Product Description

This is a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change. It discusses where our evidence about language change comes from, how and why changes happen, and how languages begin and end. It considers both changes which occurred long ago, and those currently in progress. It does this within the framework of one central question - is language change a symptom of progress or decay? It concludes that language is neither progressing nor decaying, but that an understanding of the factors surrounding change is essential for anyone concerned about language alteration. For this substantially revised third edition, Jean Aitchison has included two new chapters on change of meaning and grammaticalization. Sections on new methods of reconstruction and ongoing chain shifts in Britain and America have also been added as well as over 150 new references. The work remains non-technical in style and accessible to readers with no previous knowledge of linguistics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #196535 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 324 pages

Review
'The book is a very good and readable introduction to the discipline of historical linguistics and covers a very large number of questions.' The Linguist

Review
‘The book is a very good and readable introduction to the discipline of historical linguistics and covers a very large number of questions.’ The Linguist

Customer Reviews

Excellent!
Great book. Simply a fascinating read. Aitchison provides a thorough treatment of the subject, which has moral, ethnical, academic and even spiritual implications.

Her style, moreover, is entertaining and engaging. Although I do not claim to remember even the majority of the technical detail, it is a thoroughly worthwhile read - both for people with an interest in the subject and as ammunition against those who relentlessly insist on spilling their bile over ostensible incidences of moral decline owing to incremental modifications in language use.

A great read - highly recommended.

Brilliant. Extremely interesting.
This book is covers a lot and is clearly written in a way that is suitable for the student but also anybody who has an interest in language change.

It is split into four parts: -
Preliminaries - this talks about introductory things as well as how evidence is collected and how to chart the changes.
Transition - this extremely interesting chapter goes through ways in which languages change, using a variety of up-to-date examples of well-known studies and others. It looks at not only changes to phonology but also syntactic changes too.
Causation - this concentrates primarily at sociolinguistics and why languages change. It also looks at other reasons such as 'mechanical' and how languages 'repair' themselves.
Beginnings and endings - this looks at pidgins and Creoles as devices to study language beginnings and endings, using some examples, primarily Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea. It concludes by saying language is not progressing or decaying.

I recommend this book for anybody studying language change, whatever the language(s) concerned may be.