Systems develop through interaction with their environment and through
internal self-reorganization.
Because systems are constantly influx, they will show variation, they are
sensitive to specific input at a given point in time and other input at
another point in time.
The cognitive system as a dynamic system is typicallysituated, i.e. closely
connected to a specific here and now situation,embodied, i.e. cognition is
not just the computations that take place in the brain but also includes
interactions with the rest of the human body, anddistributed:“Knowledge
is socially constructed through collaborative efforts to achieve shared
objectives in cultural surroundings”(Salomon 1993: 1).
Van Gelder (1998) describes how a CDST perspective on cognition differs
from a more traditional one:
The cognitive system is not a discrete sequential manipulator of static
representational structures: rather, it is a structure of mutually and
simultaneously influencing change. Its processes do not take place in the
arbitrary, discrete time of computer steps: rather, they unfold in the real
time of ongoing change in the environment, the body, and the nervous
system. The cognitive system does not interact with other aspects of the
world by passing messages and commands: rather, it continuously coevolves
with them.
(3)As mentioned before, CDST regards variation in the data as a source of
useful information rather than noise that clouds the“real data”. The inter-
connectedness of embedded systems means that changes in one system may
lead to changes in other systems. Development may not be predictable, and
the same input may lead to different outcomes depending on initial condi-
tions. Because individuals differ so much in their developmental paths, group
studies and cross-sectional designs are seen as less relevant than longitudinal
case studies.
Below, some topics to which a CDST perspective can be applied will be
dealt with in more detail, although CDST is applicable to many topics. The
topics dealt with are the psycholinguistic approach to bilingualism and multi-
lingualism and the inadequacy of some of its basic assumptions, code-
switching as a dynamic process and dynamic perspectives on individual
differences in language development.
8.2 CDST and multilingual processing^1
The rise of the view of language as a CDS has cast doubt on the validity of
the more traditional models discussed so far (see Lowie and Verspoor (2011)
90 Trends III