Integrational Theory of Language

The Integrational Theory of Language is the general theory of language that has been developed within the general linguistic approach of Integrational Linguistics.

Differently from most other approaches in linguistics, Integrational Linguistics emphasizes a distinction between theories of language and theories of language descriptions. Integrational Linguistics has therefore developed both a general theory of language and a theory of linguistic descriptions, the Integrational Theory of Grammars.

The Integrational Theory of Language contains two major subtheories: (i) the Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability, which is 'conflated' with (ii) the Integrational Theory of Language Systems.

One of the most distinctive features of the Integrational Theory of Language is its adherence to ontological explicitness and constructiveness: the ontological status of every linguistic entity postulated by the theory is clearly determined (explicitness), and every entity is a logical or set-theoretical construct ultimately related to a small number of sets of basic entities that include, in particular, objects and events in space-time (constructiveness).

From its inception, IL has regarded linguistic variability, i.e. the changeability of languages along dimensions such as time, geographical space, social stratification etc., as an essential property of natural languages that has to be treated in any realistic theory of language; certain idealizations, such as Chomsky's 'completely homogeneous speech-community,' are rejected.

The Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability thus aims at providing a theoretical framework for variation research (including studies in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics) and a basis for a realistic theory of language systems. The theory centers around the notion of 'idiolect,' in a specific sense of the term that avoids traditional problems: an idiolect is a homogeneous part of an individual speaker's share of a language (a speaker's total share of a language, called a 'personal variety,' is not an idiolect in this sense but is a set of idiolects). Such an idiolect, understood as an individual (linguistic) means of communication of a person during a certain period of time, simultaneously belongs to a certain period of the language, to a certain dialect, sociolect, register, medial variety, etc. A natural language (understood as a historical language during the entire span of its existence, or a period – a major temporal part – of a historical language) is construed as a set of idiolects, and each variety of the language is a subset of the language. Sets of idiolects (such as languages and their varieties) are called 'communication complexes.' The varieties of a language are given through its 'variety structure': a classification system whose source is the language itself.

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