
The Language Dynamic
Equinox Publishing Ltd
Published on 10. November 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-80050-334-2 (ISBN)
Description
Language is both a socially distributed metastable system, unknowable to any one individual, and an individually embodied biological system. As such it is subject to recursive biological and societal pressures, which enable it to function and change.
The Language Dynamic identifies a number of mechanisms that enable the meaning potential of language from the phoneme through grammar and discourse and onto ideological systems. These core mechanisms include articulation and stratality, by which meaningful units combine in context to form higher-order meanings, which are greater than the sum of their parts; redundancy, as the mutually re-enforcing yet unstable relation between strata, which allows for creativity and change; and prospection, as the means by which speakers effectively and automatically recycle the syntagmatic patterns that emerge from language as a contextualised system. In providing an integrated account of the interconnections between these core mechanisms, the book allow us to conceptualise the dynamics of language change and growth as at once a motivated and agentless process.
This book, which underpins functional theories of language with concepts from biological and cultural evolution, social semiotics and systems theory, will be relevant to all who are interested in the embodied capacity to make meaning at multiple levels simultaneously.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
418 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80050-334-2 (9781800503342)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Gerard O'Grady is a professor in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University.