RE: "Explaining Language Change"

From: Vincent Campbell (v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 26 2001 - 11:04:20 GMT

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    From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Subject: RE: "Explaining Language Change"
    Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 11:04:20 -0000
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    Thanks for this sounds, interesting.

    > ----------
    > From: William Benzon
    > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 11:42 am
    > To: Memetics Discussion List
    > Cc: Bill Croft
    > Subject: FW: "Explaining Language Change"
    >
    > Yo memeticists -- I figure this book should be of interest to you -- Bill
    > B
    >
    >
    > ----------
    > From: Bill Croft <w.croft@man.ac.uk>
    > Reply-To: Bill Croft <w.croft@man.ac.uk>
    > Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 17:00:11 -0800 ( PST)
    > To: cogling@ucsd.edu
    > Subject: "Explaining Language Change"
    >
    > I would like to announce that my book "Explaining Language
    > Change" is finally available outside the UK---it is now listed as
    > available at a major Internet bookseller, listed at US$22
    > paperback (the UK price is 19.99 pounds).
    >
    > I am sending this announcement because the publisher (Longman)
    > was bought up by Pearson, who terminated linguistics
    > publication, is not marketing their recent linguistics books, and
    > has not answered correspondence.
    >
    > I have appended the jacket description of the book. My apologies
    > to those who receive multiple copies of this announcement.
    >
    > Bill Croft
    >
    >
    > "Explaining Language Change"
    > William Croft, University of Manchester
    > ISBN 0-582-35677-6 (paperback), June 2000. Pp. xvi, 287.
    >
    > Ever since the origins of both linguistics and evolutionary
    > biology in the 19th century, scholars have noted the similarity
    > between biological evolution and language change. Yet until
    > recently neither linguists nor biologists have developed a model
    > of evolution general enough to apply across the two fields. Even
    > in linguistics, the field is split between the historical
    > linguists who study change in language structure, and the
    > sociolinguists who study social variation in the speech
    > community.
    >
    > "Explaining language change" represents the first thoroughly
    > worked out framework for language evolution, building on the
    > pioneering ideas of Richard Dawkins and David Hull in biology
    > and philosophy of science. Its central thesis is that the locus
    > of language change is the utterance in social intercourse.
    > Linguistic innovations emerge from the remarkable complexity of
    > communication in social interaction. Once innovations occur,
    > they are propagated through the equally complex social
    > structures of the speech communities we participate in.
    >
    > "Explaining language change" provides a framework for assessing
    > current theories of language change, and advances new ideas
    > about grammatical reanalysis, conventional and nonconventional
    > use of language, the structure of speech communities, language
    > mixing, and the notion of "progress" in language change.
    > "Explaining language change" reintegrates sociolinguistics and
    > historical linguistics, weaving together research on grammatical
    > change, pragmatics, social variation, language contact and
    > genetic linguistics.
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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