Language Contact
Published on 3. November 2009
978-0-511-62976-1 (ISBN)
Description
Most societies in today's world are multilingual. 'Language contact' occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence each other. This book is an introduction to the subject, covering individual and societal multilingualism, the acquisition of two or more languages from birth, second language acquisition in adulthood, language change, linguistic typology, language processing and the structure of the language faculty. It explains the effects of multilingualism on society and language policy, as well as the consequences that long-term bilingualism within communities can have for the structure of languages. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, the book provides a clear analysis of such phenomena as language convergence, grammatical borrowing, and mixed languages.
Reviews / Votes
'Matras does indeed succeed in his stated goal of bringing a much-needed emphasis on the individual bilingual speaker back to language contact theory.' Journal of SociolinguisticsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cambridge University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
File size
1,58 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-511-62976-1 (9780511629761)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Yaron Matras
Language Contact
Book
09/2009
Cambridge University Press
€43.32
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Yaron Matras
Language Contact
Book
09/2009
Cambridge University Press
€111.41
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester. His research interests include the interface of linguistic typology, discourse pragmatics and language processing, and language change, as well as multilingualism and dialects. He has published widely on the linguistics of Romani (including Romani: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge, 2002), and on language contact.
Content
1. Introduction; 2. An emerging multilingual repertoire; 3. Societal multilingualism; 4. Acquiring and maintaining a bilingual repertoire; 5. Crossing the boundaries: codeswitching in conversation; 6. The replication of linguistic 'matter'; 7. Lexical borrowing; 8. Grammatical and phonological borrowing; 9. Converging structures: pattern replication; 10. Contact languages; 11. Outlook.
