Non-Symbolic Psycho-Cognitive States in a Word-Containing Semiotic Act. On Linguistic Pragmatics and the Impossibility of a Word’s “Proper Meaning”. Sign-centrism vs Pragmatic Approach

Abstract

This article challenges the common belief in linguistics, semiotics, and the philosophy of language that a sign possesses its own content (“meaning”, “sense”, “signified”, etc.). To this end, it examines the division established in linguistic pragmatics between deictic and non-deictic units of language: some lexemes possess fully-fledged substantive properties, while others acquire meaning only in the act of communication. Contrary to the linguistic perspective on verbal data, the article, within the framework of the communicative model of meaning formation, asserts the impossibility of a word having its own meaning, given that any sign body is always only a trace of a personal psycho-cognitive process, part of an attempt at communicative influence organized by the actor. Verbal data, including text, do not possess a substantive identity unless they are traced to a given cognitive mode of consciousness of a given actor. Cognitive states, in turn, do not possess a symbolic form, yet they are the true foundation of conceptual content, which in linguistic theory is often metaphorically associated with the body of a sign, analogous to physical bodies possessing their own properties. Recognizing the fallacy of autonomous linguistic meaning allows for a more consistent implementation of a pragmatic approach to understanding the semiotic actor (rather than the sign) and its non-symbolic cognitive modes. This article proposes the concept of polymodal word-containing semiotic influence as a more natural unit of the communicative process, replacing speech acts, language games, pragmemes, and other concepts that somehow retain the concept of self-organized verbal language and the inherent meaning of verbal units