Language of Life: A Peircean Approach to Living Organisms

Ľudmila Lacková Bennett. Peter Lang Verlag, 2025

DOI: 10.3726/b22291

In this book, I apply Peirce's logical apparatus to explain some topics in biology where traditional scientific methods fail to establish the relation between the real and the virtual in the genetic script, the irreducibility of evolution to the genome, and the multidimensionality of the passage from genotype to phenotype. The interdisciplinary nature of this study consists in combining Peirce's triadic logic, linguistics and biology. As a linguist, I draw out similarities between sentence construction and protein folding. Three main branches from the biological sciences are focused on: evolution, epigenetics and protein folding. The volume applies Peirce's logical tools to demonstrate the universal validity of his scientific method in the current research.

Stručný průvodce jazyky Evropy
(A short guide to the languages ​​of Europe)

Ľudmila Lacková, Samuel Henri Bidaud. Univerzita Palackého v Olomouc, 2021

ISBN: 978-80-244-5810-6

From the point of view of teaching linguistics, it is necessary to prepare students, i.e., the next European generation, to the possibilities of satisfying and fulfilling the strategies and set goals of the European Union in terms of language. In addition to language teaching itself, which is inseparable, there is also a linguistic-contextual level. Following on from the EU strategy papers, linguistics students should receive an education that will help them to orient themselves in the linguistic diversity of Europe. The presented study book presents students of general linguistics with clear material for typological, genealogical, sociolinguistic, and general linguistic orientation within the geographical continuum of European languages.

Crisis of the Subject in Mediated Communication

Epidemics and Pandemics. Philosophical Perspectives

ISBN: 978-2-503-59892-5

In this book edited by Nicoletti and Palazzo, I contributed with a chapter Crisis of the Subject in Mediated Communication. The years 2020 and 2021 have been marked by a pandemic in terms of the unmeasurable damage to health and the economy. Besides the health issues, communication is another area which is undergoing a drastic challenge due to indirect COVID-19 pandemic consequences. The traditional forms of mediated communication, widely spread and developed in recent decades thanks to the technological progress, have become, in many cases, the only possible way of human communication. The secondary role of mediated communication over the non mediated primary communication is questionable in the times we live in. In this chapter, the crisis of the subject of the communication related to pandemic-induced communicational transformation is examined.

O potrebe skúmania digitálnej komunikácie

Impulzy súčasnej jazykovedy

Alena Bohunická, Maryna Kazharnovich (eds.). Komenský University in Bratislava, 2023, pp. 123-140

ISBN: 978-80-223-5644-2

In the collective monograph edited by Bohunická and Kazharnovich my chapter "O potrebe skúmania digitálnej komunikácie" (On the Need of Studying Digital Communication) , I try to answer the questions about whether the role of digital media in our communication is the same as that of "old media", the only difference being the extent of technological progress. As it seems, digital tools used in new media are no longer "only" mediators, but intervene in the communication process in a certain way, and they transform it. Technology becomes another quasi-subject of communication. A classic model for mediated communication, thus, in the era of digital communication media, loses its application. 

Logic of Relatives as Syntax in the Genetic Code

Applied Interdisciplinary Peirce Studies, Peirce Studies 10

Elize Bisanz (ed.). Peter Lang Verlag, 2019, pp. 189-204

DOI: 10.3726/b15707

Analogies between natural language and the genetic code dates to the sixties of the last century. Nevertheless, these analogies never go beyond the terminology. Nowadays, the reasons that led to linguistic denominations of the genetic discoveries are mostly forgotten. In my contribution, I would like to present the idea that it is possible, in some way, to talk about syntactic relations in the genetic code. Firstly, I will investigate the function of syntax in natural language. Afterwards, I will demonstrate that similar functions are performed also in the genetic code. By these functions, I mean the expression of relations between constituents. The so called non-coding DNA has been discovered quite recently. I propose comparing the non-coding sequences of DNA to the syntax in natural languages. As a standpoint, I will take the Peircean logic of relations. In fact, the well-known theory of valency syntax by Lusien Tesniére seems to be similar with the Peirce´s theory of logic of relations. As Percian's interests went far beyond linguistics, I would like to go in the same direction and to extend the logic of valency (understood as a variety of syntax) to the grammars of the genetic code.

Quelques Remarques sur l'Usage du Terme "l'Arbitraire du Signe"

The Arbitrariness of the Sign in Question

Jean-Yves Beziau (ed.). College Publications, 2019, pp. 283-294

ISBN: 978-1-84890-313-5

My chapter confronts the arbitrariness of the sign as defined by Saussure with one of its most famous critiques, that of Roman Jakobson.  propose to reread the passages of the CLG concerning the arbitrariness of the sign from a Hjelmslevian perspective, understanding language as a sub-logical system. This approach allows for the coexistence of arbitrariness and motivation (iconicity), just as, in the CLG, Saussure mentions onomatopoeias without ever denying the principle of the arbitrariness of the sign.

Tematicko-rematický nexus z rozmanitých perspektiv v různých jazycích

Petra Vaculíková, Michal Jurka, Lacková Ľudmila et al. Univerzita Palackého v Olomouc, 2015

DOI: 10.5507/ff.15.24451213

My very first book project, where I contributed with total of three chapters. The aim of the monograph involves general linguistic theoretical research in the field of functional sentence perspective. The research involves detailed textual analyses of various textual types from the viewpoint of theme-rhematic development. Thanks to a precise methodological apparatus and variety of data, a strong tradition in the field of functional sentence perspective research continues especially in Czech and English. This collective monograph is the first of its kind in the field of functional sentence perspective because it presents several comparative studies on various languages (Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian among European languages) that are examined in their written and spoken form, but especially contributional is a concentration on thematic progressions in a spoken form of some examined languages. I contributed with following chapters: The use of thematic-remaic segmentation in critical discourse analysis: The relationship between thematic sequences and persuasion in political discourse (pp. 14-20), Selected aspects of the topic and focus in French (pp. 115-125) and Selected aspects of the topic and focus in Italian (pp. 146-162).

Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX

Ľudmila Lacková, Claudio Rodríguez, Kalevi Kull (eds.). University of Tartu Press, 2020

ISBN: 978-9949-03-514-4