The Dynamism of Language

Professor Warren will explain some of the complexities of studying language—New Zealand English, in particular.

Inaugural lecture - Professor Paul Warren

August 2017

While most areas of linguistics have long acknowledged that language is continually changing, psycholinguistics—the study of the psychology of language—has largely treated language as though it were a stable system of communication. But, assuming language is just as complex as the people who use it, all areas of linguistic study need to think about language as a constantly evolving, endlessly adaptive phenomenon.

Professor Warren explains some of the complexities of studying language—New Zealand English, in particular—and discuss how our mental processing systems make sense of all this variability.

This is Professor Warren’s inaugural lecture as Professor in Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington.

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