Introduction

Abstract

It is a platitude that human behaviour is not limited to sequences of actions that individuals perform in isolation, but that it is always related to some mental or physical phenomenon. In a sense, human behaviour is essentially interaction. The interaction between humans and their environment is tremendously complex. Even if one tries to focus on the interaction between humans and other humans, the complexity of the phenomenon is not reduced a great deal. Still, it is common sense that humans use systems of sounds and signs to interact with each other and that these systems can be described to some degree. When speaking about such systems in general, one usually refers to ‘language use’.