Distributed language: Difference between revisions

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'''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 wepeople do things together while, at times, drawing on material, linguistic and other 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 iscannot inseparablebe separated from the artifacts, and institutions andor the behaviour usedof bythe living humansbeings who undertake complexcollaborative (and solo) tasks. This distributed perspective challenges the mainstream view that whatlanguage we do with languageuse can be explained by individual competencies orand microsocial rules. To ascribe 'language' to individual organisms is, weon believethe distributed perspective, an error. Building on [[cognitive science]], the distributed perspective challenges cognitive centralisminternalism by presenting language as a prime case of embodied and culturally embedded cognition. WeIt concuremphasizes that people,the mindheterogeneity andof societyhuman dependlanguage ondoes themuch heterogeneityto ofshape humanpeople, languagingmind echoingand [[Humberto Maturana]]society.

'''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 [[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}}</ref> The concept of distributed language is based on a 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 ==