Talking Heads: Language, Metalanguage, and the Semiotics of SubjectivityIn Talking Heads, Benjamin Lee situates himself at the convergence of multiple disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and literary theory. He offers a nuanced exploration of the central questions shared by these disciplines during the modern era—questions regarding the relations between language, subjectivity, community, and the external world. Scholars in each discipline approach these questions from significantly different angles; in seeking to identify and define the intersection of these angles, Lee argues for the development of a new sense of subjectivity, a construct that has repercussions of immense importance beyond the humanities and into the area of politics. Talking Heads synthesizes the views and works of a breathtaking range of the most influential modern theorists of the humanities and social sciences, including Austin, Searle, Derrida, Jakobson, Bakhtin, Wittgenstein, Peirce, Frege, Kripke, Donnellan, Putnam, Saussure, and Whorf. After illuminating these many strands of thought, Lee moves beyond disciplinary biases and re-embeds within the context of the public sphere the questions of subjectivity and language raised by these theorists. In his examination of how subjectivity relates not just to grammatical patterns but also to the specific social institutions in which these patterns develop and are sustained, Lee discusses such topics as the concept of public opinion and the emergence of Western nation-states. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 16 | |
2 Deconstructing Performativity | 40 |
3 Reconstructing Performativity | 66 |
4 Peirces Semiotic | 95 |
5 Linguistics and Semiotics | 135 |
6 The Semiotic Mediation of Language and Thought | 180 |
7 Metalinguistics and Philosophy | 222 |
8 The Metalinguistics of Narration | 277 |
9 The Performativity of Foundations | 321 |
Reference List | 347 |
Index | 355 |
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Common terms and phrases
analysis analytic philosophy analyzed argument assertion Austin clause concept consciousness Constitution context coreference coreferential create cryptotypic Declaration deictics denotation Derrida Descartes determine direct distinction encoding epistemology example existence explicit performative expression first-person Frege function grammatical iconic idea identity illocutionary acts illocutionary force indexi indexical and meta-indexical indicates indirect discourse intention interpretation Jakobson Kripke language legisign linked logical markedness meaning mediation mental metalinguistic metapragmatic narration notion object opposition Peirce Peirce's philosophical phonemes possible predicate present tense presupposes proper names properties proposition quantification theory referential relations reported speech represents rhematic indexical rigid designators rule Sapir Saussure Saussure's Searle semantic semiosis semiotic sense and reference sentence Silverstein singular terms sinsign speaker specific speech acts speech and thought speech event statements symbol temporal textual thinking tion triadic relation true truth value truth-functional unmarked utterance Vendler verbs of speaking Whorf Wittgenstein word