Addresses an issue hotly debated in the linguistic theory: the relation between language usage and language structure

The volume addresses an issue hotly debated in current linguistic theory: the relation between language usage and language structure. The contributors represent different theoretical positions. What they have in common is that they recognize structure and usage as non-reducible linguistic phenomena and take seriously the challenge to describe the relation between them.

Most of the time we communicate using language without considering the complex activity we are undertaking, forming words and sentences in a split second. This book introduces the analysis of language structure, combining both description and theory within a single, practical text. It begins by examining words and parts of words, and then looks at how words work together to form sentences that communicate meaning. Sentence patterns across languages are also studied, looking at the similarities and the differences we find in how languages communicate meaning. The book also discusses how context can affect how we structure our sentences: the context of a particular language and its structures, the context of old and new information for us and our addressee(s), and the context of our culture.

An investigation into the way people use language in speech and writing, this volume introduces the corpus-based approach, which is based on analysis of large databases of real language examples stored on computer.

Language Structure and Environment is a broad introduction to how languages are shaped by their environment. It makes the argument that the social, cultural, and natural environment of speakers influences the structures and development of the languages they speak. After a general overview, the contributors explain in a number of detailed case studies how specific cultural, societal, geographical, evolutionary and meta-linguistic pressures determine the development of specific grammatical features and the global structure of a varied selection of languages. This is a work of meticulous scholarship at the forefront of a burgeoning field of linguistics.

The papers published in this volume were originally presented at the Third North American Symposium on Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching held on 23-25 March 2001 at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Each paper analyses some aspect of language use or structure in one or more of the many linguistic corpora now available. The number of different corpora investigated in the book is a real testament to the progress that has been made in recent years in developing new corpora, particularly spoken corpora, as over half of the papers deal either wholly or partially with the analysis of spoken data. This book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students and scholars interested in corpus, socio and applied linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and language teaching.

This volume centers on three important theoretical concepts for the study of language change and the ways in which language structure emerges and turns into new structure: reanalysis, actualization, and indexicality. Reanalysis is a part of ongoing everyday language use, a process through which language is reproduced and changed. Actualization refers to the processes through which a reanalyzed structure spreads throughout single communities and society. Indexicality covers the way in which parts of a linguistic system can point to other parts of the system, both syntagmatically and paradigmatically. The inclusion of indexicality leads to fine-grained analysis in morphology, word order, and constructional syntax.

During most of the 20th century, the classical Saussurean distinction between language usage and language structure remained untranscendable in much linguistic theory. The dominant view, propagated in particular by generative grammar, was that there are structural facts and usage facts, and that in principle the former are independent of, and can be described in complete isolation from, the latter. With the appearance of functional-cognitive approaches on the scene, this view has been challenged. The view of structure as usage-based has had two consequences that make time ripe for a focused study of the interaction between usage and structure. Within the generative camp it has inspired a more explicit and precise description of the status of usage. Within the functional-cognitive camp it has blurred the status of structure. Perhaps because functionalists and cognitivists have had to position themselves in relation to generative grammar, some have emphasized the role of usage facts to the extent that structure is largely ignored. Accounts of language usage, language acquisition and language change are impossible without an assumption about what it is that is being used, acquired, or subjected to change. And more moderate functionalists and cognitive functionalists recognize both structural facts and usage facts as genuine facts central to the understanding of language. Still, the linguistic literature that shares this position does not abound with explicit, precise characterizations of the relationship between usage and structure. The present volume brings together scholars from different theoretical positions to address theoretical and methodological aspects of the relation between language usage and structure. The contributors differ with respect to how they conceive of this relation and, more basically, with respect to how they conceive of linguistic structure. What they have in common, however, is that they recognize structure and usage as non-reducible linguistic phenomena and take seriously the challenge to describe the relation between them.

Provides a dynamic network model of grammar that explains how linguistic structure is shaped by language use.

Language demonstrates structure while also showing considerable variation at all levels: languages differ from one another while still being shaped by the same principles; utterances within a language differ from one another while exhibiting the same structural patterns; languages change over time, but in fairly regular ways. This book focuses on the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language that addresses the nature of grammar, taking into account its variance and gradience, and seeks explanation in terms of the recurrent processes that operate in language use. The evidence is based on the study of large corpora of spoken and written language, what we know about how languages change, as well as the results of experiments with language users. The result is an integrated theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution.