Deep Congruence Between Linguistic and Biotic Growth: Evidence for Semiotic Foundations

Abstract

Language varieties undergo constant evolution, as do varieties of life. Both language and life unfold by semiosis pervasive processes of growth in which relationships shared between the inherited past, the unstable present and the virtual future are organically intertwined. Although many recent attempts have been made to reunite biotic and linguistic evolution, contemporary treatments are mired in unexamined presuppositions inherited from twentieth century biological theory. Chief among these is the denial of implicit end-directed processes, that which biosemiotics finds to be the necessary condition of living systems thereby providing semiotic foundations for human inquiry. After reviewing the history and problems of dialogue between linguistics and biology, I make two primary arguments in this essay, one a critique using historical evidence, the other a suggestion using empirical evidence. My critical argument is that crucial features of semiosis are missing from contemporary linguistic-biotic proposals. Entangled with these missing accounts is an analogous form of neglect, or normative blindness, apparent in both disciplines: the role of ontogeny in biological evolution and the role of diagrammatization in linguistic evolution. This linguistic-biotic analogy points to a deeper congruence with the third (and most fundamental) mode of evolution in Peirce's scientific ontology: ``habit taking'' or ``Agapasm''. My positive argument builds on this linguistic-biotic analogy to diagram its corollary membership in light of Peirce's ``three modes of evolution'': Chance (Tychasm), Law (Anancasin) and Habit Taking (Agapasm). The paper ends with an application involving complex correspondence patterns in the Muji language varieties of China followed by an appeal for a radically evolutionary approach to the nature of language(s) in general, an approach that not only encompasses both linguistic and biotic growth but is also process-explicit.