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Systemstheoryincontemporaryphilosophy:whatconstitutesasystem?
Thereexistmodels,principlesandlawsthatapplytogeneralizedsystems
ortheirsubclasses,irrespectiveoftheirparticularkind,thenatureof
theircomponentelements,andtherelationsor‘forces’betweenthem.
(Bertalanffy1968:32)
Bertalanffy,inhishierarchyofsystems,placeslanguageonthehighest
level,amongsymbolicsystems,nexttologic,mathematics,sciencesandarts
(1968:29).Instructurallyorientedlinguistictheorieswhichwillbediscussed
insubsequentchapters,drawingofanalogiesbetweenbiologicalevolution
andlanguagedevelopmenthasnevermetunequivocalapproval,norhave
suchanalogiesbeentotallyrejected.5Itisprobablyanoverstatementto
comparelanguagetoalivingorganismoraplantandtoascribetoitalife
cycle(growth,reproductionanddecay)intheveinofthenineteenth-
centurylinguistics,butitmaybeilluminatingtotracecommonfeaturesof
languageandtheorganismsfromthenaturalworld.6Followingthegeneral
systemstheory,thepresentworkassumesthatbothbiologicalorganisms
andlanguagesaresystemswithcertaincommonproperties,whichmaintain
themselvesreproducingandadaptingtoenvironmentalchallenges.
Thesystemicapproachtolanguagefoundinthepresentworkisbasically
congruentwiththepremisesofEinarHaugen’s‘ecologyoflanguage’
formulatedinhisbook(1972),andhenceforthfollowedinnumerousother
workswithinecolinguistics.AsnotedbyStanisławPuppelinhisoverview
ofthislinguisticsubdiscipline,‘ecolinguisticsisbasedonorganismal
biology,and,inparticular,concerningtheproblemsconnectedwithplac-
inganynaturallanguageinbothnaturallanguagediversityandhuman
communicatordiversityithasfollowedthebiologicalpath’(2017:13).
Importantly,thegeneralassumptionofecolinguistics,observedalsoin
thepresentwork,isthatthestudyoflanguagerequiresastrongfocuson
therelations,dependenciesandanalogiesbetweennaturallanguageand
itsnon-linguisticenvironment.Toquotethelatterwork,theecological,
5
Foranoverviewoftheproblem,seeMcMahon(1994)andLass(1997).
6
Cf.Haugen(1972);Capra(1996);Capra,Luisi(2014);Mühlhäusler(2003);Puppel(2017);
Fill,Penz,eds.(2018).
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