Roy Harris (born 1931) is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics in the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall. He has also held university teaching posts in Hong Kong, Boston and Paris and visiting fellowships at universities in South Africa and Australia, and at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
His books on integrationism, theory of communication, semiology and the history of linguistic thought include 'The Language Myth', 'Rethinking Writing', 'Saussure and his Interpreters' and 'The Necessity of Artspeak'.
He is a founding member of the International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication and co-editor of the journal Language & Communication.
The main focus of Harris' research has been the development of an integrational approach to signs and semiological systems, and hence to all human communication. His approach, called integrationism or integrational linguistics, involves looking at current educational practice, together with the whole history of linguistic thought from Plato down to the present day, in a perspective that differs radically from traditional views. Integrationism has important implications for our understanding of interpersonal relations, as well as of modern society and its communicational resources, including the entire range of arts and sciences.