LINGUIST List 19.841: Sociolinguistics/Linguistic Theories: Mufwene

LINGUIST List 19.841

Thu Mar 13 2008

Books: Sociolinguistics/Linguistic Theories: Mufwene

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Directory
1. Simone Gilson, Language Evolution: Mufwene

Message 1: Language Evolution: Mufwene

Date: 13-Mar-2008
From: Simone Gilson <sgilson

continuumbooks.com>
Subject: Language Evolution: Mufwene

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Title: Language Evolution
Subtitle: Contact, Competition and Change
Published: 2008
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
http://www.continuumbooks.com

Book URL: http://www.continuumbooks.com

Author: Salikoko S. Mufwene
Hardback: ISBN: 0826493696 9780826493699 Pages: 360 Price: U.K. £ 75.00
Paperback: ISBN: 082649370X 9780826493705 Pages: 360 Price: U.K. £ 24.99
Abstract:

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.

"Inspired by evolutionary biology, Salikoko Mufwene's spectacularly
comprehensive and thought-provoking new book goes for the big picture and
illuminates fundamental principles of language evolution and language
contact. Showcasing the peculiar (or not so peculiar, after all)
evolutionary conditions of creoles, Mufwene reaches novel and unorthodox
insights which build upon concepts such as the importance of ecology,
competition and selection, imperfect replication, and family resemblance.
He questions and retunes some fundamental notions in linguistics like
"system", "transmission" or "acquisition", thus coming considerably closer
to an understanding of how language has evolved than earlier linguistic
theory.

Ingenious imagery like the highway traffic analogy show how patterns have
emerged through "invisible hand" evolution, the convergence of communal
behavior, and how imperfection, far from being imperfect, generates
real-life structures. Principles like the ubiquity of contact and
hybridism, the understanding of languages as species and complex adaptive
systems, the relationship between mutual accommodation between individuals
and emergent communal behavior, or the link between globalization and
indigenization invoke a new down-to-earth linguistics in which the
interactions of real-life individuals are at the core of far-reaching
developments. A must-read for theorists of language change and language
contact, and for anybody interested in how language really works."
- Professor Edgar W. Schneider, Chair of English Linguistics, University
of Regensburg, Germany

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories
Sociolinguistics

Written In: English (eng )

See this book announcement on our website:
http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=34404


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	-------------------------- Major Supporters --------------------------
	Brill	http://www.brill.nl
	Cambridge University Press	http://us.cambridge.org
	Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd	http://www.continuumbooks.com
	Edinburgh University Press	http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/
	Elsevier Ltd	http://www.elsevier.com/linguistics
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	---------------------- Other Supporting Publishers ----------------------
	Association of Editors of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics	http://www.fl.ul.pt/revistas/JPL/JPLweb.htm
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	Linguistic Association of Finland	http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/
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	SIL International	http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp
	St. Jerome Publishing Ltd	http://www.stjerome.co.uk
	Utrecht institute of Linguistics	http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/

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