Language As a Complex Adaptive System

The papers in this volume review this new approach to language and illustrate its commonalities across many areas of language research Presents discussions from leading researchers in linguistics, psychology, and complex systems on the path-breaking significance of this perspective for their work

Nick C. Ellis is Research Scientist in the English Language Institute, Professor of Psychology, and Associated Faculty in the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan. His research interests include language acquisition, cognition, corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, and emergentism. He is the author of more than 130 scientific papers and chapters and has edited books on Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages (Academic Press, 1994), Handbook of Spelling: Theory, Process and Intervention (John Wiley, 1994, with Gordon Brown), and Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (Routledge, 2008, with Peter Robinson). He served as editor of Language Learning from 1998-2002 and is currently the general Editor. Diane Larsen-Freeman is Research Scientist at the English Language Institute, Professor of Education, Professor of Linguistics, and Associated Faculty in the Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan. Her books include Discourse Analysis in Second Language Research (Newbury House, 1980), The Grammar Book (co-authored with Marianne Celce-Murcia, Heinle/Cengage, 1983; 1999), Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (Oxford University Press, 1986; 2000), An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research (co-authored with Michael Long, Longman, 1991), Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring (Heinle/Cengage, 2003), and Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics (co-authored with Lynne Cameron, Oxford University Press, 2008). From 1980-1985, Dr. Larsen-Freeman was Editor of the journal Language Learning and currently serves on its Board of Directors.