Distributed language: Difference between revisions

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{{short description|Concept in linguistics}}

{{Orphan|date=February 2009}}

'''Distributed language''' is a concept in [[linguistics]] that [[language]] is not an independent [[symbolic system]] used by individuals for [[communication]] but rather an array of [[human behavior|behaviors]] that constitute human [[Social relation|interaction]].<ref name="languagelinks">{{cite web |url=http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/dlg/dist-lang-links.html |title=Distributed Language Group - Distributed Language and Links |accessdate=2008-05-23 |archive-date=2011-05-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110521152531/http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/dlg/dist-lang-links.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The concept of distributed language is based on a [[Biology|biological]] theory of the [[origin of language]] and the concept of [[distributed cognition]].

Human cognitive and communicative abilities arise as we do things together while, at times, drawing on linguistic resources. Language activity is thus constrained by [[biology]], circumstances and collective ways of life. While bodies sustain social coordination, our lived realities are extended by the resources of a partly shared collective world. Thus, language is inseparable from the artifacts, institutions and behaviour used by humans who undertake complex tasks. This distributed perspective challenges the mainstream view that what we do with language can be explained by individual competencies or microsocial rules. To ascribe 'language' to individual organisms is, we believe, an error. Building on [[cognitive science]], the distributed perspective challenges cognitive centralism by presenting language as a prime case of embodied and culturally embedded cognition. We concur that people, mind and society depend on the heterogeneity of human languaging echoing [[Humberto Maturana]].

== Major Founders ==

* [http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/pub/sjcowley/index.html]Stephen Cowley

* [http://faculty.gordon.edu/ss/py/Bert_Hodges/index.cfm] Bert Hodges

* [[Alexander_Kravchenko_(linguist)]]

* [http://www.liu.se/ikk/medarbetare/per-linell/bioblurb?l=sv] Per Linell

* [http://www.semioticon.com/people/thibault.htm] Paul J. Thibault

* Nigel Love, Department of Philosophy at University of Cape Town

== External links ==

*[http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/dlg/index.html The Distributed Language Group] at [[University of Hertfordshire]]

*[http://sls.hawaii.edu/dlg/ A supporting site for practitioners and applied researchers] hosted in [[the Department of Second Language Studies at University of Hawaii at Manoa]]

== References ==

{{reflist}}

==Further reading==

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* Cowley, Stephen J. (2011). ''Distributed Language''. John Benjamins. {{ISBN|978-90-272-8415-0}}.

* Thibault, Paul J. "First-order languaging dynamics and second-order language: The distributed language view." Ecological Psychology 23 (2011): 210–245. {{doi|10.1080/10407413.2011.591274}}

* Steffensen, Sune Vork. "Distributed language and dialogism: notes on non-locality, sense-making and interactivity." Language Sciences 50 (2015): 105–119. {{doi|10.1016/j.langsci.2015.01.004}}

* Linell, Per. "Distributed language theory, with or without dialogue." Language Sciences 40 (2013): 168–173. {{doi|10.1016/j.langsci.2013.04.001}}

[[Category:Linguistics]]

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