LINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF DNA

The theme of this section of the “Second International Conference on Bioinformatics, Supercomputing, and Complex Genome Analysis” is linguistic approaches to understanding the meaning of DNA. Webster's New World Dictionary defines linguistics as: ‘(1) the science of language, including phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics; often “general linguistics”; usually subdivided into descriptive, historical, comparative, and geographical linguistics; (2) the study of the structure, development, etc., of a particular language and of its relationship to other languages, as the English language.’ When the international attendees of this conference were queried to find out how many spoke German, Russian, French, etc., the expected response was a serious show of hands. But, when the same group was asked how many “spoke” DNA, there was the predictable response of laughter.