The influence of usage frequency, and particularly of linguistic similarity on human linguistic behavior and linguistic change in situations of language contact are well documented in contact linguistics literature. However, a theoretical framework capable of unifying the various explanations, which are usually couched in either structuralist, sociolinguistic, or psycholinguistic parlance, is still lacking. In this introductory article we argue that a usage-based approach to language organization and linguistic behavior suits this purpose well and that the study of language contact phenomena will benefit from the adoption of this theoretical perspective. The article sketches an outline of usage-based linguistics, proposes ways to analyze language contact phenomena in this framework, and summarizes the major findings of the individual contributions to the special issue, which not only demonstrate that contact phenomena are usefully studied from the usage-based perspective, but document that taking a usage-based approach reveals new aspects of old phenomena.

使用频率的影响，特别是语言相似性对人类语言行为和语言接触情况下语言变化的影响，在接触语言学文献中有很好的记载。然而，仍然缺乏能够统一各种解释的理论框架，这些解释通常以结构主义、社会语言学或心理语言学的说法表达。在这篇介绍性文章中，我们认为基于使用的语言组织和语言行为方法非常适合这一目的，并且语言接触现象的研究将受益于采用这种理论视角。这篇文章勾勒出基于用法的语言学的轮廓，提出了在这个框架下分析语言接触现象的方法，