On language change: The invisible hand in language (original) (raw)
1997, Journal of Pragmatics
This is a translation of Keller's (1990) book Sprachwandel; the translation includes a new section (§5.2) not in the first German edition. Keller's book has already had considerable influence in historical linguistics but is also of interest to pragmatics, because of Keller's attempt to focus the problem of language change where it actually occurs: in conversational interaction between interlocutors. The book is written for a general audience: very few examples of language changes, all references in endnotes rather than the text, many analogies and comparisons to nonlinguistic phenomena. It succeeds well in this respect; it is well-written, which means also well-translated, with English examples at all but the most crucial points. Ideas are introduced and reintroduced cleverly, with a buildup to Keller's theory and then a slightly more technical drawing out of consequences. The analogies and comparisons to nonlinguistic phenomena are actually central to the theoretical point to the book, since Keller takes his inspiration largely from classical and neoclassical economic theory. Chapter 1 ('The problem of language change') establishes the empirical fact the languages are always changing-the fact that this book intends to explain. And Keller then introduces the basic themes that will form the basis of his model. Language change must be reduced to linguistic acts by individuals; one must not hypostatize language as a source of linguistic causation. Linguistic acts of communication are themselves carried out to achieve human interactional goals. And changing language is not in itself one of those interactional goals. Instead, language change :arises indirectly as a result of the process of conversation. A corollary of these premises is that in order to explain language change, one must provide a functional theory of linguistic behavior (language use)-and indeed, reference to theories of intention, action and convention figure throughout the book. These premises are all worth repeating. Many theorists in historical linguistics, some of whom Keller discusses but many of whom he passes over, commit the fallacies that Keller attempts to dispel with these premises repeatedly throughout the I am grateful to Mira Ariel, Martin Haspelmath, Elizabeth Traugott and Nigel Vincent for comments on an earlier version of this review. None of the aforenamed necessarily endorse the views expressed herein.
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Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 1992
This volume derives from the symposium "The causes of language change: do we know them yet?" at the University of Troms0 in 1987. The papers offer no major breakthroughs in understanding the causes of linguistic change, nor does any cohesive overview emerge of why languages change. Nevertheless, this collection does contain valuable contributions. The views of causes and explanation in these papers vary greatly in scale and orientation. They range from explications of individual changes to rather abstract, programmatic overviews. Most of the papers do not indicate what they mean by "explanation" or "cause". For most linguists, explanation is not the Coseriu-Andersen "rational explication" (p. 7), nor are linguists likely to accept Ureland's assertions of (perhaps better called hopes for) a paradigm shift which makes more room for social and political factors. At the other end of the scale, Ohala (pp. 173-5) argues that all sciences ultimately resort to "probabilistic explanations" which are not fully nomological (exceptionless, lawful), while he avoids teleological explanations, preferring mechanistic ones. And what about "change"? The views represented vary greatly. Ureland would subsume linguistic change under social and political change, and Muhlhausler seems to concur. Andersen follows Coseriu's claim (which Andersen upholds only in part) that linguistic change does not exist (p. 12); Andersen observes that "in linguistics the word 'change' has come to be more of a liability than an asset" (p. 11)! Ohala holds sound change to be non-mentalistic and the lack of change to be the evidence that speakers create rules in their grammars (p. 193). The variety of approaches represented here is best appreciated by reference to the individual papers. Henning Andersen's "Understanding linguistic innovations" is an accessible repetition of his views (published, for example, in Andersen 1975,1980a, 1980b, 1988). This is a programmatic presentation, with no examples, of Andersen's broad-scale approach to linguistic change. Andersen acknowledges extensive inspiration from Coseriu. For Coseriu, the task of the historical linguist is not causal explanation but that of rational explication. Andersen, however, attempts to avoid one of the often-criticized shortcomings of Coseriu's scheme, that of underemphasizing aspects of language change that are not necessarily subject to human will (i.e. certain universals). Central to the Coseriu-Andersen view of language change is the asymmetrical relationship between norms (actual usage) and system (productive rules)-for example, unproductive patterns defined in the norms may be curtailed and superceded by the productive patterns of the system (p. 19). For Andersen, since grammar acquisition is based on abduction, divergent interpretations of the same usage are possible. Different speakers are capable of producing usage which conforms to the same norms in spite of differences in their internal grammatical systems (p. 19).
Language Change: Faces and Facets
2014
This volume is a collection of papers dealing with various aspects of language change. The collection is a good illustration of the place occupied by historical linguistics in modern linguistics as aptly captured by Joseph (2001) ‘while not in the center of the field of linguistics, historical linguistics nonetheless draws on virtually all aspects of the field in ways that other subfields do not’. This wide array of different aspects of modern linguistics that historical studies embrace can be seen in the papers included in the present volume. There are papers by Bloch-Rozmej, Jaskuła, Wójcik and Zdziebko, which deal with phonology and phonological theory. Syntactic analysis forms a major part of the contributions by Bondaruk and Bartczak Meszyńska, Charzyńska-Wójcik, Malicka-Kleparska, Mokrosz and Zhang. Papers by Charzyńska-Wójcik and Charzyński and a contribution by Lis deal with the historical evolution of the lexicon, while Szymanek deals with historical morphology. Finally, a contribution by Klimkowski is an interesting and inspiring inquiry into the nature of change in general.
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