As described in Fusaroli and Tylen’s paper on the coordinative role of language, the complex system of language consists of an important relationship between symbolic and dynamic features. The symbolic aspect of language can be understood as the signs we use to denote meaning to certain aspects of our lives, like our words (arbitrary signs). While symbolic patterns can become stable in that they are repeatedly used in the same way by communicators, the constraining properties of symbolic patterns are ever-changing and adaptable, shifting to meet the novel needs of novel situations.
This symbolic structure can also be considered stable but has an important interplay with the Dynamic Aspects of Language that help our symbolic structures evolve over time and facilitate social coordination. These symbolic and dynamic aspects interact equally with each other in a way that grants language a larger spatial and temporal reach.
Symbolic patterns can become more stabilized when the mutual local adaptivity of these patterns increases. In other words, the more helpful the symbolic pattern is for communication, the more it will be used, and the more stable it will become. Additionally, it is the role of stable symbolic patterns in conversations that can refine social coordination and help communication rather than merely how much the communicators align.
“In other words, while local linguistic alignment seems to pave the way for the stabilization of shared symbolic patterns, it is these emergent patterns- fit to the local task affordances- that come to facilitate refined coordination and thus increased performance in the joint task.”