Reintegrating the Analyst: Linguistic and Communicational Methodology in Integrationist Perspective

This thesis sets out to explore the analysis of rationality and communicative activity from the perspective of integrationism, a theory of communication developed by Roy Harris. Integrationism provides an alternative perspective on language and communication to those theories Harris identifies as segregational, i.e. those which assume the feasibility of analytically separating linguistic from non-linguistic activity. The thesis begins by interrogating and creatively developing a number of important integrational conceptions, in particular external integration and operational discriminations. This critical appraisal of the integrational literature takes into account recent work by integrationists and identifies a number of potentially productive parallels between integrationism and the work of Tim Ingold, plus current research in ecological psychology and Southern Theory. The next stage of the thesis employs these integrational conceptions in an analysis of my own creative communicative activity (signmaking). My own reflexive analysis is contrasted with a more traditional semiological analysis conducted by Louis Hébert. This leads to a number of provisional conclusions. One, that traditional analysis has often failed to take full-account of the semiological activity of the analyst and underappreciated analysis as a communicative process in its own right. Two, that there is no principled way to disambiguate the signmaking of the analyst and the signmaking of the participants being studied. Three, a reflexive analysis of my own signmaking reaffirms Harris’ contention that integrationism is better thought of as a perspective on analytic activity, rather than a methodology for doing analysis. Four, an advantage of the integrational perspective is that it encompasses, and can provide an account of, the analyst’s signmaking activity in a manner often left unattended in segregational perspectives. The focus is then to critically appraise in detail non-integrationist analyses of rationality (Steven Pinker) and communicative activity (Charles Goodwin and Alastair Pennycook). This in-depth consideration is found to provide strong support for the provisional conclusions arrived at earlier in the thesis.