Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes - Rilegato

Myers-Scotton, Carol

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0198299524 ISBN 13: 9780198299523

Casa editrice: OUP Oxford, 2002

Riassunto

Contact Linguistics is a critical investigation of what happens to the grammars of languages when bilingual speakers use both their languages in the same clause. It consolidates earlier insights and presents the new theoretical and empirical work of a scholar whose ideas have had a fundamental impact on the field. It also shows that bilingual data offer a revealing window on the structure of the language faculty. Carol Myers-Scotton examines the nature of major contact phenomena, especially lexical borrowing, grammatical convergence, codeswitching, first language attrition, mixed languages, and the development of creoles. She argues forcefully that types of contact phenomena often seen as separate in fact result from the same processes and can be explained by the same principles. Her discussion centers around two new models derived from the Matrix Language Frame model, previously applied only to codeswitching. One model recognizes four types of morphemes based on their different patterns of distribution across contact phenomena; its key hyothesis is that distribution depends on differential access to the morphemes in the production process. The other analyzes three levels of abstract lexical structure whose splitting and recombination across languages in bilingual speech explains many contact outcomes. This is an important volume, of unusual relevance for theories of competence and performance and vital for all those concerned with language contact. Carol Myers-Scotton is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of South Carolina. She is a specialist in language contact phenomena and sociolinguistics and has a special interest in East and Southern African linguistics. In 1993, she published two volumes on codeswitching, Social Motivations for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa, and Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching (both OUP). She has also edited a volume of essays on language and literature (OUP 1998) and published many articles in her areas of interest.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

The research program pioneered by Carol Myers-Scotton plays an exceptionally important role in current linguistic scholarship... In sum, this book is not only a solid contribution to the exegesis of the Myers-Scotton research program as applied to language contact phenomena; its relevance to current work in a diversity of areas makes it highly recommended reading for anyone seriously interested in linguistics. (Almeida Jacqueline Toribio, The Pennsylvania State University)

As a text it is very readable and its discourse style takes on a very candid and 'dialogue-like' character . . . This is a key text of the same importance as Thomason and Kaufman's (1988) seminal work Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics (Australian Journal of Linguistics)

This book will provide an account of contact outcome theories, including the author's own. It will have coursebook potential for advanced undergraduates and graduates. (Folia Linguistica)

This is an important book ... Without doubt, anyone with a serious interest in contact linguistics will read this book with profit. (The Times Higher Education Supplement)

The new book of Myers-Scotton is one of the most important contributions to the study of codeswitching and language contacts that has been published in recent years both because of the width of issues discussed and theoretical depth of treating these issues. (Linguist List)

L'autore:

Carol Myers-Scotton is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of South Carolina. She is a specialist in sociolinguistics and language contact phenomena with a special interest in East and Southern African linguistics. In 1993, she published two volumes on codeswitching, Social Motivations for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa, and Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching (both OUP). She has also edited a volume of essays on language and literature (OUP 1998) and has published a number of articles in her areas of interest.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: OUP Oxford
• Data di pubblicazione: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0198299524
• ISBN 13: 9780198299523
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 360