Languages

Provides linguistic descriptions of a selected assortment of languages from renowned scholars, as well as historical and cultural information for each language.

The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition brings together fifty leading international figures in the field to produce an overview of Second Language Acquisition. The Handbook covers a wide range of topics related to Second Language Acquisition: language in context, linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic theories and perspectives, skill learning, individual differences, L2 learning settings, and language assessment.

It is generally agreed that about 7,000 languages are spoken across the world today and at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. This state-of-the-art Handbook examines the reasons behind this dramatic loss of linguistic diversity, why it matters, and what can be done to document and support endangered languages. The volume is relevant not only to researchers in language endangerment, language shift and language death, but to anyone interested in the languages and cultures of the world. It is accessible both to specialists and non-specialists: researchers will find cutting-edge contributions from acknowledged experts in their fields, while students, activists and other interested readers will find a wealth of readable yet thorough and up-to-date information.

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further research.

The volume is aimed at readers who have an interest in some aspect of language science but wish to learn more about the broad range of ideas, findings, practices, and prospects that constitute this rapidly expanding field, a field arguably at the center of current research on the human mind and human society.