Abstract

This chapter offers an overview of multiculturalism theories and explains the main lines of criticism that this monograph develops. Most approaches to multiculturalism and intercultural communication are inherent of an ideological theory of culture, termed culturalism. This doctrine uncritically presumes that culture overwrites individual freedom and collective capabilities for social organization, portraying human individuals and societies as captives of their culture and language seen as one holistic, historically inherited superstructure. This concept of culture is identified as originating, first, in early American anthropology, and also in American pragmatism, and as entrenched during the 20th century by the assumptions of the linguistic turn. The main arguments that recommend biosemiotics for an unbiased theory of culture and multiculturalism, namely its biocentrism and detachment from the linguistic turn, are explained.