Linguistic Frontiers

Causation as Indexical Semeiosis

Kenneth Laine Ketner — 2026-02-01

The concept of causation is widely regarded as a dyadic relation necessary for scientific inquiry, and as a basic component in discussions of biological mechanism, or of the same in other sciences. A re-examination of causation in view of Peirce’s Semeiotic shows that causation might more usefully be understood in terms of his Indexical Semeiosis analysis. By so proceeding, this hypothesis could yield useful experiments that show promise for removing some antinomies in sciences that are currently treated according to Necessitarian presuppositions.

In Search of Lost Meaning

Elize Bisanz — 2026-02-01

INTRODUCTION
The following paper explores the evolution and significance of writing as a techné within the context of digital culture. It examines how semiotic concepts such as logos, arche, and patterns of representation shape meaning and impact the semiotics of writing in the age of digital dissemination.
Writing is a vital tool for preserving and transmitting ideas and knowledge. Since its inception, it has been a means to communicate individual thoughts and emotions, encapsulating cultural narratives, collective histories, and unique human experiences for future generations—the readers of today.
To study writing through the lens of information technologies offers insights into the evolving functions of information tools, shedding light on their impact on human communication, social interaction, and cultural memory. Driven by language models, the technological age is primarily formed by binary dyadic models. By blurring the distinctions between the writer and the message, as well as between the physical and digital realms, writing today contributes to reinterpreting the history of literacy. This transformation is accelerated by an increasingly digital dissemination, where digita codes model the structures of social communication and fuel the creation of mass content.
Writing serves as a means to preserve the evolution of meaning. In his seminal work “Grammatology” (1997[1967]),. Jacques Derrida critiques the restraints put on our understanding of meaning processes imposed by a dyadic definition of the sign structure. The inherent dynamics of Saussure’s dyadic structure affect all signified concepts, restraining meaning between the signifier and signified. (Saussure 1966) Derrida confronts the challenge of uncovering the origins of meaning by proposing a shift from semiology—the study of the linguistic sign—to grammatology, the study of writing.
“The advantage of this substitution will not only be to give to the theory of writing the scope needed to counter logocentric repression and the subordination to linguistics. It will liberate the semiological project itself from what, in spite of its greater theoretical extension, remained governed by linguistics, organized as if linguistics were at once its center and its telos […] The
linguistic sign remained exemplary for semiology, it dominated it as the master-sign and as the generative model: the pattern [patron].” (Derrida 1997 [1967], 51)
Recent studies have sparked discussions about the efficacy of language as a prototype for constructing reasoning systems. For instance, a study titled “Language Elize Bisanz is Primarily a Tool for Communication Rather than Thought” explores the relation between natural language and reasoning, thus shedding some light on the technology-human interaction in communication. Such experiments serve to delineate the brain circuits involved in language-related tasks such as word recall and grammar.
Participants were presented with nonsensical phrases followed by proper ones, and it was shown that different brain regions were stimulated only during the perception of meaning-bearing language.
The results confirm that strokes and other brain injuries can disrupt the language network, resulting in challenges with word processing and grammar, a condition known as aphasia. Notably, individuals with aphasia can still perform well in tasks like algebra and chess, raising an intriguing question: if language isn’t essential for reasoning processes, what role does it play? The researchers suggest that language may primarily function as a tool for communication.
The notion that thought or reasoning and language can operate independently might help explain why artificial intelligence systems like Large Language Models excel in certain areas while struggling in others. Computer scientists train such AI models on extensive text data to discern patterns in word relationships. Although these systems are beginning to mimic the human brain’s language network, they often lag behind in their reasoning capabilities.
This has led researchers to ponder: what is the missing link between language and reasoning?

Pragmatic Challenges in Studies of Animal Acts. Interpreting Zoo- Communication from a Systemic Socio-Semiotic Perspective

Sigmund Ongstad — 2026-02-01

Animals’ communicational acts are meta-studied based on a framework interrelating five aspects form, content, act, time, and space in a systemic perspective. Aspects relate to levels, sign, utterance, life-genre, and lifeworld and to processes. Six studies are investigated, positioning act as part of a web of communicational elements aiming at illustrating the pragmatic role act and life-genre play in sustaining animal life-functions. Re-interpretations of studies of signals, calls, and gestures further aim at enhancing the framework epistemologically and methodologically for the study of zoo-communicational pragmatics. It is suggested that since act tends to be treated as a limited category the field could benefit from a systemic perspective, one that allows balancing open-and closedness on all levels and between all aspects. Studies of great apes’ gestures are studied in particular, focusing which epistemic position acts have when communication is seen as systemic. The paper concludes that a socio-semiotic, systemic, and pragmatic framework can play a constructive role when designing and validating research on zoo-communicational acts.

The Use of Nonbinary Language Strategies in Casual Ingroup Verbal Communication in the Czech LGBTQ+ Community

Miriama Holická — 2026-02-01

As a Slavic language, Czech poses very specific challenges for nonbinary language expression. The study of nonbinary Czech is a relatively recent field, and while various strategies for nonbinary Czech have been documented, data regarding their actual use in casual ingroup communication is limited. This paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis of several recordings conducted with two volunteer participants from the Czech LGBTQ+ community who employ different language strategies to express nonbinarity. We examine individual users’ preferences and document their efforts to creatively avoid gender markers. Additionally, we explore the consistency of these strategies, their mutual interactive influences and the reasons behind their use. We also corroborate some earlier findings with direct examples from our data.

Sentiment analysis of cultural differences in online comments on popular news

Kateryna Hordiienko — 2026-02-01

The rapid growth of online communication through social networks has created new opportunities for understanding public opinion on socially relevant issues. This research examines how sentiment analysis (SA) can reveal cultural differences, specifically analyzing Czech and Ukrainian online comments on news topics including the war in Ukraine, political discussions, public health issues (tick-borne diseases, COVID-19), LGBTQ+ community matters, and natural disasters. By comparing three large language models (GPT-3.5-Turbo, Twitter-XLM-Ro-BERTa, and Zephyr 7B) with native speaker evaluations, we assess whether AI-based sentiment analysis can accurately capture culturally-specific emotional expressions in medium-resource languages. Our dataset comprises 6,085 comments (2,999 Czech from X/Twitter, 3,086 Ukrainian from Telegram) collected during 2023, focusing on socially relevant news coverage. We employed a hybrid methodology combining machine learning analysis with expert validation by native speakers. The study addresses a critical gap in cross-cultural sentiment analysis research, as no previous studies have compared Czech and Ukrainian linguistic patterns in this context. Results demonstrate significant performance differences among models depending on language: GPT-3.5-Turbo achieved highest accuracy for Czech (p<0.001), while all models performed comparably for Ukrainian. Both populations showed predominantly negative sentiment (Czech: 69.93%, Ukrainian: 68.93% via GPT-3.5), reflecting shared emotional responses to crisis events.

Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language Today

Lenka Vojtíšková — 2026-02-01

This is a review of Emilia Angelova’s edited volume “Revolution in Poetic Language” Fifty Years Later: New
Directions in Kristeva Studies. The volume commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Kristeva’s magnum opus and explores whether the text, first published in 1974, retains its relevance when transposed to differing social, historical, or cultural contexts. The review discusses the various forms of this transposition as presented in the volume, offering insight into contemporary approaches within Kristeva studies.

In Search of a New Understanding of Barthes’s Concept of the Index

Prof. Jakub Češka — 2026-02-01

Within the broad tradition of structuralism there are some differences in the treatment of extra-textual reality, character motivation, and the importance of plot. The article proposes some reconciliation between the Czech School and French narratology, centred around a revision of the concept of “index”. It also asserts a fundamental continuity between the devices of poetic language and those of narrative prose. In the first section of the paper it is shown that, when Roland Barthes adapts the notion of the index to his structural narratology, he vacillates somewhat about its definition and application, sometimes associating it with metaphor and sometimes with metonymy. A consistent reflection upon Barthes’ ambivalent use of the index makes it possible to describe narrative atmosphere as well as character psychology, but still within the parameters of structuralism. This reflection yields an understanding of index that is less formalistic and more compatible with the theorization of the Czech School, for whom character motivation was of major interest. The second part of the paper plays out some applications of this redefined index and poetic language for Czech literature, including examples from Vladislav Vančura and Milan Kundera.