ABSTRACT

Starting with a series or problems that the Saussurean and post-Saussurean constitution of the object of study “language” has left us, I explore the enduring legacy of these problems. For example, I discuss the influence that phenomenalism and computationalism have played in separating “language” from bodies, persons, and environments. I consider the problems that arise when it is assumed that something called “language” exists in and can be abstracted or extracted from the real-time flow of socially coordinated and organised languaging between persons. A “language” is taken to be a system for pairing forms to their “meaning” or “sense.” The language system so defined is a coding or mapping operation that pairs a particular unit (or structured arrangement of units) of linguistic form to its meaning or sense so that people can participate in linguistic activity together. I question this view and relate it to the pervasive influence of phenomenalism and computationalism in the language sciences. Languaging plays a central role in the recursively self-maintaining and recursively self-individuating dynamic that enables persons with selfhood to participate in, to develop and individuate, and to care for each other qua selves. A relational definition of the self-in-languaging is proposed that is grounded in what I call the 9E view of languaging.