This paper introduces a theory of mind that positions language as a cognitive tool in its own right for the optimization of biological fitness.I argue that human language reconstruction of reality results from biologi...
This paper examines categories and functions of interactive and interactional textual elements used in the contractual discourse of selling/purchasing 100 shares of the Suez Canal Company in 1947.The exchanged documen...
In the last two decades of his career,Saussure continually tried to clarify the status of signs,considering however that it was an “absurd task” attacking this “odd entity” consisting of the association of two het...
Foreword Ferdinand de Saussure (b. 1857 Geneva–d. 1913 Vufflens-le-Chateau, Vaud) was an extraordinary, brilliant Swiss linguist. He is widely recognized to be the founder of modern linguistics (Lyons, 1968) and a fo...
The study of language is based either on the word or on the sentence as basic units.Ferdinand de Saussure opted for the word;other linguists later preferred the sentence or chose to ignore the difference between word ...
The article analyses the way in which human languages classify reality into two large categories: the natural sphere and the human sphere. Thus, a given language will use the resources of its different linguistic leve...
Peirce's concept of icon sheds light on the iconic mapping relationship between structural linguistics and structuralist literary criticism, and the failure of the latter.As a revolt against the traditional extrinsic ...
The obsolete word "appliable" has been revitalized by M.A.K. Halliday in his call for "appliable linguistics" in the twenty-first century. This paper argues for the fact that the thematic notion "appliability" and its...
In this paper, we present a comparative study of Obama's closing statements in the presidential debates, in particular, the first and third debates with Mitt Romney in 2012. Obama was considered to have done poorly in...