Vico, Metaphor and the Origin of Language (Advances in Semiotics)

by Marcel Danesi

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The origin of language is one of the deep mysteries of human existence. Drawing upon the work of the eighteenth-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, Marcel Danesi fashions a persuasive, original account of the evolution and development of language. Seeking to reconstruct the primitive mind that generated language and the evolutionary events that must have preceded the advent of speech, he takes Vico's insight that mind, culture, and language evolved from the uniquely human faculty known as fantasia ('the imagination') and sketches a 'primal scene' of compelling interest. Danesi identifies metaphor, the feature of mind that transforms iconic, perceptual thinking into conceptual thinking, as the crucial event in the Vichian scenario. The description of this scenario forms the core of the book. Danesi then evaluates the Vichian reconstruction of the origin of language in light of contemporary research in the cognitive, social, and biological sciences and with competing theories.
  • ISBN10 0253316073
  • ISBN13 9780253316073
  • Publish Date 1 September 1993
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 11 July 2009
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Indiana University Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 212
  • Language English