Integrational linguistics

Integrational linguistics or integrationism is an approach in the theory of communication that emphasizes the importance of context and rejects rule-based models of language. It was developed by a group of linguists at the University of Oxford during the 1980s, notably Roy Harris.

The International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication (IAISLC) was founded in 1998 and has members in more than twenty-five countries around the world.

Integrationism and Language

While the integrationist views of Harris and Pablé, among others, differ from those who believe that cognition is distributed (i.e Kravchenko and Love), the view on language between the two fields are quite similar. Both sides criticize the traditional view of linguistics which holds language as an individual internal psychological concern and takes written language as the base from which to begin analysis. Instead, integrationists view knowledge (which includes language) as “(i) linked to an individual’s experience, and therefore dependent on the ‘evidence available’ to that particular individual, but at the same time (ii) unpredictable because any integrational task involving sign-making and sign-interpreting is carried out in actual, time-embedded situations, which are not simply ‘given’, either.”. In other words, language usage is intrinsically, and without fail, contextual in all of its uses. Furthermore, Pablé, Haas &...
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