LINGUAGEM - ATIVIDADE CONSTITUTIVA

Abstract

This paper was written in memory of Professor Carlos Franchi, whose linguistic thought has influenced resesearchers in this country for almost two generations. It deals with one of Franchi’s seminal ideas, namely that the main role of language is a constitutive rather than a representative one. The paper elaborates on it in semantic terms, assuming that this constitutive role has to do with knowledge. The first part of the paper describes several accounts of the relation between language and knowledge that, to my opinion, misrepresent Franchi’s views. Among these are not only the structuralist idea that “we are spoken by the code”, but also the belief that language determines perception and thinking (Whorf) and the idea that language is crucially involved in abstraction (Schaff). In the second part of the paper, I point to some semantic processes (which I have called monitoring, creation of non-conventional objects and heuristics and subvertion) where language has an active role in changing our received conception of the world. Key-words: Carlos Franchi, language as a constitutive activity, whorf, language and thought.

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