Description: Provides an exploration of a multimodal theory of cognitive science. This work analyses how social and biological systems interact to produce meaning. This study is of interest to undergraduates and academics researching cognitive linguistics and advanced semiotics.
Review Quotes: "Paul Thibault develops a densely theoretical discussion of cognitive and ecosocial components of semiotics that could be viewed as a cognitive science perspective on work undertaken in modern times from Charles Sanders Peirce to Roland Barthes. Published in Continuum's wide-ranging Open Linguistics "Series, Brain, Mind, and the Signifying Body" is "linguistic" in the looser sense insofar as Thibault's interest is in self-organizing, complex semiotic systems but has language (in its broadest sense) as its basis. Yet, Thibault adds a biological/ ecological focus to this investigation because, as he contends, "language in all of its facets is intrinsic to our biological make-up"(281-282)...
Citing work by Wilson (1998) and others, Thibault argues that 'recent developments in the theory of complex dynamic open systems show the importance of developing a theory of social semiosis in which the socio-cultural and the biological domains of inquiry are brought into a new dialogue with each other...'
In his 'Preface' he notes that it is crucial for semiotics to develop a perspective that takes into account collectively crucial consideration of social interaction, environmental factors, and the body in order to emphasize facets of semiosis that have been seen as immaterial by virtue of their very materiality...
By disregarding the more conventional perspective of ostensibly logical impact, Thibault arguably creates a decidedly different view of semiotic systems here. Drawing upon Togeby (2000) and making good on Halliday's contention in his Foreword, Thibault observes that "we need to develop a new discourse for talking and thinking about the ways in which brain, body, and ecosocial semiotic environment are embedded in and are functioning participants in higher-scalar systems that link all three components in complex, hierarchically organized and non-linear interactions across the many levels of relations and space-time scales that are involved"(17)...
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