General linguistics and communication sciences: Sociocomplexity as an integrative perspective

Abstract

The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century demand that we reflect on our own paradigms in the light of the great changes in the other disciplines. The elements must not be represented as being outside those of the others, separate and independent, since the interdependencies and integrations are the foundation of reality. We need a dynamic 'ecologization' and 'complexification' of thinking, in order to consider the contexts of phenomena in an integrated manner with the phenomena themselves. We are unlikely to be able to understand human behaviour if we do not bring the mind-brain into the foreground of our analyses, as it is where reality is perceived, processed cognitively and emotively, and where - consciously or otherwise - the courses of action that an individual takes are decided. A science that sees language not as an 'object' but from a (socio)complexity perspective has a much greater chance of succeeding in the task of making linguistic and communicative phenomena intelligible. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.