Is a general 'non-ethnocentric' theory of human communication possible?: An integrationist approach

• Adrian Pablé ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Hong Kong

     University of Hong Kong

     RAE de Hong Kong (China)

     
• Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 230, 2019
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The present paper takes a supportive stance towards humanism, anthropocentrism and universalism. It does so through the lens of a theoretical approach known as integrationism (or integrational linguistics), as outlined in the work of Oxford linguist Roy Harris (Harris, 1996). Given the rise in research critiquing the ethnocentric nature of communication and linguistic theory, this paper examines the validity of the cultural bias argument as recently presented in posthumanist applied linguistics (Pennycook, 2018), anti-humanist semiotics (Cobley, 2016) and the linguistic school known as Natural Semantic Metalanguage (Wierzbicka, 2010, Goddard, 2011) by taking a distinctly semiological vantage point. The paper argues that Roy Harris’ integrationism allows for a theory of human communication that is general without being ethnocentrically biased because grounded in a semiology of personal experience rather than one characterised by scientific abstraction. The explanatory power of such an experienced-based theory turns out to be of a very different range and kind when compared to mainstream semiological and semiotic theories.