Integrating the (dialogical) sign: or who’s an integrationist

Abstract

The present contribution is intended as a general reflection on what it might mean to be a ‘Harrisian integrationist’ (Harris 1996, 1998). This reflection is prompted by two recent articles by the dialogue scholars Edda Weigand (2018a) and Per Linell (2018), who both argue against what they perceive as a ‘hardline’ integrationist position. Linell, in turn, claims that his extended dialogism is an integrationism of a ‘moderate’ kind. Against this background I will contend that Linell’s integrationism and his dialogical conception of the human mind are not compatible with a Harrisian semiological position, whose sign conception will be introduced at both theoretical and applied levels. Furthermore I shall argue that there is only one integrationism and that attempts to create intellectual divisions within integrationism are ideologically motivated, i.e. Weigand and Linell are supporters of an empirical ‘science’ of language, which they value more highly than the authority of personal linguistic experience. Hence their warnings against an ‘extremist’ Harrisian stance and their condemnation of ‘hard-core integrationism’ as an approach in the ivory tower.