[quote="Jsensei"] If this maxim considers "equilibrium" to be a (calm) balance, I think that the author was an optimist. Language can just as readily be provocative and disruptive. Like any tool, literal or figurative, language can build or destroy.
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I don't think "equilibrium" is meant as "calm balance" when talking about emergent properties. Emergent properties refer to phenomena that are a product of interaction. To talk about language as an emergent property simply means that the networks of cognitive patterns (linguistic competencies in your brain) are in equilibrium with the external environment (the linguistic patterns of other speakers). Language learners don't have that equilibrium, of course, because they haven't internalized the linguistic patterns of the community of language speakers. THis is another way of saying that language is a shared system of meaning that exists as patterns in the environment and within the individual. To get a sense for this, consider what happens when a language "dies" (Latin). There is no community of speakers to keep the system going, such that even if you teach yourself to speak Latin using a grammar book, you can not be in equilibrium with a body of Latin speakers.