36.3952, Reviews: World Englishes as Components of a Complex Dynamic System: Edgar W. Schneider (2025)

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Subject: 36.3952, Reviews: World Englishes as Components of a Complex Dynamic System: Edgar W. Schneider (2025)

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Date: 30-Dec-2025
From: Bev Thurber [bat23 at cornell.edu]
Subject: Edgar W. Schneider (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/36-2810

Title: World Englishes as Components of a Complex Dynamic System
Series Title: Elements in World Englishes
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
           http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics
Book URL:
https://www.cambridge.org/ch/universitypress/subjects/languages-linguistics/sociolinguistics/world-englishes-components-complex-dynamic-system?format=PB&isbn=9781009289481

Author(s): Edgar W. Schneider

Reviewer: Bev Thurber

SUMMARY
The idea of modeling language as a dynamical system is not new, but it
has not caught on widely. With this entry in the Cambridge Elements
series, Edgar W. Schneider draws attention to how concepts of complex
dynamic systems theory can be used to better understand language,
particularly the varieties of English spoken around the world.
In keeping with the scope of the Elements series, the book is very
short, only 85 pages including the references. It consists of six
chapters: four short and two long.
First comes the introduction, which summarizes the ways in which World
Englishes differ from each other and how those differences have
evolved. Two distinct fields in which dynamic systems have been used
as models, language acquisition and diachronic linguistics, are
discussed.
Chapter Two, “The Theory of Complex Dynamic Systems,” is the first of
the two long chapters. It has three main sections. The first,
“Origins, Definitions, and Applications,” describes the popularity of
complex dynamic systems in the natural and social sciences. The
second—the long one—is called “Properties of Complex Dynamic Systems –
and Effects in Language” and has eight subsections, each devoted to a
single facet of the theory and how it relates to language.
1. “Systemness” explains that every language is a system—of signs,
according to Saussure (1916). These signs serve as independent
elements that interact.
2. “Complexity” refers to the many “independent agents or objects with
specific attributes who keep interacting in manifold ways and
exchanging information… locally, but without a steering authority”
(10) in a complex dynamic system. Schneider argues for two levels of
complexity: a “language-internal” view in which “units… build
higher-order functional units” (11) and a “language-external” view in
which “speakers can be viewed as agents” (12).
3. “Perpetual Dynamics” reflects the fact that languages are always
changing. Schneider uses the development of modal verbs from pre-Old
English to present-day English as an example that illustrates a period
of substantial change between two periods of relatively minor change,
represented graphically by an “S-curve” to demonstrate logistic growth
(14-15).
4. “Network Relationships” is about the connections between the
components of the system. Each agent is seen as a node in a network;
connections between the nodes build over time and structures emerge.
Speakers are natural nodes in linguistic networks, but words and the
structures that connect them can also be seen as a type of network.
The loss of inflectional endings that began in Old English and
concluded with the development of a fixed word order is used as an
example.
5. “The Interplay of Order and Chaos” highlights pattern formation in
complex systems. It extends the notion of order to language as a
sub-system with “a relatively small number of units with clear
functional assignments and clear mutual delimination” and disorder (or
chaos) as one with “a large number of units, irregularity, fuzziness,
and functional overlaps” (19). The regularization of past-tense verb
forms is given as an example of a tendency towards order.
6. “Emergentism and Self-Organization” furthers the network concept by
pointing out that organization builds up as a network develops and
expands. Linguistic structures are seen as emerging from the system as
its elements interact. Bifurcation is introduced.
7. “Nonlinearity and Fractals” discusses some popular aspects of
nonlinear dynamics, such as the “butterfly effect” used as a heuristic
for a system’s sensitivity to initial conditions and fractals,
illustrated by the Mandelbrot set.
8. “Attractors” accepts a loose conception of the precise mathematical
definition of this concept. Schneider treats them as simply “emergent
patterns… in a dynamic evolutionary process” (29).
These eight concepts are reiterated later in the book. The final
section of this chapter, “Earlier Thinking on Language as a Complex
Dynamic System,” summarizes some previous work modeling language as a
complex dynamic system.
Chapter Three, “Turning Complex Dynamic Systems Theory into Linguistic
Reality: The Central Role of Usage and Constructions,” posits
“usage-based linguistics and construction grammar” as the keys to
applying complex dynamic systems theory to language (30).
Chapter four, “Complex Dynamic Systems Theory as Applied to World
Englishes” is the second long chapter. Like Chapter Two, it has three
sections. The first, “On the Nature of World Englishes: Essentialist
and Non-essentialist Reflections” describes English as a continuum
with fuzzy edges and with variation visible as the space is traversed.
The second, “The Emergence of World Englishes through the Lens of the
Evolution of Complex Dynamic Systems,” summarizes some of the
processes that led to the varieties of English spoken today.
The third section parallels the second section of Chapter Two. The
eight subsections of “Structural Properties of World Englishes as
Manifestations of Complex Dynamic Systems Principles” are titled
nearly identically to their Chapter Two counterparts.
1. “Systemness” provides additional examples of “systemic relations”
in English, with words serving as the signs identified by Saussure
(1916).
2. “Complexity” considers two different models: an extra-linguistic
one that treats the speakers of a language as the agents in a model,
rather than the words, and an intra-linguistic one that considers
words as signs that change over time and space.
3. “Perpetual Dynamics” notes that English is always changing and has
been for over a millennium. Schneider continues the discussion of
modal verbs in Chapter Two with some examples of their use in
different modern varieties of English.
4. “Network Relations” returns to the speaker-as-agent perspective to
model communication networks and to English’s development from
synthetic to analytic via the loss of endings. Specific examples from
Kenyan English and other varieties are provided.
5. “The Interplay of Order and Chaos” provides specific examples of
verb forms to support the discussion in Chapter Two and extends the
concept of bifurcation with examples from Indian and Singaporean
English. Grammatical gender is used as a diachronic example: its loss
during the transition to Middle English marked a chaotic period, but
eventually a new order appeared.
6. “Emergentism and Self-Organization” provides a specific example to
illustrate the concepts laid out in Chapter Two: the Verner’s Law
alternation in the past tense of to be (was – were) has been leveled
in some British English dialects, but not simply to one form. Instead,
“was” is used in positive sentences, and “weren’t” is used in negative
ones. The section also brings up other examples of new combinations
that have emerged.
7. “Nonlinearity and Fractals” argues that these are both “difficult
to identify and pin down in language evolution” (59). Zipf’s law is
brought up as an example that works only at certain levels. Schneider
concludes that linguistic phenomena are at best “quasi-fractal,”
though this perspective can be useful.
8. “Attractors” suggests that the “knowledge states” that language
learners go through provide an example of this concept in action (62).
Chapter Five, “Toward Agent-Based Modeling of Varieties Emergence
Using NetLogo,” highlights a freely distributed software package for
agent-based modeling developed at Northwestern University under the
leadership of Uri Wilensky that can be obtained from
https://www.netlogo.org. The “Language Change” model included in the
NetLogo library and Rand’s (2024) model, produced for the online
course “Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling” at the Santa Fe
Institute, are discussed as useful tools for modeling language.
Chapter Six, “Conclusion: World Englishes Keep Rolling,” reiterates
the argument that English can be modeled as a complex dynamic system
in which new varieties emerge. This offers a different perspective on
sociolinguistics and in particular on prestige dialects; here all
varieties of English are equal.
EVALUATION
I doubt anybody would disagree that language is complex, dynamic
(changing over space and time), and a system (as Saussure said in
1916). But can it be modeled as a complex dynamic system? The answer
to that question seems to be “to some extent,” with exactly how far
that goes left as a research frontier. Previous attempts to create
such models have shown that this conception of language can be useful.
Schneider highlights conceptual models by linguistics, but there are
more mathematical treatments out there. For example, Niyogi and
Berwick (1997) modeled language change as a nonlinear dynamic system
and found regions with chaotic behavior. Arbesman et al. (2009) found
some interesting structures in the phonological networks they defined
for English and other languages. Hartmann’s (2023) “wave model” is a
full implementation of an agent-based model of language evolution.
Schneider sidesteps the mathematical details and focuses on conceptual
connections between the mathematical theory and linguistics. There is
not a single equation in the book. As a result, the applications
Schneider proposes in the eight sub-sections of Chapters Two and Four
become increasingly abstract. In the last two of the eight sections,
on fractals and attractors, he utilizes very loose conceptions of
mathematical concepts.
The book focuses on agent-based models as opposed to systems of
nonlinear equations. Many, many different examples are offered. This
illustrates the extremely wide range of models that could be developed
at the expense of detailing precisely how each model works. Chapter
Five alone hints at practicalities, with NetLogo brought up as a
possibility but not fully explained.
Overall, the book should be of use to linguists interested in applying
concepts from complex dynamic systems theory to language acquisition
and/or change. Its conceptual approach makes it best suited to those
without backgrounds in mathematics or computation. Readers will be
able to use the numerous examples as starting points for deep dives
into modeling using complex dynamic systems.
REFERENCES
Arbesman, Samuel, Steven H. Strogatz, & Michael S. Vitevich. 2010. The
structure of phonological networks across multiple languages.
International journal of bifurcation and chaos 20(3). 679-685.
Hartmann, Frederik. 2023. Germanic Phylogeny. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Niyogi, Partha and Robert C. Berwick. 1997. A dynamical systems model
for language change. Complex systems 11. 161-204.
Rand, William. 2024. An introduction to agent-based modelling.
https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/183-introduction-to-agent-based-modeling/
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris:
Payot.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Bev Thurber is an independent scholar interested in historical
linguistics, especially the Germanic languages, and the history of ice
skating.



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