Language Change: Progress or Decay? (Cambridge Approaches to Linguistics)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 4, 12/20/2012
EAN 9781107678927, ISBN10: 1107678927
Paperback, 310 pages, 19.8 x 12.9 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
How and why do languages change? Where does the evidence of language change come from? How do languages begin and end? This introduction to language change explores these and other questions, considering changes through time. The central theme of this book is whether language change is a symptom of progress or decay. This book will show you why it is neither, and that understanding the factors surrounding how language change occurs is essential to understanding why it happens. This updated edition remains non-technical and accessible to readers with no previous knowledge of linguistics.
Part I. Preliminaries
1. The ever-whirling wheel
2. Collecting up clues
3. Charting the changes
Part II. Transition
4. Spreading the word
5. Conflicting loyalties
6. Catching on and taking off
7. Caught in the web
8. The wheels of language
9. Spinning away
Part III. Causation
10. The reason why
11. Doing what comes naturally
12. Repairing the patterns
13. Pushing and pulling
Part IV. Beginnings and Endings
14. Language birth
15. Language death
16. Progress or decay?
'Jean Aitchison's Language Change: Progress or Decay? has been essential introductory reading for students of historical linguistics for many years: it manages the rare trick of combining theoretical sophistication and clear, simple (but not simplistic) expression. This new edition, which takes account of current issues in language-change studies while not discarding classic discussions, remains a fine and very approachable survey. I shall certainly recommend it to my undergraduates.' Jeremy J. Smith, University of Glasgow
'A brilliant essay in linguistics … Even in the most complex spaghetti junctions of her argument, her own directions are always clear, and her own language lively, fresh and stimulating.' The Guardian