What Connects Biolinguistics and Biosemiotics?

Abstract

This paper reviews the background, fundamental questions, current issues, and goals of the intellectual movements initiated by Noam Chomsky’s biolinguistics and Thomas A. Sebeok’s (1920-2001) biosemiotics. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief history of these movements, to clarify the common objectives and areas of overlap between them, and to address some aspects of focus and terminology that may stand in the way of productive collaboration among the disciplines involved in the biology of language.