Dynamics of the Linguistic System

This volume outlines a model of language that can be characterized as functionalist usage-based dynamic and complex-adaptive. The core idea is that linguistic structure is not stable and uniform but continually refreshed by the interaction between three components: usage the communicative activities of speakers; conventionalization the social processes triggered by these activities and feeding back into them; and entrenchment the individual cognitive processes that are also linked to these activities in a feedback loop. Hans-Jorg Schmid explains how this multiple feedback system works by extending his Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model showing how the linguistic system is created sustained and continually adapted by the ongoing interaction between usage conventionalization and entrenchment. Fulfilling the promise of usage-based accounts the model explains how exactly usage is transformed into collective and individual grammar and how these two grammars in turn feed back into usage. <p/>The book is exceptionally broad in scope with insights from a wide range of linguistic subdisciplines. It provides a coherent account of the role of multiple factors that influence language structure variation and change including frequency economy identity multilingualism and language contact.<br>