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]].

'''Distributed language''' represents an [[externalist]] perspective on human cognition. Instead of tracing communication to individual knowledge of a [[symbolic system]], language-activity is taken to sustain the human world. Extending work by [[Humberto Maturana]], priority is given to how face-to-face interaction draws on multimodal activity or languaging .[1] As people language together, they gain the skills and knowledge needed to participate in a range of activities in which wordings play a part. Over time, these activities construct and maintain language as a whole. Distributed language thus links a biological theory of the [[origin of language]] to [[distributed cognition]]. Human cognitive and communicative abilities arise as people do things together while drawing on material, linguistic and other resources. Language activity is constrained by [[biology]], circumstances, and collective ways of life. While bodies sustain coordination, our lived realities are extended by the resources of a partly shared collective world. Thus, language cannot be separated from the artifacts and institutions or the behaviour of the living beings who undertake collaborative (and solo) tasks. This distributed perspective challenges the mainstream view that language use can be explained by individual competencies and microsocial rules. To ascribe 'language' to individual organisms is, on the distributed perspective, an error. Building on [[cognitive science]], the perspective challenges cognitive internalism by presenting language as a prime case of embodied and culturally embedded cognition. It emphasizes that the heterogeneity of human language does much to shape people, mind and society.

== 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 Linguistics 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}}

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==Further reading==

* Cowley, CStephen J. (2011). ''Distributed Language (Ed)''. John Benjamins. [http://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/bct{{ISBN|978-90-272-8415-0}}.34/main]

* 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]]

== Sources ==

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* Cowley, C. (2011) Distributed Language (Ed). John Benjamins. [http://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/bct.34/main]