Language Complexity in Historical Perspective: The Enduring Tropes of Natural Growth and Abnormal Contact

Frontiers in Communication

James McElvenny¹ 

[1] null;

关键词: language complexity;    language contact;    intellectual history;    history of linguistics;    language classification;    comparative-historical linguistics;    Romanticism;    German idealism;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fcomm.2021.621712

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Focusing on the work of John McWhorter and, to a lesser extent, Peter Trudgill, this paper critically examines some common themes in language complexity research from the perspective of intellectual history. The present-day conception that increase in language complexity is somehow a “natural” process which is disturbed under the “abnormal” circumstances of language contact is shown to be a recapitulation of essentially Romantic ideas that go back to the beginnings of disciplinary linguistics. A similar genealogy is demonstrated for the related notion that grammatical complexity is a kind of “ornament” on language, surplus to the needs of “basic communication.” The paper closes by examining the implications of these ideas for linguistic scholarship.

【 授权许可】

CC BY