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Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Author: Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191567663

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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.


Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Author: Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199545219

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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.


Complexity, Isolation, and Variation

Complexity, Isolation, and Variation
Author: Raffaela Baechler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2016-07-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110386453

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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.


Linguistic Complexity

Linguistic Complexity
Author: Bernd Kortmann
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 3110229226

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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.


Complexity in Language

Complexity in Language
Author: Salikoko S. Mufwene
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2017-03-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107054370

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This book is about dynamical, social-interactional aspects of the emergence of complexity in language, explained by linguists, cognitivists, and modelers.


Language Complexity

Language Complexity
Author: Matti Miestamo
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2008
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027231048

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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.


Complexity, Isolation, and Variation

Complexity, Isolation, and Variation
Author: Raffaela Baechler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2016-07-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110348969

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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.


Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication and Society

Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication and Society
Author: Àngels Massip-Bonet
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2012-10-13
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642328172

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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.


The Evolution of Language

The Evolution of Language
Author: C. Scott-Philips Thomas
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 599
Release: 2012
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9814401501

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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.