Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change - Brossura

Mufwene, Salikoko S.

 
9780826493705: Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change
Brossura
ISBN 10: 082649370X ISBN 13: 9780826493705
Casa editrice: Bloomsbury USA Academic, 2008

Sinossi

Languages are constantly changing. New words are added to the English language every year, either borrowed or coined, and there is often railing against the ‘decline' of the language by public figures. Some languages, such as French and Finnish, have academies to protect them against foreign imports. Yet languages are species-like constructs, which evolve naturally over time. Migration, imperialism, and globalization have blurred boundaries between many of them, producing new ones (such as creoles) and driving some to extinction.

This book examines the processes by which languages change, from the macroecological perspective of competition and natural selection. In a series of chapters, Salikoko Mufwene examines such themes as:

- natural selection in language

- the actuation question and the invisible hand that drives evolution

- multilingualism and language contact

- language birth and language death

- the emergence of Creoles and Pidgins

- the varying impacts of colonization and globalization on language vitality

This comprehensive examination of the organic evolution of language will be essential reading for graduate and senior undergraduate students, and for researchers on the social dynamics of language variation and change, language vitality and death, and even the origins of linguistic diversity.

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Informazioni sull'autore

Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics as well as Professor on the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, USA.

Le informazioni nella sezione "Su questo libro" possono far riferimento a edizioni diverse di questo titolo.

Editore
Bloomsbury USA Academic
Data di pubblicazione
2008
Lingua
Inglese
ISBN 10 
082649370X
ISBN 13 
9780826493705
Rilegatura
Copertina flessibile
Numero di pagine
354
Contatto del produttore
non disponibile
Persona responsabile
non disponibile

Altre edizioni note dello stesso titolo

9780826493699: Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change

Edizione in evidenza

ISBN 10:  0826493696 ISBN 13:  9780826493699
Casa editrice: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2008
Rilegato