1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910790493203321

Titolo

Linguistic complexity [[electronic resource] ] : second language acquisition, indigenization, contact / / edited by Bernd Kortmann and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin ; ; Boston, : Walter de Gruyter, 2012

ISBN

1-283-85786-3

3-11-022922-6

3-11-173024-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (272 p.)

Collana

Linguae & litterae, , 1869-7054 ; ; 13

Classificazione

HF 512

Altri autori (Persone)

KortmannBernd <1960->

SzmrecsanyiBenedikt <1976->

Disciplina

404/.2

Soggetti

Complexity (Linguistics)

Second language acquisition - Study and teaching

Languages in contact

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Table of Contents -- Preface: A closer look / Larsen-Freeman, Diane -- Introduction: Linguistic complexity / Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt / Kortmann, Bernd -- Accounting for analyticity in creoles / Siegel, Jeff -- Nothing will come of nothing / Odlin, Terence -- Deletions, antideletions and complexity theory, with special reference to Black South African and Singaporean Englishes / Mesthrie, Rajend -- The complexity of the personal and possessive pronoun system of Norf 'k / Mühlhäusler, Peter -- Interlanguage complexity / Ortega, Lourdes -- Complexity as a function of iconicity / Steger, Maria / Schneider, Edgar W. -- Acquisitional complexity / Han, ZhaoHong / Lew, Wai Man -- Syntactic and variational complexity in British and Ghanaian English / Huber, Magnus -- Complexity hotspot / McWhorter, John

Sommario/riassunto

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.