"
(1991:93).
The development of valid, widely accepted scientific models for the socio-
cultural sciences and those of communication will not, in all probability, be a
straightforward task. Thus, while the qualitative nature of the phenomena that we
seek to understand presents major difficulties, further problems, frequently derived
from the mental facts, have to be added to the task. Thus, the multitude of variables
that intervene in the social reality and their interdependencies, the rapid and con-
stant social changes, the potentially different behavior of individuals with respect to
these variables, the meaning of social acts, and the qualitative and non-quantifiable
character of many aspects of the social reality represent considerable obstacles to
our obtaining a degree of intelligibility comparable to that obtained about the phe-
nomena in which the human mind is not directly present. Moreover, the very fact
that the researcher constitutes an additional variable – given that he or she seeks to
understand the world based on their inevitable mental action as a subject, the diffi-
culties of applying experimental techniques and simulation methods, together with
the problems of the reproducibility and repetition of research, makes the attainment
of rigorous and carefully contrasted knowledge of these phenomena particularly
costly and complicated. However, as human beings we cannot renounce our own
intelligibility. The challenge is clear and we should respond to it.

3 Linguistics and Complexity
A noology considers the things of the spirit as objective entities. But this by no means
excludes the consideration of these 'things' from the point of view of the human
minds/brains that produce them (...) or from the point of view of the cultural conditions in
which they are produced (...). While each one remains irreducible by the other, and risking
becoming antagonistic if each ones aims to be the central point of view,
for us they are absolutely complementary.

Edgar Morin11

11
Morin 1991:10.

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 167

From the above discussion, it seems to me that we face a fascinating challenge,
namely, how to define a new unifying paradigm for linguistics and the sciences of
communication for the 21st century. Following – once more – in the wake of the
theoretical and conceptual evolution undergone by 20th-century physics as well as
that of other disciplines, including biology, ecology, the cognitive sciences, and
the contributions and perspectives provided by systems and complexity theories,
and based on evolutions in different lines of research in our own fields, we need to
initiate a creative and imaginative dialogue so as to attain a new theoretical, inte-
grative and holistic unification.
This reintegration needs to be presided over by an awareness of the non-
fragmentation of reality, realizing, in this way, the uniquely ‘emergent’ and multi-
systemic nature of what we call ‘human language’. To paraphrase Morin, we need
to found our thinking on the recognition that linguistic forms are in human beings,
in society and in culture, all of which are, in turn, in the linguistic forms. We
should strive, therefore, to provide an integrative account of grammar, the inter-
pretation of meaning and linguistic behaviors, given that all these phenomena
form part of an inseparable whole (see Bastardas 1999, 2009).
One of the most felicitous consequences of incorporating the perspective of
complexity within the study of linguistic phenomena is that it puts an end to dis-
cussions about the locus of language: for Saussure fundamentally social, for
Chomsky basically mental. For us, today, it can be social and mental at the same
time, without any contradiction, both integrative and emergent, given that, as we
have pointed out already, in socio-mental phenomena, objects do not have to be in
just one place or belong necessarily to a single order of things. In fact they can be
at the ‘intersections’, in the ‘nodes’ of things and in distinct planes, as a 'between-
ness' event (McGilchrist 2009), in a similar way to which Òscar Vilarroya views
the locus of knowledge: “Knowledge (...) isn’t in books, nor is it in Arkadia, but
rather in the complex formed by books, Arkadia and the community” (2002:164). I
believe that we should see ‘language’ and ‘linguistic phenomena’ too, therefore,
as a complex, and not as ‘objects’. In the ‘language’ complex, not only the struc-
ture or (closed) ‘linguistic’ system participates, but what is absolutely necessary is
the interconnection with the individual’s cognitive-emotive apparatus, and the rest
of the natural and social world. Thus, the brain-mind eco-auto-co-organizes its
communicative knowledge/behavior in accordance with its innate properties. And
it is here, in this joint emergent and interconnected space, like a fabric that loses
all its shape if its constituent parts are cut away, where we find the linguistic phe-
nomenon. Not in just one or other part, but in the interconnected complex of them
all. Without cognition there is no language, but without language there is unlikely
to be the cognition that we have recourse to; without language, highly organized
human societies would not exist, but without human societies we would not have
the languages that we know. The ‘language’ is, in turn, noosphere, and psy-
chosphere and sociosphere, as Edgar Morin pointed out. In all probability we
should modify our perspective of languages, and begin to see them as a
network rather than as ‘systems’, taking the same path as immunology (see Capra
1997:272).

168 A. Bastardas-Boada

As I already introduced in my precedent chapter, an image that allows us to
conceptualize this idea of the network, as well as incorporating its dynamicity, is
that of the orchestral score. The most interesting thing of a notation of this type is
that it enables us to observe its (dis)harmony, the fact that the performance of each
instrument cannot be understood if taken one by one, in isolation, given that its
causality is in the harmonic whole, in its interdependence with the other instru-
ments in producing an emergence, an act of new character, that is, the whole
piece, to be perceived by humans beings who will also interpret it in their minds as
a perceptual whole. The image of the orchestral score can be used to fulfill various
ends in linguistics. On the one hand, it can account for the various organizational
dimensions that intervene in a simultaneous and integrated manner in the produc-
tion of linguistic meaning – phonetic-phonological, morphosyntactic, tonal, ges-
tural, cognitive, sociopragmatic, etc., which gives us considerably more power of
intelligibility in explaining linguistic productions. On the other, if what we are
concerned with is the incorporation of higher dimensions that intervene in deci-
sions involving (socio)linguistic behavior – group, political, etc., it is also very
useful given that we can capture the harmonies and disharmonies caused by social
and political events of all kinds, their evolution over time – the adaptations or re-
actions produced in the other dimensions, etc.
A linguistics that sees language as a complex and not as an ‘object’12 has a
much greater chance of succeeding in the task of making linguistic and communi-
cative phenomena intelligible. It should also be able to take account, in an integra-
tive and realistic manner, of the meanings of linguistic forms -incorporating the
‘signifier’-, of their acquisition and use -since human beings will be well inte-
grated in society-, as well as explain their changing historical vicissitudes -by not
renouncing the dynamics of the phenomenon-, and even the disintegration and/or
disappearance of linguistic systems -by situating them in a logical and natural way
in relation with political, economic, media, demographic, ideological, events, etc.
In this framework, I believe that linguistics can proceed without fear towards
the expansion of its original pentagrams – fundamentally directed at an ‘internal’
system – and accommodate those dimensions which to date have been seen as ‘ex-
ternal’ but which undoubtedly participate in the realization of communicative acts.
If we place ourselves in the theory of systems, we would say that we need to
incorporate the socio-mental supra-systems in which the linguistic phenomena oc-
cur, that is, their general ecosystem, in whose framework the latter can exist, de-
velop and change, and which in turn constitutes a fundamental element in their
functionality.
Thanks to the contributions of Chomsky and his followers, linguistics took an
enormous leap towards a consideration of the cognitive features that are essential
for a correct understanding of the phenomenon. But it should not be forgotten that
human minds are always minds-in-society, minds-with-other-minds which create a
world both individually and collectively, which are organized socio-culturally,
and which evolve according to their situations and the vicissitudes of life that they

12
We ought, perhaps, to be able to imagine another type of ‘object’, entities distinct from
those recognized to date, since, as Michael Talbot, for example, points out, “electrons
don’t exist as objects exist” (1986:78).

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 169

experience. Alongside this generativist vision we should place, as well as the cog-
nitive, the essential pragmatic-socio-linguistic perspectives so that the landscape
can be more complete and coherent. This multidimensional and dynamic integra-
tion is the task that awaits us for the 21st century.
This paradigmatic renewal should help establish, once and for all, the taking
into consideration of the mind-brain fact in all its human amplitude, from mean-
ing to emotion, and from interpretation to the teleologically-influenced behavioral
decision. Thus, we can rule out for good the metaphor of the ‘container’ in the
conviction that, although it might not appear to be so at first glance, it is not the
words – in the same way as other perceptible things – that ‘mean’ but rather we
who give them meaning, in accordance with our previous experiences fixed in our
cognitive tank and/or with the ideatic innovations that we wish to create. There is,
therefore, neither sign nor meaning without a signifier. As Vilarroya quite rightly
points out, “the word is a switch for the virtual world in which the kontent is inte-
grated, and not its symbol” [sic](2002:180).
I firmly believe that we should cease concentrating solely on the ‘speaker’ or
the ‘emitter’ and incorporate more adequately the ‘receiver’ or the ‘interpreter’.
We spend much more of our time as ‘interpreters’ than as ‘speakers’. And, as
such, we see how our activity of granting meanings to our perceptions is incessant,
just like our flow of conscience. In fact, expression presupposes comprehension,
which is still the great unknown. When we interpret the linguistic productions that
we perceive we do so on the basis of the meaning that we presuppose in the other,
given that what is important is ‘guessing’ what my interlocutor wants me to inter-
pret. The ‘other’ is always present in our interpretations, as in our actions. We
speak and/or we take courses of action seeking to keep in mind the interpretations
of the people with whom we are relating, since we always know that, like it or not,
‘we will be interpreted’. Understanding the existence and functioning of ‘mean-
ing’ and ‘interpretation’ is one of this century’s great intellectual goals, and lin-
guistics can and should be at the forefront in resolving this problem.
Seen in this light it is my belief that we should seek the effective promotion of
a ‘linguistics of meaning’, in parallel with a ‘linguistics of forms’. In other words,
from the ‘whole’, which for linguistic phenomena would mean human-
interpreters-in-society, to specific linguistic forms, taking the path in the opposite
direction to that which has generally been followed by the discipline. This perhaps
would allow us to reach a comprehensive general theorization more rapidly than if
we were to simply continue climbing up the rungs of the ladder from the sounds.
Moreover, as we have already arrived via this route to what are certainly interest-
ing and important planes, the focal point, as I mentioned earlier, might not be too
distant, so that the discipline as a whole would come out winning. My wish would
be, therefore, as I have explained elsewhere (see Bastardas 1995, 2006), to ad-
vance as rapidly as possible towards a holistic, more comprehensive and general,
perspective for the whole set of linguistic and communicative phenomena.
The road based on an eco-phenomenological ‘linguistics of meaning’ is today
perfectly legitimate following the crisis of the positivist ‘truth’, as pointed out
above. If the mind is the center of any understanding of the world: Why can we
not accept that we can start from this point in order to explain the phenomena that

170 A. Bastardas-Boada

interest us, even those that make narrow reference to the functional possibility of a
mind? What function, therefore, do the linguistic structures have in the existence
of human meanings? In reality how does inter-meaning occur between people?
Today it is clear that the ‘communication’ between a human emitter and receiver
should not be explained using excessively simple models solely applicable to mes-
sages that are emitted between mechanical entities. The attribution of meaning to a
perception – in this case intentionally produced by another person – does not de-
rive directly from what is perceived but rather from the interpretation that will be
assigned to it once we have seen the cognitive tank, the situation, the interlocu-
tor’s probable intention, the rest of the actions that accompany it or which have
preceded the linguistic emission, etc. Acts of communication are, therefore, com-
plex phenomena that should be explained by taking into account all the elements
that intervene in them.
The framework of communicative acts is formed by social interaction, our day-
to-day relations. And it should be noted that this interaction is highly ordered and
full of meaning, played out in a series of established sequences and scripts that are
recognizable to all their participants, provided, of course, they share the same cul-
tural assumptions. Adhering or not to the expected script, fulfilling or not expecta-
tions, is significant. As is performing in the “correct” order and quantity. Someone
who on meeting an acquaintance does not say “hello” or who does not greet him
fails to fulfill the expected act and will activate the interpretation – in this case
probably conscious – of the non-greeting. Equally, meeting an acquaintance and
repeating the word “hello” fifteen times would be somewhat shocking, given that
it does not follow the prescribed interactions for a certain cultural space.
The fact that the scripts by which we play out these interactions are prescribed
and expected facilitates their social meaning –in other words, their interpretation-
so that we can use them to send ‘messages’ to the interlocutor. For example: if I
always kiss you on arriving home, but today I don’t kiss you, I know that you will
have to interpret this absence of an action that is acted out each day. In this way,
too, silence, the non-form, can acquire meaning, since it contrasts with what is ex-
pected, with what should occur but does not occur. The mind, therefore, not only
interprets what exists but also what does not exist (but which should exist). Its
centrality to human action is, of course, plainly manifest.
Neither is it necessary to postulate a particular interpretative activity for the
mind as regards linguistic forms. The mind here acts in a similar fashion as with
other sensorial sources of information - visual, tactile, olfactory, gustative. The
linguistic forms make up part of the individual experience together with all the
other perceptions, which are also subject to the interpretation of the cognitive sys-
tem. We perceive and we assign interpretations to images of flowers, houses,
streets, objects, clothes, cars, animals, to the roughness of a surface, the aroma of
coffee, the stench of putrefaction, the noise of a train, the taste sensations pro-
duced when sampling a slice of cake, or an aromatic herb, etc. Each of these per-
ceptions can activate an interpretative assignment and, can, as such, ‘mean’, given
that the meaning is not an inherent property of the objects and forms perceived but
rather it is granted by our mind. Not only does our and other languages mean, but
rather we find ourselves before a fully ‘natural’ activity of the brain, which is that

11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 171

of gathering the emissions that the senses send to it so as to construct ‘expe-
riences’ based on them. And these will be deposited in the cognitive system and
used to interpret subsequent perceptions, in the framework of existence in the
natural and socio-cultural world.
How this cognitive-interpretative system might be organized is still largely un-
known, although we can begin to identify certain characteristics. For example, the
hierarchy that exists between the different perceptive orders in human relations:
the gesture is above the word; as is the visual reality – if there is no coherence be-
tween what we perceive visually and what somebody tells us we will tend to give
preference to the visual, believing it to be more ‘real’ than what the other tells us;
the situation is above the interaction; the phrase above its constitutive elements
taken in isolation, etc. There is still much to be learnt but the results should be of
great interest for linguistics and for that group of disciplines in which the study of
the human socio-cognitive complex is currently divided. A linguistics housed
within the framework of the paradigm of complexity can, thus, advance towards
theoretical unification. What we have to date referred to as strictly 'linguistics',
psycholinguistics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics can advance towards their har-
monious integration based, for example, on Morin’s three-way division, between
the psychosphere of the individual’s mind/brain, the sociosphere of the cultural
products of the interactions of the mind/brain, and the noosphere of language,
knowledge and the logical and paradigmatic rules (1991:121). By preserving the
necessary level of autonomy for each of these planes – distinguishing without
separating – we can foster their theoretical coordination and unification, at the
service of a better understanding of the interwoven reality of these phenomena and
of the communicative happiness of human beings.

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11 General Linguistics and Communication Sciences 173

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Talbot, M.: Misticismo y física moderna [Mysticism and the New Physics, 1980]. Kairós,
Barcelona (1986)
Turner, F.: Chaos and social science. In: Eve, R.A., Horsfall, S., Lee, M.E. (eds.) Chaos,
Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models and Theories, pp. 11–27. Sage Publications,
Inc., Thousand Oaks (1997)
Varela, F., Thompson, J.E., Rosch, E.: The embodied mind. Cognitive science and human
experience. MIT Press, Cambridge (1992)
Vilarroya, O.: La disolución de la mente. Tusquets ed., Barcelona (2002)
Von Bertalanffy, L.: Teoría general de los sistemas. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México
(1981)
Wagensberg, J.: Ideas sobre la complejidad del mundo. Tusquets, Barcelona (1985)
Waldrop, M.M.: Complexity. Penguin, London (1992)
Wilson, E.O.: Consilience. The unity of knowledge. Abacus, London (1999)
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Bastardas i Boada, A.: Cap a un enfocament holístic per a la lingüística. In: Artigas, R., et al. (eds.) El significat textual, pp. 15-20. Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cul- tura, Barcelona (1995)
Bastardas Boada, A.: Comunicación humana y paradigmas holísticos. Claves de razón práctica 51, 78-80 (1995b)
Bastardas i Boada, A.: Ecologia de les llengües. Medi, contacte i dinàmica sociolingüística. Proa, Barcelona (1996)
Bastardas Boada, A.: Lingüística general y teorías de la complejidad ecológica: algunas ideas desde una transdisciplinariedad sugerente. In: Fernández González, J., et al. (eds.) Lingüística para el siglo XXI, vol. I, pp. 287-294. Eds. Universidad de Salamanca, Sa- lamanca (1999)
Bastardas Boada, A.: Lingüística y (psico)sociología: una interdisciplinariedad necesaria. QVR Quo Vadis Romania? -Zeitschrift für eine aktuelle Romanistik 28, 20-29 (2006)
Bastardas-Boada, A.: Complejidad y emergencia en lingüística y ciencias de la comunica- ción. Glossa. An Ambilingual Interdisciplinary Journal 4(2), 312-330 (2009)
Barbalet, J.M.: Emotion, social theory, and social structure. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
Bernárdez, E.: Teoría y epistemología del texto. Cátedra, Madrid (1995)
Bohm, D.: La totalidad y el orden implicado [Wholeness and the implicate order, 1980].
Kairós, Barcelona (1987)
Bohm, D., Peat, D.F.: Science, order, and creativity. Routledge, London (1989)
Bourdieu, P.: La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris (1979)
Capra, F.: El punto crucial [The turning point, 1982]. Integral, Barcelona (1985)
Capra, F.: The web of life. A new synthesis of mind and matter. HarperCollins, London (1997)
Castellani, B., Hafferty, F.: Sociology and complexity science. Springer, Heidelberg (2009) Chomsky, N.: New horizons in the study of language and mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2000)
Damasio, A.: The feeling of what happens. Body, emotion and the making of conscious- ness. Vintage Books, London (2000)
De Bono, E.: Water logic. Penguin Books, London (1994)
Elias, N.: Norbert Elias par lui-même (Interview biographique de Norbert Elias par A. J. Heerma van Voss et A. van Stolk). Fayard, Paris (1991)
Einstein, A.: Lettres à Maurice Solvine. Gauthier-Villars, Paris (1969)
Eve, R.A., Horsfall, S., Lee, M.E.: Chaos, complexity and sociology. SAGE, London (1997)
Flos, J.: Ordre i caos en ecologia. Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona (1995)
Gell-Mann, M.: El Quark y el jaguar. Aventuras en lo simple y lo complejo. Tusquets, Bar- celona (1996)
Holland, J.H.: Hidden order. How adaptation builds complexity. Basic Books, New York (1995)
Holland, J.H.: Emergence. From chaos to order. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge (1998)
Holton, G.: La imaginación científica. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico (1985)
Jörg, T.: New thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities. Springer, Hei- delberg (2011)
Lugan, J.-C.: La systémique sociale. PUF, Paris (1993)
Margalef, R.: Teoría de los sistemas ecológicos. Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona (1991)
Marshall, I., Zohar, D.: Who's afraid of Schrödinger's cat?. Quill, New York (1998)
McGilchrist, I.: The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world. Yale University Press, New Haven (2009)
Morin, E.: La méthode. vol. 2. La vie de la vie. Seuil, Paris (1980)
Morin, E.: La méthode, 4. Les idées. Leur habitat, leur vie, leurs moeurs, leur organisation. Ed. du Seuil, Paris (1991)
Morin, E.: Introduction à la pensée complexe. ESF, Paris (1992)
Morin, E.: La tête bien faite. Repenser la réforme, réformer la pensé. Seuil, Paris (1999)
Morin, E.: L'intelligence de la complexité. In: Spire, A. (ed.) Entretien avec Edgar Morin, pp. 169-178 (1999b)
Morin, E.: La méthode, vol. 5. L'identité humaine. Seuil, Paris (2001)
Morin, E.: La méthode, vol. 6. Éthique. Seuil, Paris (2004)
Prigogine, I., Stengers, I.: Entre le temps et l'éternité. Flammarion, Paris (1992) Prigogine, I., Stengers, I.: La nouvelle alliance. Métamorphose de la science. Gallimard, Paris (1996)
Searle, J.: Mentes, cerebros y ciencia [Minds, brains and science, 1984].
Cátedra, Madrid (1985)
Serrano, S.: La lingüística. Su historia y su desarrollo. Montesinos ed., Barcelona (1983) Spire, A.: La pensée-Prigogine. Desclée de Brouwer, Paris (1999)
Talbot, M.: Misticismo y física moderna [Mysticism and the New Physics, 1980].
Kairós, Barcelona (1986)
Turner, F.: Chaos and social science. In: Eve, R.A., Horsfall, S., Lee, M.E. (eds.) Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models and Theories, pp. 11-27. Sage Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks (1997)
Varela, F., Thompson, J.E., Rosch, E.: The embodied mind. Cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press, Cambridge (1992)
Vilarroya, O.: La disolución de la mente. Tusquets ed., Barcelona (2002)
Von Bertalanffy, L.: Teoría general de los sistemas. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México (1981)
Wagensberg, J.: Ideas sobre la complejidad del mundo. Tusquets, Barcelona (1985) Waldrop, M.M.: Complexity. Penguin, London (1992)
Wilson, E.O.: Consilience. The unity of knowledge. Abacus, London (1999)
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The paper demonstrates that traditional paradigms are insufficient for understanding non-simple linguistic and cultural phenomena, prompting the need for a complexity perspective.
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The findings indicate that linguistic forms are intertwined with socio-cultural contexts, showing that language cannot be isolated from human experiences and societal influences.
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The research reveals that language must be viewed as a system of interdependent components, where each part influences and is influenced by the whole around it.
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The integration of chaos theory into linguistics gained traction in the late 20th century, highlighting the dynamic and non-linear nature of language change.
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The paper argues for interdisciplinary collaboration, as exclusive adherence to any single discipline can hinder a comprehensive understanding of complex linguistic phenomena.
October 11, 2025
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Universitat de Barcelona, Emeritus
Professor of "Sociolinguistics" and "Language ecology, language sustainability, and language policy".

Coordinator of the research group of "Complexity, Communication and Socio/Linguistics", and director of the project "Globalization, Intercommunication, and Medium-Sized Language Communities".

Right now my main research interests are (socio)complexity theory, and language ecology and policy for a sustainable multilingualism in the global era.

ICREA Academia researcher (2010-2015). Director of the CUSC - University Center of Sociolinguistics and Communication, UB, from its foundation in 1998 to 2010. Member of the UBICS (Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems).
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Albert Bastardas-Boada
Massip-Bonet, A., & A. Bastardas-Boada (eds.), Complexity perspectives on language, communication and society,. (Cosmocaixa video in catalan: https://vimeo.com/4882319). , 2013
"As the sociologist Norbert Elias pointed out, there is a need of new procedural models to get to grasp the complex functioning of human-beings-in-society. An ecological complexity approach could be useful to advance our knowledge. How can we think of a sociolinguistic “ecosystem”? What elements do we need to put in such an ecosystem and what analogies could be applied? The (bio)ecological inspiration is a metaphorical exercise to proceed toward a more holistic approach in dynamic sociolinguistics. However, a language is not a species and, therefore, we need to make our complex ecology socio-cognitive and multidimensional. We need to create theories and represent to ourselves how language behaviour is woven together with its contexts in order to maintain language diversity and, at the same time, foster general human intercommunication on a planetary scale."
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Language ecology [Ecology of languages]. Sociolinguistic environment, contacts and dynamics [Ecología de las lenguas. Medio, contactos y dinámica sociolingüísticos] [Ecologia de les llengües. Medi, contactes i dinàmica sociolingüística]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
From language shift to language revitalization and sustainability. A complexity approach to linguistic ecology. Pp. 15-237., 2019
Human linguistic phenomenon is at one and the same time an individual, social, and political fact. As such, its study should bear in mind these complex interrelations, which are produced inside the framework of the sociocultural and historical ecosystem of each human community. Understanding this phenomenon is often no easy task, due to the range of elements involved and their interrelations. The absence of valid, clearly developed paradigms adds to the problem and means that the theoretical conclusions that emerge may be unclear on certain points. It is true that in the last fifty years sociolinguistic studies have advanced considerably, and today we have access to an impressive set of data and a wide variety of theoretical reflections. But as a discipline sociolinguistics does not yet have unified, powerful theoretical models able to account rigorously and clearly for the phenomena it studies. Sociolinguistic studies are today a diverse set of contributions in which certain and theoretical schools and lines of research emerged; but as is to be expected in a relatively new field, there is not enough communication between the various schools and they cannot yet be said to be integrated in terms of their conceptual and theoretical postulates. Against this background, our work aims to contribute to the overall, integrated understanding of the processes of language contact. Via an interdisciplinary, eclectic approach, it also aims to aid the theoretical grounding and integration of a unified, common sociolinguistic paradigm. Our strategy will not be merely to combine the contributions from ongoing research lines, but to address the question from a more global viewpoint which, together with the more innovative contemporary scientific disciplines, permits a harmonious integration of the various sociolinguistic perspectives in a broad, deep and unitary approach to the reality. The materials used to construct this unified approach are taken from many sources: Theoretical physics, ecology, the philosophy of science and mind, anthropology, phenomenological and process sociology, cognitive sciences, political science, pragmatics, history, systems theory, approaches to complexity and obviously sociolinguistics, are all involved in a dialogue in this desire for integration. Unlike the traditional perspective that separates linguistic varieties from their bio-psycho-socio-politico-cultural contexts and makes of them specialized objects existing in a vacuum, the eco-sociolinguistic perspective is based on the fact that linguistic structures do not live in isolation from their social functions – the existence of matter is indissoluble from its activity, says Einstein. Equally, linguistic structures must be situated ecologically in relation with the sub- and supra-systems that determine their existence if we are to understand their vicissitudes – the unit of survival is the organism-in-its-environment, says Bateson. So our proposal aims to provide the basis of an integrative focus from the perspective of complexity – distinguer sans disjoindre (Morin) – which draws on the contributions of traditional approaches to the study of language systems, but goes beyond them to establish a vision that is more interrelated with the other coexisting sociocultural factors, thus permitting a better understanding of the linguistic phenomenon as a whole.
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Complexity Applications in Language and Communication Sciences. Chapter 1. Introduction. [Aplicaciones de la complejidad (compléxica) en las ciencias del lenguaje y la comunicación. Capítulo 1. Introducción]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
Complexity Applications in Language and Communication Sciences (Springer), 2019
Based on the acknowledgment that many phenomena in human life are complex, there have been attempts to re-examine the conception of reality. Interdisciplines such as complex thinking, sciences of complexity or complex perspectives try to provide the “old” concepts with a new meaning. The complexity researches imply the restudy of reality, and they have cybernetics as precedent and partly as foundation: a transdisciplinary focus to explore the structures, restrictions and possibilities of regulatory systems. It intends to provide concepts, schemata and possibilities of thought and representation capable of expressing the interweaving and the multidimensional and systematic interdependence of the many phenomena of reality. Linguistics is one of the fields of knowledge that is making great progress under the new paradigm of complexity. The amount of contributions from physics and other scientific disciplines to linguistics is large, under which natural language has been addressed with theoretical and practical methods, both quantitative and qualitative. However, the conceptual resources and tools that are available nowadays are not completely suitable to perform all the tasks. Due to this, it is necessary to keep developing new theoretical and methodological tools that help understanding the dynamic interrelations of linguistic and sociocultural events. Simultaneously, the lines of inter and transdisciplinary research that transcend the communicative and linguistic phenomenon, and that connect them and interrelate them with life and the world must be strengthened.
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Towards a complex-figurational socio-linguistics. Some contributions from physics, ecology and the sciences of complexity [Hacia una sociolingüística compleja y figuracional. Algunas contribuciones de la física, la ecología y las ciencias de la complejidad]
Albert Bastardas-Boada
History of the Human Sciences, Vol. 27, Issue 3, pp. 55-75. , 2014
As figurational sociologists and sociolinguists, we need to know that we currently find support from other fields in our efforts to construct a sociocultural science focused on interdependencies and processes, creating a multidimensional picture of human beings, one in which the brain and its mental and emotional processes are properly recognised. The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century physics, the contributions made by biology to our understanding of living beings, the conceptual constructions built around the theories of systems, self-organization, and complexity implore that we reflect on social sciences paradigms in the light of the great changes in the other disciplines. The application of metaphors or theoretical images of complexity and figurational sociology in understanding language and sociocommunication phenomena is of great use, since language is not an ‘object’, but a ‘complex’; it exists simultaneously in and among different domains. ‘Languaging’ and interaction are co-phenomena. The former exists within the latter, and the latter within the former. By visualizing, for instance, the different levels of linguistic structure not as separate entities but rather as united and integrated within the same theoretical frame, by seeing their functional interdependencies, by situating them in a greater multidimensionality that includes what for a long time was considered ‘external’ – the individual and his mind-brain, the socio-cultural system, the physical world, etc. – and expanding in this way our classical view, we should be able to make important, if not essential, theoretical and practical advances.
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Sociolinguistics: An international handbook of the science of language and society (Project announcement)
Blackfish Tata
Language in Society, 1984
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Indexicality as a Means to Better Understand The Socially Charged Life of Language
Greg J Flynn
Bakhtin said that words live socially charged lives (Bakhtin in Ahearn 3). This is of course true; no utterance comes into being devoid of meaning or deprived of context. As Roman Jakobson elucidated in his model of the multifunctionality of language, each word imparted is more than a mere means of communication. Indeed every facet of language participates in the dynamic relationship between the social and the semantic. Moreover, neither society nor language can exist without the other; each is intrinsically embedded in the other. Social interaction is facilitated through language, and language use develops out of its social milieu. Thus, through an investigative focus upon indexicality, or what language use can implicitly suggest, this essay intends to explore the nature of this complex system of reciprocity and more specifically the facet of which Ahearn terms "the socially charged life of language" (3). In so doing, it is necessary to apprehend what exactly language can do within its socially charged life through the use of examples. Each example shall be conveyed, analyzed and commented upon in order to produce an understanding of how indexicality is an imperative factor in the comprehension of the "socially charged life of language" (Ahearn 3). For the objective of this paper indexicality shall be taken to refer to "the pervasive context-dependency of natural language utterances" (Hanks 124). To refine the intention of this paper it is necessary to borrow from Laura Ahearn, a scholar whose insights in the realm of linguistic anthropology are invaluable and will thus be repeatedly harkened back to for the purposes of this investigation.
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Sociolinguistics: A Multidisciplinary Perspective to Language and Literature
vaishnavi kaledhonkar
Shodh Sanchar Bulletin, 2020
Sociolinguistics is that branch of linguistics which has its origin in the theories of sociology. William Lobov is the pioneer of the field who related the social determinants and the linguistic theory. In 1960's this perspective to linguistics came into existence. The present paper aims to throw light on the sociolinguistics theories, relation with different aspects of sociology and uses of this multidisciplinary approach in understanding language and literature. It also highlights on what is research and multidisciplinary nature of language. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of this multidisciplinary aspects which is important in language. It also deals with different relationships of language as the sociolinguistics concern.
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НЕСКОЛЬКО СЛОВ О СОЦИОЛИНГВИСТИКЕ КАК НАПРАВЛЕНИЕ ПРИКЛАДНОГО ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЯ ● A FEW WORDS ON SOCIOLINGUISTICS AS A DIRECTION IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS
STRUCTURAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS (SPBU) ● СТРУКТУРНАЯ И ПРИКЛАДНАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИКА (СПбГУ)
АЛЕКСАНДР СЕРГЕЕВИЧ ГЕРД ● ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH HEARD
СТРУКТУРНАЯ И ПРИКЛАДНАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИКА (СПбГУ), 2010
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Language in social reproduction: Sociolinguistics and sociosemiotics
patrizia calefato
Sign Systems Studies
This paper focuses on the semiotic foundations of sociolinguistics. Starting from the definition of "sociolinguistics" given by the philosopher Adam Schaff, the paper examines in particular the notion of "critical sociolinguistics" as theorized by the Italian semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi. The basis of the social dimension of language are to be found in what Rossi-Landi calls "social reproduction" which regards both verbal and non-verbal signs. Saussure's notion of langue can be considered in this way, with reference not only to his Course of General Linguistics, but also to his Harvard Manuscripts. The paper goes on trying also to understand Roland Barthes's provocative definition of semiology as a part of linguistics (and not vice-versa) as well as developing the notion of communication-production in this perspective. Some articles of Roman Jakobson of the sixties allow us to reflect in a manner which we now call "socio-semiotic" on the processes of transformation of the "organic" signs into signs of a new type, which articulate the relationship between organic and instrumental. In this sense, socio-linguistics is intended as being sociosemiotics, without prejudice to the fact that the reference area must be human, since semiotics also has the prerogative of referring to the world of non-human vital signs. Socio-linguistics as socio-semiotics assumes the role of a "frontier" science, in the dual sense that it is not only on the border between science of language and the anthropological and social sciences, but also that it can be constructed in a movement of continual "crossing frontiers" and of "contamination" between languages and disciplinary environments. 7 Voloshinov's quotes come from the Italian translation of his article. The English version is of the translator's.
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Sociology
Complex Systems Science
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Language and Social Interaction
Sociolinguistics
Complexity Theory
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Applied Linguistics
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