Signs in Activities: New Directions for Integrational Linguistics(Routledge Advances in Communication and Linguistic Theory)

This book is a collective volume bringing together scholars who share an interest in linguistics from an integrational point of view and in developing new directions for future scholarship. Integrational linguistics invites us to rethink the theoretical and methodological premises of general linguistics by drawing on a different conception of the sign and by recognizing the creativity that human communication requires. Some chapters are concerned with concepts like the sign, contextualization, activity, and integration. Although being core concepts developed by the founder of integrational linguistics, Roy Harris, they have arguably remained underdeveloped in Harris’ writings and thus call for further clarification and investigation. Other chapters are concerned with the notions of the self and the social, experience and interaction, with questions about individual agency and will, and human sociality and social organization, which all occupy a central position in integrational theory. Finally, remaining chapters focus on how scriptism and the language myth have influenced our way of thinking about communication in a broad sense. This edited collection will be of interest to a multidisciplinary readership comprising those engaged in study, teaching, and research in the humanities and social sciences, including anthropology, the arts, education, linguistics, literary studies, philosophy, psychology, and semiotics.

Table of Contents:
1. Signs in Activities: Introduction 2. Harris on writing and the Toronto School of Communications 3. Text as sign-making: toward an integrationist concept of text 4. A Schutzian explanation of the reflexive nature of the integrational framework: subjectivity and intersubjectivity 5. A dialectical approach for transcending structuralism 6. Reintegrating Rationality 7. Conversations with Shy Boy, Kanzi, and Margaret: Monty Roberts and Talbot J. Taylor on language and animal communication 8. Deferred imitation, event representation, and language-making in one child’s socio-dramatic play 9. Navigating contemporary linguistics and textual studies: an integrational semiology of textualization 10. Comments by a critical fellow-traveller

About the Author :
Dorthe Duncker is Professor of Danish language at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is the editor of the journal Language & Communication. Adrian Pablé is a former associate professor in the School of English, University of Hong Kong. He is the series editor of Routledge Advances in Communication and Linguistic Theory.