Linguosemiotics studies natural languages as sign systems.
The term is not widely used because all of linguistics after Saussure can be considered linguistic semiotics. It is used solely to refer to linguistics within the context of general semiotics.
Linguistic semiotics enjoys a privileged status in general semiotics since language is recognized as the richest and most perfected sign system, and linguistics itself has a well-developed and systematized theoretical apparatus.
Related: Linguistics and Semiotics
Linguosemiotics should not be confused with semiolinguistics, a term used to describe the so-called “imperialist tendencies” in linguistics to impose linguistic concepts and methods onto other semiotic systems.
This approach follows the concept promoted by Roland Barthes that semiotics is a branch of linguistics.
Semiolinguistics is based on the fact that natural language is the most perfected sign system, and all other sign systems are subordinate to it because they are all translatable into the language of linguistics.
This concept belongs to Louis Hjelmslev, who wrote in Prolegomena:
It seems, therefore, fruitful to establish a new common perspective for a large number of sciences, from history and literary, artistic, and musical sciences to logistics and mathematics, so that from this common perspective they can concentrate around a problem defined in linguistic terms.
These sciences could each, in their own way, contribute to the general science of semiology, by seeking to determine to what extent and in what way their various objects lend themselves to analysis according to linguistic theory.
In this way, a new light could probably be cast on these disciplines, leading to a critical review of their principles. Their cooperation, fruitful in every respect, could thus create a general encyclopedia of sign structures
The semiolinguistic approach is supported by many linguists.
