The Handbook of Language Contact

by Raymond Hickey (Editor)

Overview

The second edition of the definitive reference on contact studies and linguistic change—provides extensive new research and original case studies

Language contact is a dynamic area of contemporary linguistic research that studies how language changes when speakers of different languages interact. Accessibly structured into three sections, The Handbook of Language Contact explores the role of contact studies within the field of linguistics, the value of contact studies for language change research, and the relevance of language contact for sociolinguistics. This authoritative volume presents original findings and fresh research directions from an international team of prominent experts. Thirty-seven specially-commissioned chapters cover a broad range of topics and case studies of contact from around the world. 

Now in its second edition, this valuable reference has been extensively updated with new chapters on topics including globalization, language acquisition, creolization, code-switching, and genetic classification. Fresh case studies examine Romance, Indo-European, African, Mayan, and many other languages in both the past and the present. Addressing the major issues in the field of language contact studies, this volume: 

• Includes a representative sample of individual studies which re-evaluate the role of language contact in the broader context of language and society
• Offers 23 new chapters written by leading scholars
• Examines language contact in different societies, including many in Africa and Asia
• Provides a cross-section of case studies drawing on languages across the world

The Handbook of Language Contact, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for researchers, scholars, and students involved in language contact, language variation and change, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781119485070
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	04/21/2025
Series:	Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	800
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Raymond Hickey is Professor of Linguistics at Essen University, Germany. His main areas of research are varieties of English (especially Irish English) and general questions of language contact, shift, and change as well as computer corpus processing. He has published widely, the most recent titles being A Sound Atlas of Irish English (2004), Legacies of Colonial English (2004), Dublin English: Evolution and Change (2005), Irish English: History and Present-Day Forms (2007), and Eighteenth-Century English: Ideology and Change (2010).

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Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors viii

Preface xviii

Language Contact: Reconsideration and Reassessment 1
Raymond Hickey

Part I Contact and Linguistics 29

1 Contact Explanations in Linguistics 31
Sarah Thomason

2 Genetic Classification and Language Contact 48
Michael Noonan

3 Contact, Convergence, and Typology 66
Yaron Matras

4 Contact and Grammaticalization 86
Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva

5 Language Contact and Grammatical Theory 106
Karen P. Corrigan

6 Computational Models and Language Contact 128
April McMahon

Part II Contact and Change 149

7 Contact and Language Shift 151
Raymond Hickey

8 Contact and Borrowing 170
Donald Winford

9 Contact and Code-Switching 188
Penelope Gardner-Chloros

10 Contact and Dialectology 208
David Britain

11 Contact and New Varieties 230
Paul Kerswill

12 Contact and Change: Pidgins and Creoles 252
John Holm

Part III Contact and Society 263

13 Scenarios for Language Contact 265
Pieter Muysken

14 Ethnic Identity and Linguistic Contact 282
Carmen Fought

15 Contact and Sociolinguistic Typology 299
Peter Trudgill

16 Contact and Language Death 320
Suzanne Romaine

17 Fieldwork in Contact Situations 340
Claire Bowern

Part IV Case Studies of Contact 359

18 Macrofamilies, Macroareas, and Contact 361
Johanna Nichols

19 Contact and Prehistory: The Indo-European Northwest 380
Theo Vennemann

20 Contact and the History of Germanic Languages 406
Paul Roberge

21 Contact and the Early History of English 432
Markku Filppula

22 Contact and the Development of American English 454
Joseph C. Salmons and Thomas C. Purnell

23 Contact Englishes and Creoles in the Caribbean 478
Edgar W. Schneider

24 Contact and Asian Varieties of English 498
Umberto Ansaldo

25 Contact and African Englishes 518
Rajend Mesthrie

26 Contact and the Celtic Languages 538
Joseph F. Eska

27 Spanish and Portuguese in Contact 550
John M. Lipski

28 Contact and the Development of the Slavic Languages 581
Lenore A. Grenoble

29 Contact and the Finno-Ugric Languages 598
Johanna Laakso

30 Language Contact in the Balkans 618
Brian D. Joseph

31 Contact and the Development of Arabic 634
Kees Versteegh

32 Turkic Language Contacts 652
Lars Johanson

33 Contact and North American Languages 673
Marianne Mithun

34 Language Contact in Africa: A Selected Review 695
G. Tucker Childs

35 Contact and Siberian Languages 714
Brigitte Pakendorf

36 Language Contact in South Asia 738
Harold F. Schiffman

37 Language Contact and Chinese 757
Stephen Matthews

38 Contact and Indigenous Languages in Australia 770
Patrick McConvell

39 Language Contact in the New Guinea Region 795
William A. Foley

40 Contact Languages of the Pacific 814
Jeff Siegel

Author Index 837

Subject Index 844

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Excellent! Truly thorough coverage of all aspects and areas of language contact. This handbook surveys virtually everything known about the topic to date but also provides much new information and provocative thinking here for the first time. With 40 chapters written by the most stellar scholars in this field, this is an important book, not to be missed."
—Lyle Campbell, University of Utah

"This latest addition to Blackwell's authoritative Handbook series is an impressive achievement. The editor has assembled an outstanding team of contributors, who collectively provide a comprehensive and unparalleled survey of the field of language contact, covering both theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues and a wide range of case studies. It will be an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students alike."
—Patrick Stevenson, University of Southampton