Languages in Contact

Description

Introducing new findings from popular culture, the globalised new economy and computer-mediated communication, this is a fascinating study of contact between languages in modern societies. Ansaldo and Lim bring together research on multilingualism, code-switching, language endangerment, and globalisation, into a comprehensive overview of world Englishes and creoles. Illustrated with a wide range of original examples from typologically diverse languages, including Sinitic, Autronesian, Dravidian and other non-Indo-European varieties, the book focuses on structural analyses of Asian ecologies and their relevance for current theories of contact phenomena. Full of new insights, it is essential reading for students and researchers across linguistics, culture and communication.

Lisa Lim is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Language and Communication programme at the University of Hong Kong. She co-edited The Typology of Asian Englishes (2009) and English in Multilingual, Globalising Asia (2009). She has developed the online resource LinguisticMinorities.HK, for which she won the Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award 2014. Umberto Ansaldo is Professor in Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong. His book Contact Languages: Ecology and Evolution (Cambridge, 2009) garnered the 2010 faculty research output award. He is co-editor of the Creole Language Library and editor-in-chief of Language Sciences.

'Well-informed, timely, and unique in its focus on a wide variety of language contacts in an ever more globalized Asia.' Armin Schwegler, University of California, Irvine 'It is refreshing that Lim and Ansaldo's project is less a textbook on creolistics, of which the discipline does not need another instalment, and rather a summation of the field. It is a critical distillation of significant issues and debates in creole studies integrated within a more modern sociolinguistics involving research into multilingualism, code switching, language shift, and language and globalisation.' Joshua Nash, Languages in Contrast