Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R.M.W. Dixon and Nerida Jarkey (eds.), The integration of language and society: A cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 408 pages

Abstract

This volume brings together papers based on presentations originally given by the various contributors at the 2019 workshop ‘The Integration of Language and Society’. There are some construals of the phrase ‘the integration of language and society’ which are completely uncontroversial. One is the idea that social factors are the driving force for much of the systematic variability found in language use, which in turn largely accounts for the spread of variants in language change. Another is that societal changes—newly established contact with speakers of another language, the creation of new technologies, the abandonment of old ones, the advent of previously undreamt of and thus hitherto unnamed concepts, and suchlike—can lead to the rise of new lexical items and the obsolescence of others. Over time, the accretion of such changes can leave unmistakable societal imprints on a language’s lexicon. Linguists do not, it seems to me, differ on whether there is ‘integration of language and society’when it comes to suchmatters. They differ only in their level of professional interest in these topics as opposed to others. The volume under review seems to set out to argue for some rather more contentious types of integration, however. This is visible in the inside front cover, where we read that ‘The volume explores the interaction of language and society as reflected in the grammar of a language. Each language bears an imprint of the society that speaks it [...] The findings advance our understanding of how nonlinguistic traits have their correlates in language, and how these [correlates in language—NM] change when society changes’ (emphasis mine). While this quotation seems to emphasise social and cultural influence on grammar, elsewhere, it is made clear that the editors regard the flow of influence to be bi-directional. As the editors put it: ‘Language and society are closely integrated and mutually supportive (rather than one being dependent on the other) [...]’ (2). In the rest of this review, I will first present a chapter-by-chapter overview, before returning to the key question of the integration of language and society, and the levels at which such integration holds.