Ralph Ludwig - Böcker

Contributions from an international team of experts revisit and update the concept of linguistic ecology in order to critically examine current theoretical approaches to language contact. Language is understood as a part of complex socio-historical-cultural systems, and interaction between the different dimensions and levels of these systems is considered to be essential for specific language forms. This book presents a uniform, abstract model of linguistic ecology based on, among other things, two concepts of Edmund Husserl's philosophy (parts and wholes, and foundation). It considers the individual speaker in the specific communication situation to be the essential heuristic basis of linguistic analysis. The chapters present and employ a new, transparent and accessible contact linguistic vocabulary to aid reader comprehension, and explore a wide range of language contact situations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific. This book will be fascinating reading for students and researchers across contact linguistics and cultural studies.

Contributions from an international team of experts revisit and update the concept of linguistic ecology in order to critically examine current theoretical approaches to language contact. Language is understood as a part of complex socio-historical-cultural systems, and interaction between the different dimensions and levels of these systems is considered to be essential for specific language forms. This book presents a uniform, abstract model of linguistic ecology based on, among other things, two concepts of Edmund Husserl's philosophy (parts and wholes, and foundation). It considers the individual speaker in the specific communication situation to be the essential heuristic basis of linguistic analysis. The chapters present and employ a new, transparent and accessible contact linguistic vocabulary to aid reader comprehension, and explore a wide range of language contact situations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific. This book will be fascinating reading for students and researchers across contact linguistics and cultural studies.

An island with no native population, Mauritius was permanently peopled through colonisation as from the early eighteenth century. European colonists, African and Malagasy slaves, Indian contract labourers, Chinese and Indian petty merchants settled on the island and progressively created a society shaped by the diversity of its population and also by the unequal access to limited resources and wealth. Contemporary Mauritius tends to be sensitive to its multiple origins and identity boundaries, as well as to potential conflicts and the importance of interaction and communication in a multicultural society. Common denominators of culture and language, as well as dynamic processes of cultural and linguistic hybridity, that could form the basis of an all-Mauritian culture thus become crucial. This is shown in the studies presented in this volume which are given a wider perspective through comparison with other post-colonial societies such as the French Caribbean.