Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics

This brand-new, second volume of The Handbook of Historical Linguistics is a complement to the well-established first volume first published in 2003. It includes extended content allowing uniquely comprehensive coverage of the study of language(s) over time. Though it adds fresh perspectives on several topics previously treated in the first volume, this Handbook focuses on extensions of diachronic linguistics beyond those key issues.

This Handbook provides readers with studies of language change whose perspectives range from comparisons of large open vs. small closed corpora, via creolistics and linguistic contact in general, to obsolescence and endangerment of languages. Written by leading scholars in their respective fields, new chapters are offered on matters such as the origin of language, evidence from language for reconstructing human prehistory, invocations of language present in studies of language past, benefits of linguistic fieldwork for historical investigation, ways in which not only biological evolution but also field biology can serve as heuristics for research into the rise and spread of linguistic innovations, and more. Moreover, it:

• offers novel and broadened content complementing the earlier volume so as to provide the fullest available overview of a wholly engrossing field
• includes 23 all-new contributed chapters, treating some familiar themes from fresh perspectives but mostly covering entirely new topics
• features expanded discussion of material from language families other than Indo-European
• provides a multiplicity of views from numerous specialists in linguistic diachrony.

The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II is an ideal book for undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, researchers and professional linguists, as well as all those interested in the history of particular languages and the history of language more generally.

This brand-new, second volume of The Handbook of Historical Linguistics is a complement to the well-established first volume first published in 2003. It includes extended content allowing uniquely comprehensive coverage of the study of language(s) over time. Though it adds fresh perspectives on several topics previously treated in the first volume, this Handbook focuses on extensions of diachronic linguistics beyond those key issues.

This Handbook provides readers with studies of language change whose perspectives range from comparisons of large open vs. small closed corpora, via creolistics and linguistic contact in general, to obsolescence and endangerment of languages. Written by leading scholars in their respective fields, new chapters are offered on matters such as the origin of language, evidence from language for reconstructing human prehistory, invocations of language present in studies of language past, benefits of linguistic fieldwork for historical investigation, ways in which not only biological evolution but also field biology can serve as heuristics for research into the rise and spread of linguistic innovations, and more. Moreover, it:

• offers novel and broadened content complementing the earlier volume so as to provide the fullest available overview of a wholly engrossing field
• includes 23 all-new contributed chapters, treating some familiar themes from fresh perspectives but mostly covering entirely new topics
• features expanded discussion of material from language families other than Indo-European
• provides a multiplicity of views from numerous specialists in linguistic diachrony.

The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II is an ideal book for undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, researchers and professional linguists, as well as all those interested in the history of particular languages and the history of language more generally.

• Contains an extensive introduction that places the study of historical linguistics in its proper context within linguistics and the historical sciences in general
  
• Covers the methodology of historical linguistics and presents sophisticated overviews of the principles governing phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic change
  
• Includes contributions from the leading specialists in the field

• 
  
• Contains 23 articles written by an international assembly of specialists in the field.
  
• The lucidly written articles grant accessibility to crucial areas of syntactic theory.
  
• Contrasting theories are represented.
  
• Contains an informative introduction and extensive bibliography which serves as a reference tool for both students and professional linguists.

• 
  
• Written by internationally recognized experts in the field.
  
• Reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline.
  
• Discusses the ideas that drive the field and is illustrated with empirical studies.
  
• Includes explanatory introductions which set out the boundaries of the field and place each of the chapters into perspective.

• Provides a comprehensive, up-to-date, and stimulating picture of the field for students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines
• Features data and case studies from interactions in different social contexts and from a range of different communities

• 
  
• Contains 32 newly commissioned articles that outline the central themes and challenges for current research in the field of linguistic pragmatics.
  
• Provides authoritative and accessible introduction to the field and a detailed examination of the varied theoretical and empirical subdomains of pragmatics.
  
• Includes extensive bibliography that serves as a research tool for those working in pragmatics and allied fields in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science.
  
• Valuable resource for both students and professional researchers investigating the properties of meaning, reference, and context in natural language.

• 
  
• Discusses the biological and cognitive underpinnings of SLA, mechanisms, processes, and constraints on SLA, the level of ultimate attainment, research methods, and the status of SLA as a cognitive science.
  
• Includes contributions from twenty-seven of the world's leading scholars.
  
• Provides an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of human cognition, including those in linguistics, psychology, applied linguistics, ESL, foreign languages, and cognitive science.

• Represents the cross-cultural and international contextualization of the English language
• Articulates the visions of scholars from major varieties of world Englishes – African, Asian, European, and North and South American
• Discusses topics including the sociolinguistic contexts of varieties of English in the inner, outer, and expanding circles of its users; the ranges of functional domains in which these varieties are used; the place of English in language policies and language planning; and debates about English as a cause of language death, murder and suicide.

• organizes the theoretical issues behind the facts of the changing English language innovatively and applies recent insights to old problems
• surveys the history of English from the perspective of structural developments in areas such as phonology, prosody, morphology, syntax, semantics, language variation, and dialectology
• offers readers a comprehensive overview of the various theoretical perspectives available to the study of the history of English and sets new objectives for further research

• The first volume to assemble leading scholarship in this rapidly developing field
• Features new contributions from 36 internationally-known scholars, bringing together key research in the field and establishing a benchmark for future research
• Comprehensive coverage is divided into four sections: global multilingualism, world languages and language systems; global discourse in key domains and genres; language, values and markets under globalization; and language, distance and identities
• Covers an impressive breadth of topics including tourism, language teaching, social networking, terrorism, and religion, among many others
• Winner of the British Association for Applied Linguistics book prize 2011

• A comprehensive reference work on language teaching, which combines the latest research findings, coverage of core topics, and examples of teaching experience from a variety of languages and settings
  
• Provides a unique breadth of coverage, including: the psycholinguistic underpinnings of language learning; social, political, and educational contexts; program design; materials writing and course design; teaching and testing; teacher education; and assessment and evaluation
  
• Offers a balanced evaluation of the major positions and approaches, including examining the increasingly important social and political context of language teaching
  
• Written by an international and interdisciplinary group of authors from a dozen different countries; English is only one of the many languages used as examples throughout the volume

• Spans the fields of anthropology, education, applied linguistics, and human development
• Includes the latest developments in second and heritage language socialization, and literary and media socialization
• Discusses socialization across the entire life span and across institutional settings, including families, schools, work places, and churches
• Explores data from a multitude of cultures from around the world

• Revised from the ground-up for the second edition, the book is comprised almost entirely of newly-written and previously unpublished chapters
• Addresses the important questions in the field including learnability, phonological interfaces, tone, and variation, and assesses the findings and accomplishments in these domains
• Brings together a renowned and international contributor team
• Offers new and unique reflections on the advances in phonological theory since publication of the first edition in 1995
• Along with the first edition, still in publication, it forms the most complete and current overview of the subject in print

• Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism
• Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints
• Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution
• Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever

• Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism
• Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints
• Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution
• Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever

Intercultural discourse and communication is emerging as an important area of research in a highly globalized and connected world, where language and culture contact is frequent and cultural misunderstandings and misconceptions abound. The handbook contains contributions from established scholars and up-and-coming researchers from a range of subfields to survey the theoretical perspectives and applied work in this burgeoning area of linguistics.

This timely volume features first a part that introduces the background detailing the scope and topics of the field; followed by one that describes four different theoretical approaches and their basic research questions, from Ethnography of Speaking and John Gumperz’s Interactional Sociolinguistics to Critical Approaches and Postmodernism. The third part, “Interactional Discourse Features,” describes and explains the features of talk that are frequently studied in cross-cultural research, such as turn-taking and politeness. The volume also includes a section on Interactional Discourse sites, examining cross-cultural communication (such as Greek-Turkish discourse).

The final part considers a variety of domains in which interaction takes place, such as Translation, Business, Law, Medicine, Education, and Religion.

• Features 41 newly-written essays contributed by leading language scholars that shed new light on the growth and significance of the Spanish language
• Combines current applied and theoretical research results in the field of Spanish linguistics
• Explores all facets relating to the origins, evolution, and geographical variations of the Spanish language
• Examines topics including second language learning, Spanish in the classroom, immigration, heritage languages, and bilingualism

• Features 35 newly-written essays from internationally acclaimed experts that reflect the growth and vitality of the burgeoning area of historical sociolinguistics
• Examines how sociolinguistic theoretical models, methods, findings, and expertise can be used to reconstruct a language's past in order to explain linguistic changes and developments
• Bridges the gap between the past and the present in linguistic studies
• Structured thematically into sections exploring: origins and theoretical assumptions; methods for the sociolinguistic study of the history of languages; linguistic and extra-linguistic variables; historical dialectology, language contact and diffusion; and attitudes to language