The Relations between Charles Goodwin’s Interactional Linguistics and Semiotics

Some Reflections on Multimodality and on the Diagram in Scientific Discourse

Bibliographic Data

ID13085749
AuthorsMaria Giulia Dondero (0000-0003-2320-8130, University of Liège, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume12
Issue3
Pages257-275
Publication date2024-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSigns and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2326-4489 • E-ISSN: 2326-4497
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/731498
OpenAlexW4405358304
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited19

This text addresses the connection between the work of Charles Goodwin in interactional linguistics and contemporary semiotics, notably that of the structuralist Paris School, known today as Greimasian and post-Greimasian semiotics. The latter constitutes scholarship having further developed some great distinctions formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure, such as the one between langue and parole , in the study of multimodality (relations between natural and nonverbal languages). However, Goodwin’s texts consider not only Saussure’s structuralist semiology but also another semiotics, that is, the American cognitive Peircean tradition, specifically regarding the topic of diagrammatic reasoning in multimodal discourse. This article seeks to discuss these two semiotic approaches that I consider as a semiotic foundation of Goodwin’s work, helping him to study the creativity at play in multimodal languages and in scientific diagrammatic devices. I will first return to Goodwin’s contributions in order to reformulate the question of the relations between verbal, visual, and gestural languages in his notational system (transcription of exchanges). Second, I will examine the case of the dynamics of inscriptions in science, raising the issue of the diagram. Third, I will explore the points of encounter between Goodwin’s conception of the substrate of interactions and Jacques Fontanille’s enunciative praxis, in order to consider the dynamic relationship between sedimentation and transformation in social and scientific practices

Applied linguistics · Diagram · Linguistics · Multimodality · Semiotics · Social semiotics · Sociology · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Translation Studies and Practices

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