Explores a new approach to studying language as a complex adaptive system, illustrating its commonalities across many areas of language research Brings together a team of leading researchers in linguistics, psychology, and complex systems to discuss the groundbreaking significance of this perspective for their work Illustrates its application across a variety of subfields, including languages usage, language evolution, language structure, and first and second language acquisition "What a breath of fresh air! As interesting a collectionof papers as you are likely to find on the evolution,learning, and use of language from the point ofview of both cognitive underpinnings and communicative functions." Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute forEvolutionary Anthropology