Dynamics and Languaging: Toward an Ecology of Language

Abstract

We introduce the second of 2 special issues of Ecological Psychology that present papers from a conference, “Grounding Language in Perception and (Inter)action,” held at Gordon College in June 2009. The articles in this issue situate the study of language use in two kinds of context that are central to an understanding of “languaging” activities in the social settings in which they occur. The first is the context of dynamical systems theory. Wallot and Van Orden show how a dynamical systems approach can illuminate language use as the intentional and creative activity that it is. Cowley and Thibault illustrate the distributed language approach. Cowley follows Gibson (1979/1986) in comparing language understanding to picture perception. Thibault illustrates the wholly embedded nature of language use in an evocative example of 2 boys offering a description of aliens they have learned about in a story. All of the contributors emphasize language as embodied social action deeply embedded in the social contexts of talking. The articles in this issue and its predecessor, Ecological Psychology 22(4), offer valuable insights for development of an ecological theory of language use.