As an ever-pertinent topic in linguistics, language contact in the increasingly globalized contemporary world calls for a broadened perspective and interdisciplinary approach. Languages in contact, a well-organized volume of eight informative chapters by Lisa Lim & Umberto Ansaldo, serves as a timely eye-opener with regard to the nature, effects, and implications of language contact against the backdrop of today's world.
Adopting a macro-sociolinguistic perspective on language contact, the book attempts to link linguistic phenomena to the broader and more recent concerns of language ecology, speaker identity, and globalization (chapter 1). Facing apparently diverse language practices in vivo, the authors choose to transect the language life cycle into different stages of language birth, language change, and language death (chapters 2–6), thus unifying various accounts about languages in contact and the relevant factors into a neat framework. In particular, while tackling the ‘Babel question’ of language evolution, the authors discuss the respective merits and defects of ‘Creole prototype’ theory and the evolutionary framework, and offer a favorable evaluation of the latter through an in-depth case analysis of Malays in Sri Lanka, which eloquently manifests the connection between language choices and identity alignment (chapter 4). The same sociolinguistic perspective is also clearly seen in the subsequent chapter, which explores specific linguistic features, discourse particles, and tones. As the authors argue, a better understanding of these features requires not only linguistic analysis but also sociolinguistic awareness at both the micro level (i.e. demographic factors) and the macro level (i.e. language policies).
Apart from a thorough combing of the aforementioned facts and frameworks about language contact, a more inviting picture unfolds in chapter 7, which explores dynamic and emergent language contact in different domains, such as computer-mediated communication, a globalized new economy, globalized urban and rural populations, and popular culture. With a particular interest in Asian countries, this chapter devotes much of its attention to such regions as Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia, and Singapore as significant cases of language contact in the global economic center of gravity in the East.
In the last chapter, the authors entertain a few reflective, as well as progressive, points about languages in contact. On the one hand, they effectively broaden the research scope of contact languages and varieties by introducing Sinitic, Austronesian, and other marginalized codes. On the other hand, they enrich the future research agenda in this field by introducing such sociolinguistic themes as language ecology, identity maintenance, and language policies.
This comprehensive and constructive volume makes a considerable contribution to the growing literature on language contact in particular and sociolinguistics in general. Its interdisciplinary threads, globalized vision, and thorough illustration of the language life cycle definitely offers its readers a rewarding and enlightening experience of study. Also noteworthy is its coverage of some recent exploratory studies in the Asian regions and on new emergent varieties that are otherwise neglected in traditional language contact studies.
