Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity
Title | Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity PDF eBook |
Author | John H. McWhorter |
Publisher | Walter de Gruyter |
Total Pages | 353 |
Release | 2011 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1934078379 |
This series offers a wide forum for work on contact linguistics, using an integrated approach to both diachronic and synchronic manifestations of contact, ranging from social and individual aspects to structural-typological issues. Topics covered by the series include child and adult bilingualism and multilingualism, contact languages, borrowing and contact-induced typological change, code switching in conversation, societal multilingualism, bilingual language processing, and various other topics related to language contact. The series does not have a fixed theoretical orientation, and includes contributions from a variety of approaches.
Language Complexity
Title | Language Complexity PDF eBook |
Author | Matti Miestamo |
Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing |
Total Pages | 386 |
Release | 2008 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9789027231048 |
Language complexity has recently attracted considerable attention from linguists of many different persuasions. This volume a thematic selection of papers from the conference Approaches to Complexity in Language, held in Helsinki, August 2005 is the first collection of articles devoted to the topic. The sixteen chapters of the volume approach the notion of language complexity from a variety of perspectives. The papers are divided into three thematic sections that reflect the central themes of the book: Typology and theory, Contact and change, Creoles and pidgins. The book is mainly intended for typologists, historical linguists, contact linguists and creolists, as well as all linguists interested in language complexity in general. As the first collective volume on a very topical theme, the book is expected to be of lasting interest to the linguistic community.
Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Title | Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable PDF eBook |
Author | Geoffrey Sampson |
Publisher | OUP Oxford |
Total Pages | 328 |
Release | 2009-02-26 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0191567663 |
This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.
Complexity Theory and Language Development
Title | Complexity Theory and Language Development PDF eBook |
Author | Lourdes Ortega |
Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Total Pages | 252 |
Release | 2017-11-15 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9027264961 |
This volume is both a state-of-the-art display of current thinking on second language development as a complex system. It is also a tribute to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her decades of intellectual leadership in the academic disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. The chapters therein range from theoretical expositions to methodological analyses, pedagogical proposals, and conceptual frameworks for future research. In a balanced and in-depth manner, the authors provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of second language development, with a wealth of insights that promise to break the status-quo of current research and take it to exciting new territory. The book will appeal to both seasoned and novice researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognitive psychology, and education, as well as to practitioners in second or foreign language teaching of any language.
Linguistic Complexity
Title | Linguistic Complexity PDF eBook |
Author | Bernd Kortmann |
Publisher | Walter de Gruyter |
Total Pages | 272 |
Release | 2012-05-29 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 3110229226 |
Linguistic complexity is one of the currently most hotly debated notions in linguistics. The essays in this volume reflect the intricacies of thinking about the complexity of languages and language varieties (here: of English) in three major contact-related fields of (and schools in) linguistics: creolistics, indigenization and nativization studies (i.e. in the realm of English linguistics, the “World Englishes” community), and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research: How can we adequately assess linguistic complexity? Should we be interested in absolute complexity or rather relative complexity? What is the extent to which language contact and/or (adult) language learning might lead to morphosyntactic simplification? The authors in this volume are all leading linguists in different areas of specialization, and they were asked to elaborate on those facets of linguistic complexity which are most relevant in their area of specialization, and/or which strike them as being most intriguing. The result is a collection of papers that is unique in bringing together leading representatives of three often disjunct fields of linguistic scholarship in which linguistic complexity is seen as a dynamic and inherently variable parameter.
Language Interrupted
Title | Language Interrupted PDF eBook |
Author | John McWhorter |
Publisher | Oxford University Press on Demand |
Total Pages | 332 |
Release | 2007-06-18 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0195309804 |
Publisher description
Linguistic Complexity
Title | Linguistic Complexity PDF eBook |
Author | Christiaan Wouter Kusters |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 432 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | Grammar, Comparative and general |
ISBN |