Distributed language

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 behaviors that constitute human interaction. 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.

Major Founders

• [1]Stephen Cowley
• Alexander_Kravchenko_(linguist)
• [2] Per Linell
• [3] Paul J. Thibault
• Nigel Love, Department of Philosophy at University of Cape Town

External links

• The Distributed Language Group at University of Hertfordshire
• A supporting site for practitioners and applied researchers hosted in the Department of Second Language Studies at University of Hawaii at Manoa