FYI GR Dear all,
I’m copying here the CFP for our upcoming special issue on Linguistics and Biosemiotics, edited by Israel Chávez (University of Tartu). Please feel free to pass it along! *Call for Papers Linguistic Frontiers: Special Issue on Linguistics and Biosemiotics* A quick glance at the recent development of semiotics, i.e. the last six or seven decades, testifies to the fluctuating role of human language within the discipline. It is undeniable that the study of human language was responsible, to a big extent, for the constitution of semiotics as a discipline. In Europe, the teachings of Ferdinand de Saussure, and the subsequent re elaborations of his theory by thinkers like R. Jakobson, N.S. Trubetzkoy, V. Mathesius, B. Trnka, E. Buyssens, A. Martinet, G. Mounin, E. Benveniste, R. Barthes, L. Hjelmslev or L. Prieto, to name but a few, stand as prominent landmarks in the history of semiotic thought. The second half of the twentieth century, however, saw a new “revolution” in semiotics, strongly promoted by the works of Thomas A. Sebeok (a linguist himself!), in which human language was seen as encompassing but a subset of all the phenomena that rightly belong to the object of semiotics. The rising prominence of Peircean semiotics (which was incidentally also due, in part, to Jakobson, another linguist) helped creating a climate in which Saussure’s ideas came to be seen as reductionist and outdated. It became a common claim that the methods and theories put forward by his *sémiologie* were not adequate to enter the new territory of non human sign systems, or even to continue studying human language. This paradigm shift brought indeed new and valuable perspectives on language, both within linguistics and semiotics. But it can be argued, nonetheless, that *sémiologie*, at least as conceived by Saussure, is not totally incompatible with the Sebeokian, or even the Peircean view. None of these three thinkers would have denied that human language is but a sign system among others, and thus in order to comprehend what language *is*, it must be compared and conceived within the multiplicity of sign systems with which it coexists. In recent dates, some of the younger generation of semioticians have already begun to reconsider the structural semiotics of Hjelmslev, Saussure, Prieto, and others, in their possible links to contemporary semiotics, paying special attention to general and biosemiotics. There is thus a striving towards a synthesis, or rather hybridization, of methods and theories that pays more attention to the similarities between the theories than to their differences. These efforts first and foremost entail rethinking the role that human language, its study, and the history and epistemology of semiotic theories, play in contemporary semiotic research. It is thus in this spirit that we invite you to submit papers on the following topics (the list being not exhaustive): The place and role of language among biological and cultural sign systems The relationships between speech and language The relationships between communication, language and *semiosis* The relationships between language and cognition The concept of *opposition* in linguistics, biosemiotics and general semiotics The role of linguistics in contemporary semiotics and biosemiotics The importance of semiology for contemporary semiotics and biosemiotics Specific semiological theories as seen from contemporary semiotics and biosemiotics (e.g. Glossematics and biosemiotics, Greimas’ semiotics and biosemiotics, etc.) The co-history of linguistics, semiotics and biology History and epistemology of linguistics, biosemiotics and general semiotics Please use our website <https://linguisticfrontiers.upol.cz> for your submissions or email us at lingfronti...@upol.cz. If you have any questions, please contact us at the same email address. *Deadline for 1st submission: October 1st, 2021.* *Linguistic Frontiers <https://sciendo.com/journal/LF>* is a peer-reviewed academic journal which focuses on the research and collaboration of linguistics and life sciences, mathematics and various social sciences and humanities applying formal or experimental approaches which are employed e.g. in traditional linguistic interdisciplines like quantitative linguistics, psycholinguistics, biosemiotics, sociolinguistics. The major aim is to transfer methods and topics among these fields of linguistic research.
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