Language Complexity As An Evolving Variable

Author : Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191567663
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-02-26 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199545219
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-26 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating book challenges the idea that languages are equally complex. Eighteen scholars look at evidence from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and change and social complexity. Their conclusions challenge conventional ideas about the nature of language and contemporary theory.

Author : Raffaela Baechler
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110386453
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity, Isolation, and Variation written by Raffaela Baechler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity of grammatical structure has become a center of interest in recent typological and dialectological research. The contributions of the present volume discuss structural complexity from the perspective of language variation and change. Particular attention is paid to the hypothesis that languages and varieties spoken by small, isolated communities tend to display greater complexity than others.

Author : Bernd Kortmann
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110229226
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Linguistic Complexity written by Bernd Kortmann and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Salikoko S. Mufwene
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107054370
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity in Language written by Salikoko S. Mufwene and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about dynamical, social-interactional aspects of the emergence of complexity in language, explained by linguists, cognitivists, and modelers.

Author : Raffaela Baechler
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110348969
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity, Isolation, and Variation written by Raffaela Baechler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity of grammatical structure has become a center of interest in recent typological and dialectological research. The contributions of the present volume discuss structural complexity from the perspective of language variation and change. Particular attention is paid to the hypothesis that languages and varieties spoken by small, isolated communities tend to display greater complexity than others.

Author : Àngels Massip-Bonet
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3642328172
Total Pages : 262 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication and Society written by Àngels Massip-Bonet and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-10-13 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “language-communication-society” triangle defies traditional scientific approaches. Rather, it is a phenomenon that calls for an integration of complex, transdisciplinary perspectives, if we are to make any progress in understanding how it works. The highly diverse agents in play are not merely cognitive and/or cultural, but also emotional and behavioural in their specificity. Indeed, the effort may require building a theoretical and methodological body of knowledge that can effectively convey the characteristic properties of phenomena in human terms. New complexity approaches allow us to rethink our limited and mechanistic images of human societies and create more appropriate emo-cognitive dynamic and holistic models. We have to enter into dialogue with the complexity views coming out of other more ‘material’ sciences, but we also need to take steps in the linguistic and psycho-sociological fields towards creating perspectives and concepts better fitted to human characteristics. Our understanding of complexity is different – but not opposed – to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more ‘human’ or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society. Our understanding of complexity is different – but not opposed – to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more ‘human’ or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society.

Author : Matti Miestamo
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9789027231048
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Language Complexity written by Matti Miestamo and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Kilu Von Prince
Publisher : Frontiers Media SA
ISBN 13 : 2889762912
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Motivations for Research on Linguistic Complexity: Methodology, Theory and Ideology written by Kilu Von Prince and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : C. Scott-Philips Thomas
Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9814401501
Total Pages : 599 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Evolution of Language written by C. Scott-Philips Thomas and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2012 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceedings of Evolang IX, the 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language. The Evolang conferences are the leading international conferences for new findings in the study of the origins and evolution of language. They attract a multidisciplinary audience. The proceedings are an important resource for researchers in the field.