Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in Language Education

This is just a brief note to announce that Juup Stelma and I have just submitted an article for publication at the International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Elsevier; H. Nesi & P. Milin, eds.)

The article is entitled Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in Language Education, and it is part of the ongoing collaboration between Juup and me, exploring how complexity thinking can be made useful in applied linguistics and language teaching and learning.

This encyclopedia article provides an introduction of CDST, as a metatheory (or ‘theory of theories’) for language education. The article begins with a historical overview of CDST showing how the theory has moved towards theoretical maturity as a metatheory. We then go on to describe language education from a CDST perspective, building on the framework we developed in our latest book (Stelma & Kostoulas, 2021). In the third, final part of the article, we describe three strands of CDST scholarship in applied linguistics and language education: to describe specific language learning phenomena, to generate holistic descriptions, and to outline CDST-compatible research methods.

The article has yet to appear in print, but I am happy to share a post-print version, in case anyone finds it useful.