19.841, Books: Sociolinguistics/Linguistic Theories: Mufwene

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LINGUIST List: Vol-19-841. Thu Mar 13 2008. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 19.841, Books: Sociolinguistics/Linguistic Theories: Mufwene

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1)
Date: 13-Mar-2008
From: Simone Gilson < sgilson at continuumbooks.com >
Subject: Language Evolution: Mufwene

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:43:02
From: Simone Gilson [sgilson at continuumbooks.com]
Subject: Language Evolution: Mufwene
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Title: Language Evolution 
Subtitle: Contact, Competition and Change 
Publication Year: 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


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	

	Equinox Publishing Ltd          
		http://www.equinoxpub.com/	

	Georgetown University Press          
		http://www.press.georgetown.edu	

	Hodder Education          
		http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk	

	John Benjamins          
		http://www.benjamins.com/	

	Lincom GmbH          
		http://www.lincom.eu	

	MIT Press          
		http://mitpress.mit.edu/	

	Mouton de Gruyter          
		http://www.mouton-publishers.com	

	Multilingual Matters          
		http://www.multilingual-matters.com/	

	Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG          
		http://www.narr.de/	

	Oxford University Press          
		http://www.oup.com/us	

	Peter Lang AG          
		http://www.peterlang.com	

	Rodopi          
		http://www.rodopi.nl/	

	Routledge (Taylor and Francis)          
		http://www.routledge.com/	

	Springer          
		http://www.springer.com	

	Wiley-Blackwell          
		http://www.blackwellpublishing.com	

OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS	

	Association of Editors of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics
		http://www.fl.ul.pt/revistas/JPL/JPLweb.htm 

	Cascadilla Press
		http://www.cascadilla.com/ 

	Graduate Linguistic Students' Assoc.   Umass
		http://glsa.hypermart.net/ 

	International Pragmatics Assoc.
		http://www.ipra.be 

	Linguistic Association of Finland
		http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/ 

	Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT
		http://www.lotpublications.nl/ 

	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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LINGUIST List: Vol-19-841