Rather than a formal symbolic system, that describes a capacity of an individual, language becomes embodied activity that occurs in a shared environment, exploiting both individual neural processes and socially structured perception and co-action. Explanations of linguistic phenomena thus demand consideration of interindividual dynamics. But besides being a part of socially distributed cognition, language seems to take a special role in co-ordinating other cognitive processes among and within individuals. In this sense, cognition is both distributed and con-divided through language, i.e., language is likely to have an important role in making perception and action social.

The goal of the meeting is to identify both those kinds of social coordination that matter most to humans and the aspects of language needed for such coordination. Examples will include the role of prosodic structure in physical coordination of mother and infant, affective coordination in dyads that align values, and the coordination of concept systems in individuals, dyads, and social groups. Thus we aim to consider patterns of linguistic activity that range from physical ones right up the “symbolic” and “normative” aspects of speech.

Taking an evolutionary and comparative perspective, will draw attention to the kinds of social coordination that arise without (human-like) language, and that contribute to the background used by (and present in) linguistic communication. By so doing, it will be easier to appreciate the qualitatively different types of co-ordination that are specific to humans and language-dependent. The evolutionary perspective will help with coming to view language as a natural phenomenon, continuous with other “informational” systems at various levels of biological organization, that serve not only vertical (inter-generational) transmission of structure but also horizontal coordination both within and between organisms.

By bringing together the Distributed Language Group, biosemioticians, researchers interested in joint action and dynamical systems scientists we address the theoretical and methodological consequences of viewing language as social co-ordination. We thus invite contributions that address a range of issues: from philosophical reflections on how a distributed view of language changes the questions we ask, to methodological ones that aim to clarify what kind of data can answer these questions, and how to find the right measures for the variables that change on different time scales. Perhaps most eagerly we expect contributions that consist of empirical work that examines the coordinative role of informational systems in living organisms, from the level of cells up to that of human society.