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Languages carry information. To fulfil this purpose, they employ a multitude of coding strategies. This book explores a core property of linguistic coding - called lexical diversity. Parallel text corpora of overall more than 1800 texts written in more than 1200 languages are the basis for computational analyses. Different measures of lexical diversity are discussed and tested, and Shannon's measure of uncertainty - the entropy - is chosen to assess differences in the distributions of words. To further explain this variation, a range of descriptive, explanatory, and grouping factors are considered in a series of statistical models. The first category includes writing systems, word-formation patterns, registers and styles. The second category includes population size, non-native speaker proportions and language status. Grouping factors further elicit whether the results extrapolate across - or are limited to - specific language families and areas. This account marries information-theoretic methods with a complex systems framework, illustrating how languages adapt to the varying needs of their users. It sheds light on the puzzling diversity of human languages in a quantitative, data driven and reproducible manner.

Language and languages --- Variation. --- E-books --- Linguistic change. --- Word (Linguistics) --- Linguistics --- Change, Linguistic --- Language change --- Historical linguistics --- Characterology of speech --- Language diversity --- Language subsystems --- Language variation --- Linguistic diversity --- Variation in language --- Canvi lingüístic. --- Paraula (Lingüística) --- Llenguatge i llengües --- Variació. --- Diversitat lingüística --- Llengües --- Variació del llenguatge --- Variació lingüística --- Variació social (Lingüística) --- Variant lingüística --- Varietat lingüística --- Mots --- Paraules --- Lingüística --- Lingüística històrica --- Varietat --- Variació --- Language Change and Evolution. --- Linguistic Adaptation. --- Quantitative Linguistic Typology. --- Word Entropy.

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This volume depicts the phenomenon of cross-linguistic influences in the specific context of multilingual language acquisition. It consists of articles on various issues relating to the syntactic and lexical development of foreign language learners from different L1 backgrounds, in many cases involving languages which are typologically distant from English, such as Russian, Croatian, Greek and Portuguese. Individual chapters highlight different areas expected to be especially transfer-prone at the level of grammatical and lexical transfer in particular contexts of language contact.

Multilingualism. --- Second language acquisition. --- Second language acquisition --- Multilingualism --- Languages & Literatures --- Philology & Linguistics --- Vocabulary --- Language transfer (Language learning) --- Interlanguage (Language learning) --- Languages in contact. --- Intercultural communication. --- Study and teaching. --- Cross-cultural communication --- Transfer, Language (Language learning) --- Second language learning --- Linguistics. --- Comparative linguistics. --- Comparative Linguistics. --- Communication --- Culture --- Cross-cultural orientation --- Cultural competence --- Multilingual communication --- Technical assistance --- Areal linguistics --- Language acquisition --- Language and languages --- Languages, Mixed --- Anthropological aspects --- Study and teaching --- Comparative philology --- Philology, Comparative --- Historical linguistics --- Adquisició d'una segona llengua --- Multilingüisme --- Lingüística comparada --- Filología comparada --- Lingüística històrica --- Comparació (Lingüística) --- Lingüística contrastiva --- Reconstrucció (Lingüística) --- Diversitat lingüística --- Plurilingüisme --- Llenguatge i llengües --- Bilingüisme --- Ensenyament multilingüe --- Llengües modernes --- ASL --- SLA --- Aprenentatge d'una segona llengua --- Adquisició del llenguatge --- Interllenguatge (Aprenentatge de llengües) --- Aprenentatge integrat de continguts i llengües estrangeres