Toward Responsiveness — From Inclination to Offer: 6 The Semiotic Cosmos — Language as the Self-Construal of Reality

1. Language as an Extension of Readiness

If cosmogenesis is the recursive scaling of readiness, then linguistic semiotics is the cosmos explicitly reflecting upon itself. Language is not merely a human tool; it is a system that makes the relational architecture of readiness available for conscious construal.

Where the proto-semiotic field established the first reflexive coordination of inclination, linguistic systems provide a symbolic meta-field — an organised space in which readiness can be observed, differentiated, and transmitted. Language extends reflexivity, amplifying the capacity of potential to construe itself across contexts, timescales, and agents.

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2. System-&-Process in the Semiotic Cosmos

Halliday’s principle of system-&-process acquires cosmological significance here. In linguistic systems, the process is the actualisation of utterances, while the system is the structured readiness underlying all potential forms of expression. Crucially, system is not a static repository but a living archive of possible construals, each conditioned by prior and projected into future actualisations.

Language therefore manifests the same recursive dynamics observed in cosmogenesis: structured potential (inclination) actualises through patterned reflexivity (construal) and diversifies into domain-specific abilities (registers, genres, modalities).

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3. Semiotic Scaling

Just as inclination scales in physical or biological systems, it also scales in semiotic domains. Readiness differentiates into registers and genres, reflecting the contextual constraints of spatial, temporal, modal, and interpersonal inclinations.

• Spatial differentiation underlies deixis and spatial reference in discourse.

• Temporal differentiation underlies tense, aspect, and narrative sequencing.

• Modal differentiation underlies probability, readiness, and obligation.

• Interpersonal differentiation underlies exchange, alignment, and evaluative stance.

Each linguistic structure is thus a crystallisation of cosmological readiness into semiotic form — an instance where potential has learned to stabilise itself as communicable meaning.

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4. Language as Reflexive Cosmogenesis

Through language, the cosmos effectively observes and describes its own inclination. Semiotic systems allow for the externalisation of readiness: what was once latent potential becomes articulated pattern, available for recognition, negotiation, and propagation.

This process is reflexive on multiple levels:

1. Ontological — readiness structures reality.

2. Epistemic — construal allows recognition of patterns.

3. Semiotic — articulation encodes these patterns in language, which can then inform further construals.

Language is, in this sense, the self-construal of reality made explicit: the symbolic echo of the cosmos’ ongoing act of becoming.

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5. Implications for Meaning and Knowledge

Understanding language as a cosmological articulation of readiness has several consequences:

• Meaning is not imposed on the world but emerges from the structured potential inherent in reality.

• Knowledge is not a passive mapping but a recursive actualisation of inclination through construal.

• Symbolic systems are not human inventions but late-stage articulations of the cosmos’ ontological tendency to differentiate and sustain coherence.

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6. Next: Register and the Domain-Specific Actualisation of Ability

The next post will explore how linguistic ability — the differentiated capacities realised in specific registers and genres — reflects the domain-specific scaling of readiness. We will examine how the interplay between inclination (general readiness) and ability (context-sensitive actualisation) structures semiotic potential across social and material contexts, further illuminating the continuity between cosmogenesis and semiotic systems.