On the relationship between the cognitive and the communal: a complex systems perspective

Abstract

This paper presents a specific take on the relationship between the global and the local in language. In particular, it draws a distinction between the cognitive and the communal plane of language representation and attempts to model the relationship between the two using complexity theory. To operationalise this relationship and examine it with corpus linguistic methods, it proposes a concept of a cognitive corpus, setting it against the more usual idea of a corpus as representing the language of a certain community of speakers. As a case study, the paper compares the properties of chunking at the cognitive and communal planes. The study shows that (1) chunks at the cognitive plane seem to be more fixed than at the communal, (2) their patterning at the communal plane can be seen as emergent from the patterning observable in individual languages, but that (3) there is also similarity in the shape of the patterning across the two planes. These findings suggest that although the processes leading to multi-word unit patterning are different at each of the planes, the similarity in the shape the patterning takes might be regarded as an indication of the fractal structure of language which is a common property of complex adaptive systems. For example, Zipf's law, which is able to model the patterning at each of the planes, can be seen as one of the symptoms of such structure. Since the cognitive and the communal planes of language are in constant interaction with each other, such conceptualisation suggests intriguing implications for ongoing change in English and the role second language users might play in it. [A fractal is] a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.

Second Language Acquisition, world Englishes, and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

“…We can detect approximation at all levels of language: phonology, morphology ( fighted, unexperienced, categoration ), semantics ( the war has finished now) , syntax ( properties and relation are belonging to the same…area ), lexical choice ( what meant basically for them is economic and political mercantilism ), and perhaps most interestingly on phraseological units of meaning, ( but going to the matter so here we have the following situation, it would be in relation of getting protection ). Fixing, again, has been shown to occur at individual level (Vetchinnikova, , ) for instance in phraseology ( quite on the contrary ), but also in cross‐individual use: we find expressions like let me say some words about it , on my point of view, on the other side (pro on the other hand ) and at the same moment (pro at the same time ) repeated across individuals, situations, and L1 backgrounds (Carey, ; Mauranen, ).…”

ELF and Language Change at the Individual Level

“…A possible link between the preference for contraction and the proportion of chunks in one's language (i.e. its degree of "fixedness" (Vetchinnikova 2017) or "chunkedness" (Arnon and Christiansen 2017; McCauley and Christiansen 2017)) might be another interesting question for future research.…”

“…Accordingly, studies have indicated substantial individual differences in grammar (Dąbrowska 2012), collocational preferences (Mollin 2009), n-gram profiles (Barlow 2013;Wright 2017) and lexico-grammatical patterns (Hall et al 2017). Vetchinnikova (2017) explicitly sets language representation at the individual level against the communal level, at which language is normally described using data aggregated from a population of individuals, and argues that they can be qualitatively different from each other, in the same way as different dialects of a language are both different from each other and from the 'standard'.…”

Individual Sensitivity to Change in the Lingua Franca Use of English

“…The variationist approach offers us a systematic apparatus for investigating variation and change in ELF (see Laitinen and Lundberg 2020 for a study of embedding). Despite the obvious benefits, variationist approaches have not yet been widely used in the study of ELF, as micro-level investigations have predominantly focused on the cognitive processing capabilities of individuals (Vetchinnikova 2017;Mauranen 2018). The role played by an individual has been more extensively highlighted recently by Vetchinnikova and Hiltunen (2020), who argue for the need to observe variability in ELF on the individual level.…”

“…Their study sets out to investigate the extent to which variability in advanced ELF use stems from individual variation. Observation of ten individuals in online ELF environments reveals that the individual and the communal levels are different and the communal level ought to be "seen as emergent from the individual" and as being qualitatively different from it (also Vetchinnikova 2017).…”