Publié le 15 juin 2020 | Mis à jour le 15 juin 2020

Language complexity and ecology

Language cannot be properly understood outside its wider environment (including, but not limited to, the physical, biological, cultural and social environments inhabited by language learners and users), nor by neglecting it being a preeminent complex adaptive system. The cross-cutting theme "Language Complexity and Ecology" aims to focus on these twin aspects of language by emphasizing research projects which highlight the complexity of language itself (i.e., the multi-level interactions between sub-systems, such as the cognitive, neural, biological, linguistic, social and interactional) or of language in context (i.e., interactions and feed-back mechanisms between language-using human and artificial agents, between language and society, culture, technology and the bio-physical environment).
In this view, language is simultaneously an ecological system within which various components and actors interact, co-evolve and shape each other, and a component in a wider ecology involving humans, nature, nurture and -- increasingly -- artificial agents with various degrees and types of linguistic competence.