The Middlesex Roundtable on Signs, Language and Communication is an annual workshop launched in January 2019 to encourage discussion between three paradigms of language and communication theory: the integrationism of Roy Harris and his followers, biosemiotics and philosophy of communication.
These areas of thought and scholarship share assumptions regarding the fundamental role played by communicative interaction in the emergence of signification, meaning and relationality. They also share views of communication and language that are not limited to the understanding of language as a code-based domain.
If you have any questions and/or would like to participate, please contact Johan Siebers.
The Roundtable is an initiative of Paul Cobley (Professor of Language and Media, Middlesex), Adrian Pablé (Associate Professor, Department of English, Hong Kong University) and Johan Siebers (Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Middlesex). It aims to create fruitful interactions between these approaches in an informal context of invited papers, “flipped” conference style (short talks, long conversations) and, each year, a focus on a different topic.
The first Roundtable in 2019 provided participants with the opportunity to discuss basic features of the three approaches. A special issue of Sign Systems Studies based on the papers presented there is in preparation. The theme of the second Roundtable will be intersubjectivity.
This Roundtable took place on Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 January 2020.
This Roundtable took place on Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 February 2021
The most recent Roundtable: Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 February 2022
The 2023 Roundtable on Indeterminacy takes place on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 of March 2023.
