Abstract Taking a unified view of life, language, and cognition, the Special Issue contests linguistic (or enactivist) models that grant “reality” to symbolic entities. Rather than focus on texts, utterances, or communication, language is traced to living in the extended human ecology. On a distributed view, languaging arises as, alone or together, people act while orienting to denotata and (physical) wordings. Languaging requires, not linguistic bodies, but skills based in common ways of understanding. While verbal entities are of immense value, they draw on a history of reflecting on languaging from a language stance; people need only imagine “symbols.” Accordingly, languaging is part of acting, observing and imagining. Using a language stance suffices for reflecting on human practices and written marks as if linguistic entities were “real.” The deflationary view extends to semiotics. As Ho and Li (2019) document, languaging-and-action enables a learner to grasp a Chinese character as a sign. While, in principle, semiosis might draw from physics or life, signs are also likely to derive from human practice. Coming to read Chinese may require not a semiotic ontology, but a human ability to self-fabricate new powers. By deflating linguistic models one can avoid appeal to observer-independent signs.

中文翻译：

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语言演变

摘要从生活，语言和认知的统一角度出发，特刊竞赛对语言（或行动主义者）模型进行了评议，这些模型赋予符号实体“真实性”。语言不是专注于文本，话语或交流，而是源于人类扩展的生态环境。从分布式的观点来看，语言是由于人们在朝着符号和（物理）措辞定向时行动起来的。语言需要的不是语言，而是基于常见理解方式的技能。尽管言语实体具有巨大价值，但它们借鉴了从语言立场反思语言的历史。人们只需要想象“符号”即可。因此，语言是行动，观察和想象的一部分。使用语言立场就足以反思人类的做法和书面标记，就好像语言实体是“真实的”一样。通货紧缩的观点延伸到符号学。正如Ho和Li（2019）所记录的那样，语言和动作使学习者能够掌握汉字作为符号。从原理上讲，符号学可能来自物理学或生命，但符号也很可能源自人类的实践。读中文可能不需要符号学的本体论，而是人类自我创造新能力的能力。通过缩小语言模型，可以避免吸引独立于观察者的符号。