Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable (Hardcover)
Language: English
Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009
- Hardcover
- New
Seller: CitiRetail, Stevenage, United KingdomCitiRetail
AbeBooks seller since June 29, 2022
Condition: New
£ 72.49
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Hardcover. 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 centralaxioms 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 widerange 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 frequentlycontroversial 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. 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. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…
Seller Inventory # 9780199545216
- Title
- Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable (Hardcover)
- Author
- Geoffrey Sampson
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press, Oxford
- Publication year
- 2009
- Condition
- new
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0199545219
- ISBN 13
- 9780199545216
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.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
David Gil is Scientific Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. He has held positions at UCLA, the University of Tel Aviv, and at the National University of Singapore. He is co-editor of The World Atlas of Language Structure (OUP, 2005) and author of numerous articles in journals such as Linguistic Inquiry and Linguistics.
Peter Trudgill is Professor Emeritus of English Linguistics at the University of Fribourg. He previously held chairs at the Universities of Lausanne, Essex, and Reading. He is also Adjunct Professor at La Trobe University, Adjunct Professor at Agder University, and Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia. His books include Dialects in Contact (Blackwell, 1986), Sociolinguistics (fourth edition, Penguin 2000), and New-dialect formation: on the inevitability of colonial Englishes (Edinburgh, 2004).
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
CitiRetail
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AbeBooks seller since June 29, 2022
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