Communication as a Dynamical Self-Sustaining System: The Importance of Time-Scales and Nested Context

Abstract

This article examines the utility of modeling communication as dynamic nesting of self-sustaining embodied contexts functioning at multiple time-scales simultaneously. We begin with van Orden and Holden's (2002) assertion that an individual's cognitive work emerges in generative, dynamic fashion out of the ongoing synergistic interaction between processes taking place at multiple time-scales. We apply this notion to communication via Lemke's (2000) application of heterochronic interactions to the social realm, and utilize Jordan and Ghin's (2006) conceptualization of the “body” as a self-sustaining embodiment of contexts playing themselves out at different, nested time-scales. We examine multiple interpersonal interactions involving the owner of an autoshop, and focus on how embodiments such as foot movements constrain and contextualize multiple time-scales of context simultaneously.