Hjelmslev and the Stratification of Signs and Language. The Morphodynamical Approaches to Semiotic Complexity

Abstract

According to Louis Hjelmslev («La stratification du langage», Word, 10:163–188, 1954), the theory of linguistic and semiotic stratification is a way that aims at the convergences of the connections among linguistic activity, natural languages and speech acts into a dynamical system. Hjelmslev think that the relationship between the internal dynamics of the system components and the variations of semiotic forms, set by the social change and its heterogeneity, should be considered in the terms of an osmosis, by refocusing the virtuous circle between use and collective transmission of linguistic and semiotic forms.