Traditionally, writing is viewed as a code that stands in one-to-one correspondence to spoken language, which is therefore also viewed as a code. However, this is a delusion, which is shared by educators and has serious consequences for cognition, both on individual and on social levels. Natural linguistic signs characteristic for the activity of languaging and their symbolizations are ontologically different phenomena; speech and writing belong to experiential domains of different dynamics. These dynamics impact differently on the linguistic/behavioral strategies of (...) individuals and communities, viewed as second- and third-order living systems operating in a consensual domain as structure-determined systems. Failure to acknowledge this contributes to the spread of functional illiteracy in modern societies, which may lead to cognitive/communicative dysfunction. Technology-enhanced new literacies challenge the value of traditional written culture, raising questions about the relationship between speech and writing and their roles in human evolution. (shrink)

Since an observer arises in the experiential domain of languaging, and because everything said is said by an observer, it would be misleading to refer to a single reality constructed in language. ….

Counter to the traditional semiotic view of language as an object used in an instrumental function, linguistic semiosis is seen as constitutive of human cognition, accounting for sapience as the ….

The internalist account of cognition is questioned and the explanatory power of the biology of cognition in resolving epistemological issues is emphasized. It is argued that, far from being an autonomous activity within the brains of cognizers which generates input/output capacity and can be auditioned by the Turing Test, cognition is a function of living systems as unities of interactions that exist in an environment in structural coupling. Therefore, it is distributed.