Abandoning the simple by disintegrating the sign?

Abstract

Abstract In this comparative paper I suggest that linguistic theories need to be discussed in terms of the metatheoretical presuppositions sustaining them. In view of Edda Weigand’s rejection of the linguistic sign and her critique of Roy Harris’ integrational linguistics for failing to abandon the sign as its working concept and not adopting a holistic model that accounts for the complexity of human communication, I will argue that the key to understanding linguistic theories is semiology, including tacitly assumed – since ‘commonsensical’ – beliefs about what constitutes ‘language’, ‘a language’ and ‘communication’ (i.e. the metatheory). I will further argue that methodological considerations are not the primary domain of semiology. This paper is designed (i) as an integrational critique of Weigand’s conception of human communication as intentional and intersubjective and (ii) as an affirmation that linguistic indeterminacy concerns both form and meaning.