Language as a Complex Adaptive System

Explores a new approach to studying language as a complex adaptive system, illustrating its commonalities across many areas of language research Brings together a team of leading researchers in linguistics, psychology, and complex systems to discuss the groundbreaking significance of this perspective for their work Illustrates its application across a variety of subfields, including languages usage, language evolution, language structure, and first and second language acquisition "What a breath of fresh air! As interesting a collection of papers as you are likely to find on the evolution, learning, and use of language from the point of view of both cognitive underpinnings and communicative functions."  Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Editorial and Dedications v-vii Nick C. Ellis & Diane Larsen-Freeman Chapter 1:  Language is a complex adaptive system: Position paper 1-26   ‘The Five Graces Group' Clay Beckner, Richard Blythe, Joan Bybee, Morten H. Christiansen, William Croft, Nick C. Ellis, John Holland, Jinyun Ke, Diane Larsen-Freeman, & Tom Schoenemann Chapter 2: A usage-based account of constituency and reanalysis 27-46 Clay Beckner & Joan Bybee Chapter 3: The speech community in evolutionary language dynamics  47-63 Richard A. Blythe & William A. Croft Chapter 4: Linking rule acquisition in novel phrasal constructions 64-89 Jeremy K. Boyd, Erin A. Gottschalk, & Adele E. Goldberg Chapter 5: Constructing a second language: Analyses and computational simulations of the emergence of linguistic constructions from usage 90-125 Nick C. Ellis & Diane Larsen-Freeman Chapter 6: A usage-based approach to recursion in sentence processing 126-161 Morten H. Christiansen, & Maryellen C. MacDonald Chapter 7: Evolution of brain and language 162-186 P. Thomas Schoenemann Chapter 8: Complex adaptive systems and the origins of adaptive structure: what experiments can tell us 187-205  Hannah Cornish, Monica Tamariz,  & Simon Kirby Chapter 9: Meaning in the making: meaning potential emerging from acts of meaning 206-229 Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen Chapter 10: Individual differences: Interplay of learner characteristics and learning environment 230-248 Zoltán Dörnyei Chapter 11: If language is a complex adaptive system, what is language assessment? 249-268 Robert J. Mislevy & Chengbin Yin Subject Index 268-275