Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary

The analytical dictionary that we here propose is a dictionnaire raisonné, that is, a systematic presentation, in the form of concise and up-to-date reflections, of all aspects of language in its very broadest sense, as semiotic system(s) and/or process(es). Its goal is to review and evaluate the various theories of language, and simultaneously to present a synthesis—or at least a partial one—of the various attempts that have been made to establish this field of knowledge as a coherent theory. It is widely known that, for about a decade and a half, the "semiotic enterprise" has given rise to different directions. Now it is perhaps time to make an inventory of these various theoretical proposals, to homologate them one with another, and to evaluate them. Semiotics can certainly be seen as a pioneering undertaking. However, we have constantly attempted to define semiotics with respect to linguistics, that is, as a project located within linguistics, or beside it, or above it. Now, linguistics itself, enriched by a tradition developed over more than a century, was, during that time, striving toward a logicomathematical rigor which led to the elaboration of progressively more refined procedures. This development in linguistic research engendered a number of certitudes, but, often, at the expense of theoretical reflection and thus of creative questioning. It was not at all an easy task to establish a convincing exchange between an approach characterized by epistemological laxity and another, based on a set of methodological techniques, each of which approaches was ignorant of the other.