Reflection on the Borders of Language and Speech in Light of Discoveries in Zoosemiotics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31261/ZOOPHILOLOGICA.2021.07.10Keywords:
language and speech boundaries, language universality, biolinguist, zoosemioticsAbstract
The main problem that Tomasz Nowak discusses in this article concerns the boundaries of language and speech as set by both social sciences and the humanities and mathematics and natural sciences. His special focus is the fusion of semiotics and biology known as biosemiotics. Nowak argues that bio-communicative skills of human and non-human animals are divided by a gap which is both quantitative and qualitative. However, phylogenetic pre-adaptations and (pre)ontogenetic dispositions of human and non-human animals are, on the one hand, communicatively discreet, and, on the other, cognitively and behaviorally continual. The results of empirical studies cited and examined by Nowak support the idea that there are bio-communicative traits specific to humans.
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