Publications

Publication details [#1444]

Hall, Christopher. 2013. Cognitive contributions to plurilithic views of English and other languages. Applied Linguistics 34 (2) : 211–231. 21 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Oxford journals

Abstract

The paper puts forward the claim that developing an understanding of ‘plurilithic’ Englishes informed by cognitively oriented linguistics can complement and consolidate valuable but often divisive socially oriented efforts to ‘disinvent’ named languages. Generativism can be reanalysed in a ‘polylingually constituted’ version of Chomskyan I-language concept, which can capture the bottom-up nature of individual language resources and draw a clear contrast with folk ontologies of English as a named monolithic system. Moreover, it is argued that learning and use are determined by individuals’ local experiences as non-conformist mental appropriators of external social practices, rather than by top-down notions of proficiency in monolithic national, foreign, international, or supranational varieties.