Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Linguistics 425
various hybrid formations, e.g. in vocal music, dramatic performances, and
sound film. (On the relevance of written language in painting see 25a.)
Despite an indubitable structural autonomy of these sign systems which we
have defined as idiomorphic, they, too, like the other varieties of semiotic
patterns used by human beings, fall under the significant conclusions drawn by
two eminent linguists : Sapir realized that ‘phonetic language takes precedence
over all other kinds of communicative symbolism’ (r54, p. 7), and in Benveniste’s
view, le langage est l’expression symbolique par excellence, and all other systems
of communication en sont derivgs et le supposent (8, p. 2s). The antecedence of
verbal signs in regard to all other deliberately semiotic activities is confirmed by
studies of children’s development. The ‘communicative symbolism’ of children’s
gestures after the rudiments of language have been mastered is noticeably
distinct from the reflex movements of the speechless infant.
In brief, the subject matter of semiotic is the communication of any messages
whatever, whereas the field of linguistics is confined to the communication of
verbal messages. Hence, of these two sciences of man, the latter has a narrower
scope, yet, on the other hand, any human communication of nonverbal messages
presupposes a circuit of verbal messages, without a reverse implication.
If the cycle of semiotic disciplines is the nearest one to encompass linguistics,
the next, wider concentric circle is the totality of communication disciplines.
When we say that language or any other sign system serves as a medium of
communication, we must caution at the same time against any restrictive conception
of communicative means and ends. In particular, it was often overlooked
that besides the more palpable, interpersonal face of communication,
its intrapersonal aspect is equally pertinent. Thus, for instance, inner :speech,
astutely conceived by Peirce as an ‘internal dialogue’ and until recently rather
disregarded in linguistic literature, is a cardinal factor in the network of language
and serves as a connection with thelself’s past and future (136, IV, $6; cf.
180; 194; 196; 165; 154, p. 15).
The natural task of linguistics was to bring forward the primordial significance
of the concept ‘communication’ for social sciences. In Sapir’s formulation,
‘every cultural pattern and every single act of social behavior involves communication
in either an explicit or an implicit sense’. Far from being ‘a static structure’,
society appears as ‘a highly intricate network of partial or complete
understandings between the members of organizational units of every degree of
size and complexity’, and it is being ‘creatively reaffirmed by particular acts
of a communicative nature’ (r54, p. 104; cf. 16). While realizing that ‘language
is the most explicit type of communicative behavior’, Sapir saw both the significance
of the other ways and systems of communication and their multifarious
connections with verbal intercourse.
It was Levi-Straws who gave the clearest delineation of this subject matter
and who launched the most promising attempt ‘B interpreter la societe dans son
ensemble en fonction d‘une thkorie de la communication’ (ror, p. 95; 103). He
strives toward an integrated science of communication which would embrace
social anthropology, economics, and linguistics, or let us replace the latter concept
by a wider notion of semiotic. One can but follow Gvi-Strauss’ triadic