Contact has always been a normal part of the development of languages, from those of ancient empires, those of colonial expansion, and to those of our globalizing planet today. Pidgin and creole studies have merged with the study of other language contact phenomena (adult second-language acquisition, bilingualism, bilingual mixed languages, language shift, partially restructured languages, language attrition, etc.) to form the flourishing field of contact linguistics.

This new Routledge Major Work brings together the most important contributions advancing our understanding of...

Viewing language as a dynamic semiotic system that shapes and is shaped by cultural, social, and cognitive factors alike, the materials gathered in this new Major Work collection from Routledge explore how people in communities worldwide think about language, talk about language, use language, and change language. The collected works illustrate the ways in which language practices -- spoken, written, and signed -- are resources that participants use for creating social worlds and accomplishing a wide range of activities within those worlds. Furthermore, they demonstrate how analysts use...