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2011 29: 178Sociological TheoryJorge Fontdevila, M. Pilar Opazo and Harrison C. White

Systems*Order at the Edge of Chaos: Meanings from Netdom Switchings across Functional

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Order at the Edge of Chaos: Meanings from Netdom Switchings

Across Functional Systems*

JORGE FONTDEVILA

California State University Fullerton

M. PILAR OPAZO AND HARRISON C. WHITE

Columbia University

The great German theorist Niklas Luhmann argued long ago that meaning

is the central construct of sociology. We agree, but our scheme of stochastic

processesevolved over many years as identity and controlargues for switchings

of intercalated bits of social network and interpretive domain (i.e., netdom switch-

ings) as the core of meaning processes. We thus challenge Luhmanns central claim

that modern societys subsystems are based on communicative self-closure. We assert

that there is refuting evidence from sociolinguistics, from how languages are puttogether and how languages indexical and reflexive devices (e.g., metapragmatics,

heteroglossia, genres) are used in social action. Communication is about managing

indexicalities, which entail great ambiguity and openness as they are anchored in

myriad netdom switchings across social times and spreads. In contrast, Luhmanns

concept of communication revolves around binary codes governed recursively and

algorithmically within systems in efforts to reduce complexity from the environment.

We conclude that systems closure does not solve the problem of uncertainty in

social life. In fact, lack of uncertainty is itself a problem. Order is necessary, but

order at the edge of chaos.

INTRODUCTION

In this article, we venture some bold, drastic claims that may open fresh construals of

our reality. In particular, we argue that the social and the cultural emerge interwoven

in stochastic processes that constitute meanings. The great German theorist Niklas

Luhmann (1995) argued trenchantly long ago that meaning is the central construct

of sociology. We agree, but our scheme for stochastic processesevolved over many

years as identity and control (White 2008)argues for switchings of intercalated

bits of social network and cultural domain as the core of these meaning processes.Hereafter, we call these switchings of netdoms.1

We reject Luhmanns central empirical argument that modern society is built

through walled-off, separate, functional subsystems (e.g., economy, science, law, even

art). Luhmann supplies little in the way of explicit infrastructure and mechanisms,

Address correspondence to: Jorge Fontdevila, Department of Sociology, California State Univer-sity Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA 92834, USA. Tel.: 657-278-2755; E-mail:[email protected]. Authors are listed alphabetically. We are grateful to Larissa Buchholz, CorinneKirchner, Jan Fuhse, Ron Breiger, Dario Rodriguez, and four anonymous reviewers for their incisivecritique and valuable suggestions on earlier drafts of this article.

1Netdoms bridge the separate abstractions of social network and cultural domain. Networks anddomains merge in a type of tie delivering stories and a characteristic sense of temporality (Fontdevila andWhite 2010; Godart and White 2010; White 1995a, 2008).

Sociological Theory 29:3 September 2011C 2011 American Sociological Association. 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

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MEANING FROM SWITCHINGS 179

and we argue that there is refuting evidence from linguistics, from how languages

are put together. By establishing a marked difference between action (e.g., netdom

switching) and communication to justify the semiotic self-closure of a subsystem,

Luhmann, we believe, fell back into nonindexical understandings of meaning. Mean-

ing becomes, for him, binary, rule-driven, and self-referential (e.g., legality/illegality

for law; legitimacy/illegitimacy for politics; truth/falsity for science). We argue in-stead that meaning is ultimately pragmatic and therefore problem-solving driven.

Meaning is generated through identities struggling for control.

More specifically, whereas Luhmann distinguishes social action (i.e., interaction,

organizations, institutions) from communication, we instead argue that semiotic com-

munication is always indexically pragmatic, and not just self-referential. We agree

with Luhmanns centrality of meaning in social life, but we disagree with his quasi-

structuralist logic of opposition and difference within system self-closure. As we

explain below, switching netdoms across sociocultural formations brings multiple

voicings (heteroglossias) and contextualizing cues (meta-pragmatics) that radically

change the rules of the communicative game of any specific subsystem, which thusare not impermeable to indexicalities2 from elsewhere.

These are big issues, and both the linguistic and the social formations literatures

are vast, so space limitations prevent us from offering detailed tracings of all con-

structs. We hope that the reader understands the need to open up new perspectives

for exploration as justifying a tight focus on what we regard as key processes. In the

first section, we explain the main arguments of Luhmanns theory of social differ-

entiation and then proceed to examine its contrasts with our theoretical proposal.

The second section develops our scheme of netdom switchings around ambiguity

control, and the third section turns to the linguistic side, laying out our main fo-

cus, indexical meta-pragmatics. We insist that the two sidesnetdom switching andindexical meta-pragmaticsmust be seen as co-constituted, around reflexivity. The

fourth section further explores reflexivity, invoking other aspects of grammar. The

fifth section focuses on meta-communication and rhetorics. It also explores two gen-

res that seem to derail Luhmanns systems theory: journalism and fashion. Then,

as denouement, the sixth section applies our scheme to dynamics of domination,

which we go on to tie in with voicings on broader scales. The final section presents

concluding reflections.

ALTERNATIVE FRAMINGS: LUHMANNS SYSTEMS THEORY

White and co-authors have elsewhere (White, Fuhse, et al. 2007) sketched how Luh-

manns theory around meaning through functional subsystems could be interwo-

ven with identity and control theory (White 2008). In this article, we show how

sociolinguistics can further operationalize identity and control. We cross these two

efforts to argue that indeed sociolinguistics offers mechanisms (e.g., indexicality,

meta-pragmatics, heteroglossia) to refine Luhmanns approach. Before exploring these

linguistic mechanisms, we first introduce Luhmanns theory of system differentiation,

and then challenge Luhmanns ontological distinction between communication and

action.

2As we will explain below, indexicality refers to the interpretation of meaning as a function of itscontext. In other words, the meanings of communication derives from its context of use and not just fromcommunication itself (Garfinkel 1967; Peirce 1978).



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180 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Luhmanns systems theory is based on a historical claim: the evolution of so-

ciety consists of processes of increased complexity in which four main types of

differentiation can be recognized: segmentation, center/periphery, stratification, and

functional.3

Segmentation differentiates society according to equal subsystems. In primitive or

tribal societies this form of differentiation is present either by descent or settlement(Luhmann 1977). Center/periphery differentiation admits one type of spatial in-

equality that leads to the formation of a center as a superior stratum. Stratification,

by contrast, differentiates society into unequal subsystems. In the historical period

when it emerges, society can no longer be described as having a common kinship

origin, but is instead organized according to rank orders. In stratified societies, sys-

tems define their identity by establishing their difference from the rest of the strata.

For instance, noblemen can only belong to a given social stratum because they are

excluded from all the rest. Inequality in communication potential becomes the norm

in a stratified society because the ordering of ranks rests on unequal distributions of

wealth and power, both considered media of communication in Luhmanns theory(Luhmann 1977, 2007)

Finally, functional differentiation is the last form of sociocultural evolution iden-

tified by Luhmann, and the focus of our analysis. He derives his theory around a

change in historical epoch:

The chief differentiation of society has been totally restructured in the mod-

ern age . . . specialized achievements no longer have to fit in with the primary

orders of segmentary part systems, such as households or tribes, but the remain-

ing or newly emerging forms of segmentary differentiation have now to justify

themselves in relation to the particular achievement conditions of a functionallyspecified part system of society . . . Functional differentiation specifies and ab-

stracts the perspectives of societys part systems and allocates to them unequal

horizons of possibilities by means of unequal functions. We characterized this

process as structurally determined overproduction of possibilities . . . capable of

absorbing them with selective procedures. (1985:110, 157)

Modern society, Luhmann proposes, achieves coordination by the operation of

diverse subsystems, each fulfilling a specific function. The asymmetry equal-

ity/inequality is here manifested in a paradoxical way, namely, differentiated sub-

systems that support coordination of modern society are simultaneously equal andunequal: they fulfill different functions, yet provide uniform accessibility of their

functions to all individuals. Functional differentiationas the form of differenti-

ation of societyemphasizes the inequality of function of systems. But in this in-

equality they are equal (Luhmann 2007:590, authors translation). Thus, in contrast

to stratified societies that could be ruled by leading groups (elites), the functionally

differentiated society does not give primacy to any of the subsystems that compose

it. Although each may try to impose its own operation and functional code over oth-

ers, none is capable of total domination. This highlights a distinctive characteristic

of modern societyit lacks a unique center of coordination. In Luhmanns words:

3This theory is thoroughly developed in Luhmanns book Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (1997), whichhas not yet been translated into English.



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The world society has reached a higher level of complexity with higher structural

contingencies, more unexpected and unpredictable changes (some people call this

chaos) and, above all, more interlinked dependencies and interdependencies.

This means that causal constructions (calculations, plannings) are no longer

possible from a central and therefore objective point of view. They differ,

depending upon observing systems, that attribute effects to causes and causes toeffects, and this destroys the ontological and the logical assumptions of central

guidance. We have to live with a polycentric, policontextural society. (Luhmann

1997:75)

According to Luhmann, the functionally differentiated society is an improbable event.

It emerges when the reflexive reproduction of subsystems achieves an operative clo-

sure that allows them to refer only to themselves in their communicative processes.

This operative closure is attained once a binary code becomes stabilized, thus encour-

aging the emergence of an autonomous, self-reproducing subsystem, an autopoietic

system.4

Luhmanns preferred examples of subsystems of modern society are the economy,

politics, law, science, art, and intimate relationships. The emergence of each subsys-

tem occurs on the basis of a symbolically generalized medium of communication

money, power, law, truth, art, and lovewhich functions to increase the probability

of acceptance of communication. Moreover, Luhmann argues that the operation of

each subsystem is associated with a particular binary code that orients communica-

tions, e.g., pay/no pay in the economic system, legitimacy/illegitimacy in the political

system, and so on, as mentioned above.5

How do the differentiated subsystems support the coordination of modern society?

Let us consider the subsystem of the economy as an example: the economy fulfillsa specific function in modern society (securing want for material satisfaction). This

subsystem attained operative closure once money began to be generally conceived as

a symbolic medium of communication in economic transactions. Furthermore, acces-

sibility to the economic system is determined only on the basis of having money or

notanyone with it can access the economy, irrespective of their social class, gender,

race, etc. In this sense, unlike in stratified societies, in modern society the binary

code of pay/no pay is decoupled from structural and demographic asymmetries.

This does not mean that stratification or segmentation are eliminated. It just means

that these are no longer the primary schemes of differentiation of society. To be

precise, Luhmann explains that the transition to a differentiated society took placein the eighteenth century with the reformulation of the normative ideal of equality.

In contrast to previous forms of differentiation, a functionally differentiated society,

4Autopoiesis describes systems that in their operation make up the network of components that producethem. What is distinctive about autopoietic systems is that their organization is such that their onlyproduct is themselves, with no separation between producer and product (Maturana and Varela 2002:4849). The concept of autopoiesis was originally developed by Maturana and Varela (1992) for the studyof biological systems. Luhmann introduced it into his theory to examine the operation of social systems,i.e., interactions, organizations, and society.

5Luhmann acknowledges that we cannot close the list of possible types of differentiation on ontologicalor logical grounds, but we cannot conceive other of another type either (Luhmann 1997:76). Furthermore,Luhmann suggests that existent subsystems are amenable to transformations, fusions, or disintegration,and that new subsystems of autonomy are likely to arise. Thus in contrast to Parsonss AGIL model,Luhmann does not limit the number of subsystems to just four. In fact, for Luhmann, societys systemsare not primarily analytical but empirical entities. Any social sphere can become a subsystem, and thusthe number of subsystems in society is a historical or empirical question (Schmidt 2007).



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of the lack of coordination among subsystems is ecological damage (Luhmann 2007;

Rodriguez and Opazo 2007:340).

It is worth noting that, for Luhmann, communication among subsystems is not

assumed to be a straightforward or unproblematic process but instead a troubled

and unpredictable one that requires the subsystems continual accommodation with

their environment. As Luhmann puts it, We cannot expect natural harmony but, atbest, stabilized and recognized tensions (Luhmann 1977:38).

We agree with Luhmann that ongoing functional differentiation due to increasing

complexity may be one of the hallmarks of contemporary societyat least as an un-

folding project anchored in assumptions of democratic and meritocratic citizenship.

However, we challenge his strong autopoietic view of subsystems as fundamentally

impermeable to each other (Mingers 2002; Schmidt 2005; Viskovatoff 1999; Wolfe

1992). Contra Luhmann, we argue that structural couplings of subsystems through

criss-crossing netdoms do not just irritate one another, but can fundamentally

challenge and change their self-referential idioms. In this vein we propose to relax

Luhmanns autopoietic assumption of meaning self-closure.7

We assert that systemsboundary maintenance is a much more ambiguous exercise of meaning making, in-

cluding not only rule-driven, self-referential logicsperhaps loosely associated with

identity and controls disciplines and control regimes (White 2008:241)8but also

countless reflexive netdom switchings by identities that emerge, shape, and contextu-

alize such logics in their struggle for control.

Action and Communication

Luhmann introduces language and its reflexivity while discussing functional differ-

entiation. In his words, all this is not a necessary process, but a possible processwhich creates its own preconditions through system formation . . . Stabilization arises

from the linguistic fixation of transmissible meaning (Luhmann 1985:109, empha-

sis in the original). And indeed meaning is central among abstract constructs for

Luhmannmeaning is the selection mechanism that systems use in order to reduce

complexitybut his theory does not weave it around social actors:

The meaningful context that ties action to the system of society is a distinct

one from the meaningfully guided, but organically based, context of real and

possible human actions. (Luhmann 1985:105)

In fact, a basic premise of Luhmanns theory is that social systems do not consist

of social actors. Although actors are a condition of possibility for the existence of

7In fact, the strict autopoietic assumption for biological systems theorized by Maturana and Varela(1980) has also been challenged by Viskovatoff (1999:490). Biological cells typically experience DNAinformation transfers amongst each other, which, far from simple structural couplings or perturbations ala Luhmann, change their fundamental metabolic pathways and mechanisms. Phenomena as ubiquitousas virus infections and horizontal gene transfer across species, but also bacterial conjugation and eveneukaryotic genetic recombination during reproduction, are examples that challenge system closure at thebiological level as well.

8

Disciplines result from recurring interactions that coordinate identities work (Corona and Godart2009; White 2008; e.g., meetings or temporary organizations). Control regimes provide frameworks for themobilization and coordination of identities across wider domains of action (Corona and Godart 2009;White 2008; e.g., emerging codes of corporate responsibility, sustainability). The term control regimehas a critical association with Luhmanns subsystems by delimiting specific conduits of action. However,our term is broader than subsystems and can be extrapolated over communication, action and styleconstructs applied over ranges of historical paths and culture (White et al. 2007:552).



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social systems, they are not components of the communicative operation produced

by social systems. Human beings or persons, instead, are conceived as part of the

social systems environment.9 Communications, not actors, provide for Luhmann the

warp and weave of his social part systems (i.e., specialized realms or functional

subsystems). Thus, the concepts of ego and alter (alter ego) do not stand for roles,

persons or systems, but for special horizons that collect and bind together meaningfulreferences (1995:8081).

In this connection, Luhmann argues that communication is the constitutive ele-

ment of society, and key to its basic operations. As a self-referential system, soci-

ety reproduces itself based on its own products, that is, communications that are

produced on the basis of other communications.10 Accordingly, his theory of the

differentiation of society refers to communication and not action. Order in society is

then achieved on the grounds that communication, though improbable, is nonetheless

possible and, in fact, becomes the normal situation (Luhmann 1990:91).

Luhmann defines communication as the synthesis of three selections: information,

utterance, and understanding. Information is a selection from a known or unknownrepertoire of possibilities, utterance is a selection of a way to express the piece of

information that has been chosen, and understanding is a selection derived from

the distinction between the information and its utterance. This third selection is

made by the addressee, who must choose an interpretation among other possible

interpretations. Communication is never an event with two points of selection

neither as a giving and receiving (as in the metaphor of transmission), nor as the

difference between information and utterance. Communication emerges only if this

last difference is observed, expected, understood, and used as the basis for connecting

with further behaviors (Luhmann 1995:141).

Thus, a key distinction between communication and action, Luhmann argues, isthat communication involves the understanding of a receptor that agrees or disagrees

with what has been communicated. Although communication can be attributed as

action, for instance, by an external observer, communication is composed of more

selective elements than just the act of communicating.

However, Luhmann does not seem to specify the mechanisms that generate and

bind patterns of communications within self-referential subsystems. To be sure, one

communication may stimulate another but surely it does not produce or generate it

(Mingers 2002:290). We contend that a theory of communicative understanding must

incorporate action in the production of meaningful communications via linguistic

and reflexive indexicality. Only social actors in their search to secure footing acrossnetdoms can contextualize systems self-referential meanings, and thus understand-

ing. Actors, then, cannot be conceived as merely part of the systems environment

as they are very much part of the systems processes of meaning generation. We

recognize that there are institutional and systemic logics and idiomsfor example,

rhetoricsthat channel, enable, and constrain action. However, we also understand

that such rule-driven logics, formal or informal, can be fundamentally changed by

9From Luhmanns account, psychic systems (i.e., human beings) are structurally coupled with social

systemswhat he describes as interpenetration (Luhmann 1995).10This is Luhmanns bold attempt to theorise an autopoietic unity in the non-physical domain. Itdefines the basic components of such a systemin this case communicationsand holds consistentlyto this without confusing domains by, for example, including people within the system. The natureof production is shifted to a production of events rather than of material components. Finally, thecircular and self-defining nature of the production network is brought out well, as is the combination oforganizational closure and interactive openness (Mingers 2002:289).



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We argue that identities attain viable footing precisely because they are part of

multiple netdoms at once. Switches in talk, of code and register, for example, between

distinct domains are at the same time switches in which particular social ties and

respective stories of different sorts are being activated and deactivated. Padgett and

Ansells (1993) study of the rise of the Medici in medieval Florence represents a

good example of this. According to the authors, Cosimo de Medici seized powerthrough spanning his connections with distinct sociocultural domains (e.g., economic,

marriage, and patronage networks). By activating and deactivating his diverse ties

to other families, Cosimo de Medici was able to crystallize a robust identity and

attain power and control.

In their struggle to secure social footing identities thus reconfigure netdoms by

establishing or breaking ties with other identities. In the process they spark meanings

that coalesce into stories (Godart and White 2010:572). Stories relate meanings and

events into reflexive and transposable patterns. They are the key in the generation

of identities since social ties within participation frameworks are typically expressed

and interpreted through stories. Stories deliver a characteristic sense of continuityand lived temporality to relationship ties, which otherwise would switch on and off

in everyday disjointed snapshots.

Uncertainty needs to be managed by identities in their struggle for control and, in

this sense, it is crucial for their emergence and development. So uncertainty grounds

both social and linguistic dynamics that give rise to storiesmeaning comes with

induction and management of ambiguity through netdom switchings. Management

need not mean ambiguity minimization, but ambiguity maintenance and exploitation.

As Leifer (1991a, 1991b) has shown for expert chess playing, an actors ability to

make sense of the game is not necessarily determined by his or her capacity to see

many moves ahead and thus to decrease uncertainity, but to be able to sustainuncertainty in the relationship. Hence, from Leifers account, skill becomes what

the actor needs to do to get in the same footing as an observer (Leifer 1991b:10).

In line with Leifers characterization, we assert that reaching through and across

netdoms to get robust action entails keeping the state of interaction hard to as-

sess through making very many possible evolutions continue to seem possible . . .

which prevents anyone from seeing clearly an outcome that would end the social

tie (White 2008:288). Identities seeking reflexive footings across netdoms create sto-

ries embracing ambiguity and transposable polysemies that keep their ties flexible

in anticipation of change. Ambiguity should not be removed methodologically as

measurement error but should instead become fully integrated into an analyticalmodel.

Our central claim is that life cannot be lived straightforwardly, so that ambiguity

is key. Stories can be organized in story-lines that provide identities with more or less

coherent ex post accounts of lived turbulences and discontinuities. A story-line is like

a resume, a post-rationalization of a necessarily chaotic social trajectory (Godart

and White 2010:577). To name some examples, Vaughans (1986) investigation of

failed intimate relationships describes how processes of retrospective sense-making

(what we call story-lines) are critical for individuals in making the decision to desert

a relationship as well as in the subsequent reconstruction of their identity. This

holds at large scales too. A recent book (Forbes 2007) makes such a claim abouthow American history entwined with the institution of slavery via the bewildering

switchings of the Missouri Compromise, 18191821. In daily interactions, too, the

ability to manage and sustain pervasive ambiguity is crucial. M. A. K. Halliday

(1985) vividly evokes this aspect of discourse in connection to the clause complex



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(i.e., simple clauses linked reflexively by prepositions and other discursive devices to

produce storytelling coherence):

The clause complex is of particular interest in spoken language, because it

represents the dynamic potential of the systemthe ability to choreograph

very long and intricate patterns of semantic movement while maintaining acontinuous flow of discourse that is coherent without being constructional.

(Halliday 1985:224)

LANGUAGE WITH NETDOM SWITCHINGS: INDEXICALITY

AND REFLEXIVITY

Language is discursively animated by both social networks and cultural domains. Our

view is consistent with Hallidays vision that speech registers and linguistic meanings

originate from switchings among sets of alternative options inextricably linked to

social activities and settings (Dejoia and Stenton 1980; Eggins 2004; Halliday 1973,1976, 1978, 1985; Swales 1990). Language thus originates reflexively, in transitions

between domains that are bound up necessarily with transitions among networks. The

myriad switchings that contribute to this characteristic reflexivity offer opportunity

as well as constraint. These are as indexical as they are localized in social space and

power; they index aspects of context or narrative events.

A significant turning point in understanding reflexivity, framing, and context in

language came about when Peirce (1931a) foregrounded the indexical dimension of

the linguistic sign. Linguistic indexes, in contrast to referential symbols, are signs

or aspects of signs that do not represent but point pragmatically to the world

through spatiotemporal contiguityin order to create or reproduce the social con-texts in which they are uttered. Thus, counter to Saussures (1966) signifier/signified

dichotomy, for Peirce semiotic mediation is basically trichotomous: a sign-vehicle

(representamen), an object for which the sign stands, and a cognitive relation (in-

terpretant) created by the sign-vehicle in its standing relationship to the object. A

sign can relate to an object by similarity or analogy (icon), arbitrary rule (symbol),

or spatiotemporal contiguity (index). The latter capacityindexicalityis crucial to

understanding the communicative functions of language (Fontdevila 2010).

Indexes can be classified according to the degree to which their pragmatic use

presupposes (reflects) or performs (creates) the extra-linguistic context that is being

singled out (Silverstein 1976). Thus when several co-workers explain to each other ajob-related task using slang or informal language and then suddenly revert back to

technical language because they realize their boss is within earshot, their switching

registers, reflects, or presupposes institutionalized work-place relationships via the

indexing of the appropriate technical register. However, note that if some co-workers

were to continue using an informal register before their boss, new creative realign-

ments and authority challenges could arise in need of further negotiation among

all hierarchies involved (Fontdevila and White 2010).12 Moreover, many languages,

like Javanese, include complex deference and status indexes that can create status

12An extreme example of presupposing indexicality that signals context without changing referentialcontent can be found in some Australian aboriginal languages where a complete switch in vocabularytakes place when speakers are within earshot of their mother-in-law or equivalent affines. Such mother-in-law language, which simply points to the presence of an affine audience in the surroundings, issemantically identical to the standard lexicon but serves as a kind of affinal taboo index within thespeech situation (Dixon 1972).



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differences on the spot by stylistic switches of distinctive lexical and grammatical

choices (Brown and Gilman 1960, for the pragmatic use of tu/vous pronouns of

address; Geertz 1960; Irvine 1985; Uhlenbeck 1970).

From spatial or temporal shifters (e.g., this, that, now), personal pronouns (e.g.,

I, you, they), and verb tenseson over to switchings of professional registers, or of

humor styles or voice tones, etc.indexes anchor the linguistic code in real contextsof use. Indexes are more or less codified linguistic elements or strategies that lay out

the contextual parameters in which extra-linguistic interactions take place, signaling

or constituting the very nature of the social relationships involved. So indexes render

language fully operational in communicative practice.

Furthermore, language is unique in its reflexive capacity. It is used to talk about

itself and describe its own structure and uses, to report either directly or indirectly

earlier utterances of other speakers, to indicate shifting speakers roles, and to reflex-

ively label the mutable existence of conventionalized entities by the use of so-called

proper names. In all such instances, through its pervasive reflexivity, language itself

provides guidance for speakers in interaction to meaningfully interpret and frametheir own linguistic utterances. Language, in particular its reflexive and indexical

devices, is key in how networks and domains merge together in type of tie, which

delivers a set of stories and a characteristic sense of lived temporality.

Language, far from being an abstract and self-contained medium, is thus typically

embedded in an intricate social matrix where the production of any single utterance

is already a juxtaposition of multiple voices or different points of view drawn

from, and invoking, multiple networks and decouplings. This heterogeneous voicing

or heteroglossia is expressed through a speakers utterance by the interpenetration of

several social consciousnesses, none of which objectify the other but rather co-exist

in a kind of rich heteroglossic dialogue (Bakhtin 1981, 1984).Most of the reflexive capacities of language are essentially meta-pragmatic, that is,

most meta-linguistic activities are not about semantic understanding (e.g., glossing)

but primarily about the pragmatic use of language in interaction (Silverstein 1976,

1993). Some explicit examples where the meta-pragmatic function of language be-

comes indexically articulated by speakers are: dont you dare use that tone with

me!!, Oh, dont call me Sir, you can call me by my first name, I was careful

to use polite language to avoid any extra tensions. Note that when language is

used to talk about language it is typically used to negotiate or redefine the relative

interactional footings of all speakers involved in a participation framework. With

variable levels of conscious awareness we always use language meta-pragmatically,that is reflexively, to cultivate our social ties.

In sum, speakers do not passively decode their ongoing utterances against a back-

drop of culturally reified contexts but instead reflexively use their own verbal inter-

actions as meta-pragmatic indexes to organize and create their shifting interpretive

contexts.

GRAMMAR AND STYLES

Grammar is the product and process of routinization in framings for the wordings

of meanings. Meaning, rather than residing in semantics, emerges reflexively betweengrammars and participants interactional hard work at framing speech situations.

And grammar may come to seem, like indexicality, a monument to the ubiquity of

netdom switching for meaning. Meaning in language is primarily an interactional

accomplishment (Cicourel 1985; Duranti 2003; Garfinkel 1967; Mertz 2007).



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Pronouns and other linguistic shifters of course play into reflexive indexicality,

introduced earlier. But they also are prototypes for grammatical wordssmall closed

classes that are ubiquitous across contexts, whether used in clause complexes, genres,

registers, etc. Transposability is the core here, and thus this class accommodates well

to the unending flux of netdom switching eventsthrough which in milliseconds

varying partner ensembles snatch at meaning.A separate though related facet of grammar is provision of multiple meanings in

the same realization, the same wording, as horizontal counterpoint to the pragmatic

reach of indexicality. Verb wordings, for example, can supply not only tense in

time, but also tenor in topic and mode of interpersonal address. This is a welcome

crutch for grasping meaning through netdom switchings across the uncontrollable

flux of events. Given heterogeneous voicing in language, any grammatical choice is

ultimately a stylistic act. And any stylistic act, in turn, is influenced or regulated

by the repertoire of patterns that has assumed grammatical shape and function in

the language over different periods of time. In particular, two prototypical styles

of reporting, direct and indirect quotation, can be manipulated in order to achievea variety of social ends. Moreover, the syntax of a languageof subject and verb

order, for exampleis also a fundamental stylistic act, changing its meaning via

myriad stylistic switches across netdoms of various social spreads and times.

We contend that change in language occurs always at the boundaries between

grammar and stylistics. These boundaries are fluid and ambiguous because of the

very mode of existence of language, in which, simultaneously, some forms are un-

dergoing grammaticalization while others are undergoing degrammaticalization in

the selective choice of particular styles and genres appropriate to the social situation

(Volosinov 1973:126).

Importantly, meaning changes come as intertwined spreads in social time andspace between order and disorder, at the edge of chaos. Meaning horizons need not

be limited within netdoms. Meaning establishes itself in consort with horizon, and

these changes of horizon can be as much a matter of rhythm as of interdigitation.

On our account, meaning is about syncopated complexity, complexity that occurs

only through reproducing itself as integral sensibility; so we denote it as style, as

much a precursor as a follower of identity.

META-COMMUNICATION, RHETORICS, GENRES

At least three broad perspectives explore the nature of semiotic communication orsignification in social life. One perspective claims that signification occurs when signs

correspond to their denotational objects (the semantic or referential theory of

meaning). Signification also occurs from another perspective when signs relate to

each other via contrasts and differences within a closed system (the syntactic or self-

referential theory of meaning). Finally, a third perspective argues that signification

occurs when signs produce interactional effects or changes on sign users (the prag-

matic or indexical theory of meaning). According to Silverstein (1976) it is the latter

indexical mode of signification that has the capacity to anchor the other twothe

referential and self-referential modesin real and practical contexts of use. Indexi-

cal signs render semiotic processeslinguistic and nonlinguisticfully operational insocial communication, providing the necessary redundancies and informational cues

to interpret and decode messages.

Moreover, communication is always meta-communicationof framings anchored

in different netdoms, at various (meta)-levels that sustain ongoing ambiguity to



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produce fresh action, and grasped, albeit incompletely, via abductive inference of

speakers hard phenomenological work in the contexts in which they are produced. 13

According to Bateson (1985:188), any message, which either explicitly or implicitly

defines a frame, ipso facto gives the receiver instructions or aids in his attempt to un-

derstand the messages included within the frame. Thus linguistic and paralinguistic

messages frame communication, that is, they are context-markers that give cues orinstructions to the addressee to discern at what (meta)-level of abstraction the mes-

sage should be decoded to be understood (Goffman 1974, 1981). And this is done

via contextualizing indexes or cues, such as voice tone, shifters, discourse markers,

pronouns of address, code or register switching in talk, etc. (Gumperz 1982; Lucy

1993). Some examples of messages that frame context in meta-communicative ways

are: indexing this is play (as opposed to aggressive combat) through gestures or

light physical contact of adequate intensity (Bateson 1985); or changing the meaning

of a remark into its ironic opposite through tone emphasis or simply winking (non-

verbal communication); or indexing through indirect speech the meta-communicative

message that we respect the hearers autonomy to act otherwise, such as in Couldyou pass me the salt? Please, that would be awesome! This is a hyperbolic remark

that meta-communicates the opposite of an imperative.

Note that all these examples include performative frames, cues, mannerisms, or

subtle keys that mark shiftings in communicative performances, such as voice mod-

ulation, posture, gesture, side remarks, and also the dynamic interaction that takes

place between performers and audiences, among other things. Moreover, through

creative and poetic play of figurative and metaphorical speech, quotation, proverbs,

riddles, jokes, rhymes, insults, greetings, gossip, innuendo, and various oratorical and

rhetorical genres, as well as many other formal features of ordinary conversation,

speakers through their utterances can reframe contexts and signal meta-messagesthat may be quite tangential to the utterances actual referential and self-referential

content (Bauman and Briggs 1990).

In all these cases the interpretation of the meaning of the message (and there-

fore of the social tie and type of relationship producing it) is conveyed through

contextualizing indexicalities that are inferredalbeit always incompletelyvia hard

phenomenological work of abductive reasoning. In fact, viable communication in

social life is based on the practical ability to manage these meta-communicative

indexicalities that frame context. Such indexicalities are highly ambiguous and open-

ended because they are rooted in multiple netdom switchings that span various social

scopes and times.To be sure, Luhmanns presentations seem to offer repeated openings for the

instability of indexical meaning across netdom switchings in differentiated society. For

Luhmann, the function of meaning is to organize the contention between actuality

and potentiality, which inevitably entails either instability or uncertainty. Given that

in our world there is no access to stable certainty, meaning has to be based on the

instability of elements (Luhmann 1990:8384). Further, in regards to meaning in a

differentiated society he argues:

13

Abductive inference refers to forms of cognitive inference by which deductive rules and formalprinciples become reflexively linked to local features of interactive settings that are known inductivelyfrom everyday life experience (Peirce 1931b). In this sense, effective communication does not proceed onlyby following automatic rules of grammar and conversational turn-taking but by inductive knowledge ofthe practical meanings of a situation. In everyday life, these multiple contrasting levels of abstraction(deductive and inductive) become integrated and negotiated by abductive inference in the performance ofspeech.



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The contingency of experience and action in society rises with this explosive

increase [with functional differentiation] in possibilities of experience and action.

All tangible meaning enters the shadow of other possibilities; it is relativized

and made problematic. (Luhmann 1985:148)

And, like us, he also elaborates on the reflexivity of social process:

By reflexivity we should understand that a process is applied to itself, or, al-

ternatively, to a process of a similar kind, and only then finally comes into

operation. Reflexive mechanisms are a very general form of meaning process-

ing . . . the expectation of expectations . . . talking about words . . . bartering of

exchange possibilities in the form of money, and following from this, financing

of money requirements; production of the means of production . . . teaching

of teaching in the form of pedagogy; trust in others trust . . . such reflexive

arrangements facilitate . . . the consideration of more possibilities and the expla-

nation of more complex circumstances. (Luhmann 1985:164)

Therefore, reflexivity is described as comprising processes of growth by internal

reproduction and multiplication of possibilities. Yet Luhmanns concept of reflexivity

throughout his work has a recursive quality that appears more aligned with self-

referential or structuralist understandings of meaning than with indexicality and

abductive inference. For Luhmann, communications revolve around basic binary

codes that seem to be governed quasi-algorithmically within system self-closure in

the efforts to reduce complexity from the environment. This is basically a rule-driven

syntactic model of communication (Viskovatoff 1999; Wolfe 1992).14

But we contend that communications do not simply generate other communica-tions out of self-referential algorithms and abstract binary codes within a single

subsystem. For instance, discourses regarding immigrants in modern nation-states

make apparent the permeability and relative autonomy of subsystems. In them, legal

debates, economic considerations, political pressures, and social concerns are simul-

taneously at play.

Moreover, identities in their struggle to secure footing navigate and switch among

different institutional rhetorics, often producing complex hybrid rhetorics in the

process (Fontdevila and White 2010:339). Rhetorics guide identities across netdom

switches by appealing to broader meanings that simplify the messiness of social life.

Rhetorics thus demarcate broad interpretive contexts and become an importantbuilding block of an institutional system (White 2008:177). And yet we argue that

in loosely connected netdoms of modern society with critical numbers of structural

holes15 identities may incorporate diverse rhetorics via exposure to heterogeneous

14According to Wolfe (1992), Luhmann still works with two original assumptions from informationtheory: (i) that everything can be divided into binary codes, and (ii) that communication takes placewhen a bit of information is coded into one category or another. However, both assumptions have beenchallenged by new developments in the field of artificial intelligence. These developments have discreditedthe algorithmic model of communication, and have modeled communicative understanding on the human

brains parallel data processing (PDP) or connectionism. In this latter model, communication does nottake place through binary distinctions but is in fact possible only when organisms, including machines,learn from past experience . . . [PDP models] are not self-reproducing systems, at least not as Luhmannunderstands the term. They work imperfectly, by trial-and-error and fuzzy logic (Wolfe 1992:1733).

15Structural holes consist of a relationship of nonredundancy between contacts in a network. As a resultof the hole between them, the two contacts provide network benefitsinformation and controlthat arein some degree additive rather than overlapping (Burt 1995).



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voicings and multiple addressivities. These complex heteroglossic and hybrid rhetorics

linked to nonredundant ties may juggle different points of view, enabling identities

to reflexively frame ambiguity in the face of netdom decouplings and rapid change.

In fact, identities with robust but supple footings seem to be connected to a wide

range of diversified ties and netdoms, much like a multi-legged table on a dais

(Bothner et al. 2010; White, Fuhse et al. 2007:546). Often these identities are at theintersection of a number of traversing core netdoms but also supported by the pe-

ripheries of many others. Moreover, they may observe distant cores as well. We argue

that identities with robust footings spread among diversified and nonredundant ties

and netdom levels have better prospects for becoming relative outsiders and second-

order observers of the various rhetorics that circulate among them. As second-order

observers of other netdoms and their rhetorics, these more durable identities become

aware of how other institutional rhetorics are reflexively constructed, what their

commonsensical building blocks are, and whether these other rhetorics can be incor-

porated or manipulated.16 Robust identities connected to diversified netdoms have

a reflexive edge in seeing other core and peripheral institutional rhetorics for whatthey are, a social construction, because [t]hat which appears obvious and necessary

to the network appears improbable, variable, and contingent to its outside observers

(Fuchs 2001:39).

In this connection, identities with robust and durable footings may not only de-

construct other identities institutional rhetorics but become reflexively aware of their

own constructions when they switch back to their cores. In fact, complex back-and-

forth switchings between different observational levels, cores and peripheries, insiders

and outsiders, trigger . . . adventures in reflexivity (Fuchs 2001:25). The existence

of complex hybrid rhetoricsor a repertoire of rhetoricsgives identities as they

switch across institutional subsystems the capacity to frame ambiguity and avoid in-dexically closing systemic meaning to a reduced set of contexts. This proves crucial

to boundary maintenance of rapidly differentiating subsystems due to complexity,

since it keeps boundaries permeable and porous to new meanings, avoiding systemic

collapse.

In the case of the legal subsystem, for instance, a repertoire of rhetorics stem-

ming from nonlegal netdoms can be crucial to the subsystems normative capacity

to incorporate and meta-interpret new lived experiences into the law (legal/illegal),

avoiding legitimation crises among significant segments of the population (Capps

and Olsen 2002). For example, in debates over gay marriage legalization, we find

that traditional marriage as an institution sustained by a rhetoric of a bond be-tween a man and a woman can only be reflexively reframed into a rhetoric of

committed relations between two consenting adults (regardless of gender) by legal

decision-making actors that incorporate heteroglossias and indexicalities from other

netdoms and systems. Given the incommensurable nature of these two rhetorics

(and many others in complex and differentiated societies, including reproductive

rights), no formal algorithmic and self-referential procedure of the legal subsystem

itselfbased on legal precedent, for examplecan be expected to find a compro-

mise, other than by fresh meanings of contemporary intimacy arrangements brought

into the system by its constitutive actors, with their own set of rights, interests, and

concerns.

16According to Fuchs, outside observers do not observe first-level whats, but second-level hows. Theysee what cannot be seen from the inside, decomposing the foundational certainties and invisibilities withoutwhich the observed network could not do what it does (2001:39).



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that we open up the varied heuristics that concrete persons use to navigate social life.

Yet both visions draw on distinctions between first- and second-order observation.

DYNAMICS OF DOMINATION

Managing mounting ambiguity and contradiction across rapidly polymerizing net-doms calls for skillful innuendo and indirect language, true, yet it also can evoke

direct language and domination. In the face of shifting netdom demands and

rapid decouplings, some identities exploit languages reflexive and indexical fea-

tures to contextualize and manage growing ambiguity and contradiction, as in

the case previously mentioned of Cosimo de Medici. At times, strong interac-

tional footings or other competitive edges may emerge through successful, al-

beit temporary, juggling of disjointed framings (Goffman 1974) across netdom

switchings.

Grammar is routinization (Hopper and Traugott 1993). This may be by domi-

nation rather than innocent habituation, over choices of switchings among unequalsocial networks and interpretive domains. But domination can also, as Bourdieu

(1977, 2001) has shown, work through apparently natural habituation so that certain

hierarchical relations become ingrained into a context-specific doxa (e.g., mascu-

line domination). In both these respects, we call on insights from sociolinguistics

of pidgins and creoles as models for localized grammaticalization processes intrinsi-

cally embedded in relations of domination (Fasold 1990; Holm 1988). We can adapt

these insights to any pragmatic situations where actors, fluent in different sublan-

guages and indexical subsystems, are forced to interact in a common lingua franca.

These include not only trade posts and plantations of yore (Galison 1999), but also

multi-ethnic job places in any modern organization traversed by global networks oftransactions and peoples.

We argue that far from egalitarian and universal patternings, switches among

netdoms are seized and shaped differently according to social positionings in strug-

gles over semiotic and material control. Hence, the shaping of identities is always

influenced by dynamics of domination. Our emphasis on domination differs from

Luhmanns macroevolutionary description of modern society in which no particular

ordering can be identified. With this, we claim, Luhmann assumes too much homo-

geneity among subsystems. In contrast, our approach, rooted on sociolinguistic in-

teractions across time and social space turns the attention to the actual mechanisms

of power and domination that operate in social relationships and that ultimatelymake up Luhmanns subsystems of society. To become fully operational the reflexive

notions of multiple voicing or genre heteroglossia a la Bakhtin need to be sited in

tangible and reflexive network switchings.

Only after enough power and complexity develop can a variety of speech

forms sustain indexicality through switchings. Note that we are moving here be-

yond the debates in linguistics that try to explain the difference between the

referential and the indexical function of language (semantics from pragmatics)

since we take it one step further and differentiate the indexical from the rela-

tional via differentiated switchings (pragmatics from social scope and network):

networks and domains in their interpenetration as network-domains allow oneto locate social chains and waves of interpretive consequence, to which dyadic

analysisor purely cultural and cognitive interpretation, or purely social net-

work connectivityis blind (White 1995b:8, 1995c; also Mische and White

1998).



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CONCLUSION

Viable identities produce reflexive accounts and stories about their netdom ties and

cliques17 that remain indexically open through changing contingencies and participa-

tion frameworks. In fact, we contend, contra Luhmann, that navigating uncertainty

in social life is not so much about stabilizing expectations of interacting dyads

to resolve their double contingency18 as it is about skillful and open juggling ofexpectation sets across the multiple contingency of shifting netdom configurations

(Fontdevila and White 2010; White et al. 2007; White et al. 2007). In other words,

we argue that system closure is not a solution to the problem of uncertainty. In fact,

lack of uncertainty is itself a problem.

Actionhere understood as netdom switchingsdoes not just irritate or trigger

changes (using Luhmanns terminology) within a set of communicative forms dictated

by a subsystem. Quite differently, action is capable of changing the meta-rules of

the operation of a system through meta-pragmatics, poetic functions, heteroglossias,

and rhetorics. We propose that systems have porous boundaries, and that action

is fundamental for indexically and reflexively managing such boundaries. Systemsare constructed via meta-pragmatic action and meaning is generated through net-

dom switchings across those systems. Switchings across systems, therefore, provide

constitutive elements of the very meta-rules that define a system.

We also argue that it is unclear how Luhmann deals with problems of contingency

and meaning across subsystems. By placing great emphasis on the social systems

autopoiesis and self-production, Luhmann paid a price: he left aside the real-life

communicationand thus the meta-communicationthat occurs within and across

networks of human beings, which is necessarily open and indexical. In Luhmanns

theory of self-reproducing systems, language is taken for granted and its relevance

in explaining social action is obscured under the abstract and disembodied notionof systems communication.

We claim that keeping ambiguity ongoing is important to establish viable footing

across rapidly differentiating subsystems (opening or closing contingency at various

meta-levels of expectations). In this line, juggling multiple contingency to accomplish

fresh action via netdom switchings creates strong footing across multiple differen-

tiated systems and ultimately some sort of reflexive meta-order (e.g., second-order

observation of rapidly changing network shapes and expectations, taking into account

expectations of ties that are several nodes removed from co-present relationships, and

located in different subsystems).

Indeed, managing ambiguity in decoupling differentiations is inherently andreflexively contradictory, with truncated logics that have no meta-consistency in

any of their multiple ramificationsand that is precisely what enables new switchings

and footings. And thereby viable social formation can emerge. Order is necessary,

but order that is at the edge of chaos. Identities locked in netdoms that are too

orderly are incapable of responding to switches, and thus incapable of reflexivity. To

be sure, there is no meaning without ambiguity. Polyphony is the congruent term

here, rather than harmony: netdom heteroglossia rather than system self-reference.

17

Cliques are fully connected (sub)networks, i.e., every element is directly linked to every other element.18According to Luhmann (1995), double contingency reflects the basic problem that underlies everysocial encounter, i.e., alter and ego experience each other as black boxesI dont know what the otheris going to do, but I do know that she does not know what I am going to do. This circularitythatboth know that both know that one could also act differentlycreates a fundamental indeterminacy insocial relations. Social systems, Luhmann argues, can only emerge through solving the problem of doublecontingency.



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Our analyses must offer the capacity to convey uneven, distorted, and unfinished

perception.

In social life what creates continuity and yet freedom of contingency is the ability

to reflexively transpose and reassemble indexical stories, genres, styles, and rhetorics

across networks of ties and domains. Transitional phases composed of unfinished

narratives of social ties, of the self, stories and rationalizations, and multiple fram-ings are the stuff that creates enough meaning redundancies and meta-communicative

complexities to carry a social system to the edge of chaosnot too congealed to

anticipate systemic change. Far from self-referential meaning and closure, functional

systems owe their supple existence to identities weaving incomplete meshes of index-

ical ambiguities as they switch netdoms in their struggle for control.

The traditional focus of theory on the micro/macro gap is thus put aside as tan-

gential, as also is a preoccupation with levels and embeddings. Horizontal is a more

apt metaphor than vertical for these switchings. Some theoretical progress has been

made in this direction in Identity and Control (White 2008) by using the concepts of

control regimes, institutional rhetorics, and disciplines, all of which constitute reflex-ive arrangements that bridge systems differentiation, action, and language. What we

have done is to analytically link reflexivity, switchings, stories, and heteroglossia back

to our targets of ambiguity and functional differentiation, in a counterpoint between

harmony and polyphony across systems. Domination is conjoined with habituation.

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