• DOI:10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199541119.013.0063
• Corpus ID: 18165528

Self-organization and language evolution

@inproceedings{Boer2011SelforganizationAL,
  title={Self-organization and language evolution},
  author={Bart G. de Boer},
  year={2011}
}

• B. D. Boer
• Published 17 November 2011
• Psychology

Language can be considered from two perspectives. It can be considered as behavior and knowledge of an individual, and it can also be considered as a system of conventions in a language community. In fact, these two perspectives can be said to define two levels at which language can be observed. One is the individual level, where detailed individual behavior is studied. The other is the population level, where individual behavior is averaged and abstracted and more general trends and processes are studied. Examples of subfields of linguistics at the two levels will be given below. Of course, both levels are intertwined and depend on each other. Individuals' behavior is determined by conventions in the group, but at the same time, the group conventions are created and maintained through individual behavior. Such interaction between two levels can lead to a phenomenon called self-organization. Self-organization in its contemporary meaning is the spontaneous emergence of order in a system. Generally this involves repeated interaction between elements on a microscopic scale that results in organization on a macroscopic scale. The macroscopic scale can then be described with far fewer parameters than would be necessary to describe the behavior on the microscopic scale. In language the individual level corresponds to the microscopic scale, while the population level corresponds to the macroscopic scale. The term self-organization appears to have been coined by W. Ross Ashby (1947) with a slightly different meaning in the context of cybernetics and the nervous system. Ashby intended the term self-organization to refer to the possibility of a system to control its own behavior. However, in his mathematical formulation the notion of two interacting levels is already present. The notion of self-organization as the spontaneous emergence of order stems more from physics and chemistry, such as for example the work of Prigogine A classical example from biology is the honeycomb. Through interaction between individual bees, and only through such interaction a regular structure is formed that is much larger than the bees themselves. There is no need for a central controlling force, or for precise behavioral programs in the individual bees. Flocking of birds, schooling of de Boer, Bart (2011) Self-organization and language evolution,