Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Total Pages : 328
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191567667
ISBN-13 : 0191567663
Rating : 4/5 (663 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable by : Geoffrey Sampson

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.

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable Related Books

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Language: en
Pages: 328
Authors: Geoffrey Sampson
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-02-26 - Publisher: OUP Oxford

GET EBOOK

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 yea
Language Complexity
Language: en
Pages: 386
Authors: Matti Miestamo
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008 - Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

GET EBOOK

Language complexity has recently attracted considerable attention from linguists of many different persuasions. This volume – a thematic selection of papers fr
Linguistic Complexity
Language: en
Pages: 272
Authors: Bernd Kortmann
Categories: Foreign Language Study
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-05-29 - Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

GET EBOOK

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
The Major Transitions in Evolution
Language: en
Pages: 361
Authors: John Maynard Smith
Categories: Nature
Type: BOOK - Published: 1997-10-30 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

During evolution there have been several major changes in the way genetic information is organized and transmitted from one generation to the next. These transi
The Transition to Language
Language: en
Pages: 410
Authors: Alison Wray
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 2002 - Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

GET EBOOK

This title considers the nature of pre and proto-linguistic communication, the internal and external triggers that led to its transformation into language, and