Contact, typology and the speaker: the essentials of language [An article from: Language Sciences]

This digital document is a journal article from Language Sciences, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper focuses on some of the theoretical assumptions presented in Enfield, 2003 (Review of `Enfield, N.J., 2003. Linguistic Epidemiology: Semantics and grammar of language contact in mainland Southeast Asia. Routledge Curzon, London and New York, pp. xv + 397') and their consequences for contemporary linguistic theory. In particular, I revisit three fundamental dimensions underlying language contact: multilingual practices of speech communities, modes of transmission and typological diversity. These three dimensions, I argue, are not only the reasons for contact to occur but the fundamental driving forces behind language change (and variation) at large. In this view, the dichotomy typically presented as `contact-induced' or `external' vs. `normal' or `internal' change needs to be significantly revised, if not dissolved, since a non-idealized view of language change as the one advocated by Enfield presents us with a reality in which the role of contact can hardly ever be overlooked.