Nelson Flores and language architecture

The following is based heavily on Jones & Duncker (2021). It is meant to ask what assumptions theories of social relations have about communication in general and language in particular. I believe asking such questions can help language teachers assess to what extent social theories, such as for example raciolinguistics (Flores and Rosa 2015), can be applied to theories of communication.

Nelson Flores (2019) writing against the dichotomous conceptualisation of academic language and non-academic language proposes the notion of language architecture:

"Like a building architect, language architects are not free to simply do whatever they want. If this were the case, buildings would be unsafe and communicative efforts would fail. Yet, beyond some broad general parameters, both must adhere to in order to successfully complete their tasks, there is a great deal of decision-making that both make that reflect their own unique vision and voice."(Flores 2019: 4)

I want to argue that this language architecture parallels the notion of Charles Goodwin's co-operative action. For Goodwin, as cited in Jones & Duncker (2021), "co-operative action does not mean co-operation on any kind of ethological or moral sense" (Jones & Duncker 2021: 70). What it means is "building new action by decomposing and reusing with transformations resources provided by earlier actors" (Jones & Duncker 2021: 70) .

We notice here the same metaphor of building that Flores invokes. Goodwin explains "action is built by collecting together different kinds of materials into arrangements of mutual elaborations" or "by joining together different parts" (Jones & Duncker 2021: 70). Similarly Flores argues that students already have the parts needed to address the Common Core State Standards which are "calling for students to be language architects who are able to manipulate language for specific purposes." (Flores 2019: 4).

Where Goodwin says "build action by performing accumulative transformations on a public substrate constituted through the work of predecessors" (Jones & Duncker 2021: 70), Flores says "language architects are not free to simply do whatever they want" (Flores 2019: 4).

Jones and Duncker (2021) argue that this model of Goodwin (and similarly I say for Flores)

"paint a picture of human communication that prioritises and builds on a third-person perspective... Linguistic structure is out there, objectively observable." (Jones & Duncker 2021: 73).

It is "a kind of LEGO brick semiology" (Jones & Duncker 2021: 80).

Flores & Rosa (2015) use the notion of "white speaking and listening subject", Roy Harris, as cited by Jones & Duncker 2021, writes that language:

"has always eluded the comprehension of Western grammarians and logicians. For in their schematisations, the individual qua individual does not have to be anything other than the possible bearer of a name, the possible referent of a referring expression and a possible speaker or hearer. Thus the notion of speech as a creative, interactive function of individuals is replaced by the notions of verbal objects...In short speech ceases to be treated as speech and is subject to a decontextualising process. Speech goes in at one end and sentences, propositions and other metalinguistic abstractions come out at the other " (Jones & Duncker 2021: 79, emphasis added).

Like the traditions of post-structuralism that Flores & Rosa (2015) draw on as seen in say their use of "subject position", Harris's integrational linguistics is a relativist theory (i.e. there can be no scientific study of language) but unlike post-structuralism which can be characterised as cultural relativism, integrational linguistics is "a kind of radically contextual, phenomenological-individualistic relativism" (Orman 2017: 177).

Flores has also advocated for another model of communication - translingualism e.g. Flores & Aneja (2017) but see Orman & Pablé (2016) for a general critique of linguistic resources.

Now all the above may not mean much to many teachers who are not already familiar with the notions mentioned very briefly here. The main idea then is to avoid circularity -

"you can't start out on a theory of communication from some supposed sociological premises if sociality itself as a theoretical construct already implies a conception of communication in general or of language more narrowly" (Jones & Duncker 2021: 67)

References

Flores, N. (2019). From academic language to language architecture: Challenging raciolinguistic ideologies in research and practice. Theory into Practice, 59(1), 22-31.

Flores, N., & Aneja, G. (2017). " Why Needs Hiding?" Translingual (Re) Orientations in TESOL Teacher Education. Research in the Teaching of English, 441-463.

Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149-171.

Jones, P. E., & Duncker, D. (2021). A clash of linguistic philosophies? Charles Goodwin’s “co-operative action” in integrationist perspective. In Makoni, S., Verity, D. P., Kaiper-Marquez, A. (Eds). Integrational Linguistics and Philosophy of Language in the Global South (pp. 66-83). Routledge.

Orman, J. (2017). Explanation and theory in linguistic inquiry. Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 8(2), 167-186.

Orman, J., & Pablé, A. (2016). Polylanguaging, integrational linguistics and contemporary sociolinguistic theory: a commentary on Ritzau. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 19(5), 592-602.