Making Sense of Languaging as a Consensual Domain of Interactions: Didactic implications

Some misconceptions about language and communication are pointed out as part of the rationalist language myth, and the need for naturalizing language is emphasized. The crucial importance of the concept of languaging as a consensual domain of interactions, in which the signifying function of linguistic signs arises, is discussed. It is argued that the ease of language acquisition by infants stems from the intrinsic indexicality of linguistic signs – their perceptual groundedness in the first-order consensual domain. As indices, linguistic signs cue human understanding with regard to the diverse aspects of the context of dialogical interactions. It is shown how approaching grammar as a perceptually grounded semiotic mechanism that underlies languaging facilitates instructed foreign language acquisition, dispelling the myth about language complexity.