Books
To browse by subfields of a subject, please start on the Subjects tab in the navigation bar/menu, then filter by subject-subcategory and by content type.
1 - 20 of 113 results
-
-
A Historical Syntax of Late Middle Indo-Aryan (Apabhraṃśa)
More LessThis monograph aims to close the gap in our knowledge of the nature and pace of grammatical change during the formative period of today’s Indo-Aryan languages. During the 6th-12th c. the gradual erosion of the synthetic morphology of Old Indo-Aryan resulted ultimately in the remodelling of its syntax in the direction of the New Indo-Aryan analytic type.
This study concentrates on the emergence and development of the ergative construction in terms of the passive-to-ergative reanalysis and the co-existence of the ergative construction with the old and new analytic passive constructions. Special attention is paid to the actuation problem seen as the tug of war between conservative and eliminative forces during their development. Other chapters deal with the evolution of grammatical and lexical aspect, causativization, modality, absolute constructions and subordination.
This study is based on a wealth of new data gleaned from original poetic works in Apabhraṃśa (by Svayaṃbhādeva, Puṣpadanta, Haribhadra, Somaprabha et al.). It contains sections dealing with descriptive techniques of Medieval Indian grammarians (esp. Hemacandra). All the Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhraṃśa examples are consistently parsed and translated.
The opus is cast in the theoretical framework of Functional Grammar of the Prague and Amsterdam Schools. It should be of particular interest to scholars and students of Indo-Aryan and general historical linguistics, especially those interested in the issues of morphosyntactic change and typology in their sociohistorical setting.
-
-
-
A History of Indo-European Verb Morphology
More LessThis book explores the origin and evolution of important grammatical categories of the Indo-European verb, including the markers of person, tense, number, aspect, and mood. Its central thesis is that many of these markers can be traced to original deictic particles which were incorporated into verbal structures in order to indicate the 'hic and nunc' and various degrees of remoteness from the 'hic and nunc'. The alterations to which these deictic elements were subject are viewed here in the context of an Indo-European language very different from Brugmannian Indo-European, many features of which, it is argued, appeared only in the period of dialectal development. This book challenges numerous traditional proposals about the Indo-European verb; all reconstructions contained in it are firmly based on extant data and are consonant with established principles of linguistic change.
-
-
-
A History of Language Philosophies
More LessTheory and history combine in this book to form a coherent narrative of the debates on language and languages in the Western world, from ancient classic philosophy to the present, with a final glance at on-going discussions on language as a cognitive tool, on its bodily roots and philogenetic role.
An introductory chapter reviews the epistemological areas that converge into, or contribute to, language philosophy, and discusses their methods, relations, and goals. In this context, the status of language philosophy is discussed in its relation to the sciences and the arts of language. Each chapter is followed by a list of suggested readings that refer the reader to the final bibliography.
About the author: Lia Formigari, Professor Emeritus at University of Rome, La Sapienza. Her publications include: Language and Experience in XVIIth-century British Philosophy. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1988; Signs, Science and Politics. Philosophies of Language in Europe 1700–1830. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1993; La sémiotique empiriste face au kantisme. Liège: Mardaga, 1994.
-
-
-
A History of Literature in the Caribbean
More LessThis history for the first time charts the literature of the entire Caribbean, the islands as well as continental littoral, as one cultural region. It breaks new ground in establishing a common grid for reading literatures that have been kept separate by their linguistic frontiers. Readers will have access to the best current scholarship on the evolution of popular and literate cultures in the various regions since their earliest emergence.
The History of Literature in the Caribbean brings together the most distinguished team of literary Caribbeanists ever assembled, cutting across ideological commitments and critical methods. Differences in point of view between individual contributors are left intact here as the sign of the colonial inheritance of the region. Introductions and conclusions to the various sections of the History written by the respective subeditors, set them in proper perspective. The unique synoptic aspect of the History lies in its comprehensiveness and its range, which are unequaled.
Contributors: A. James Arnold, Julio Rodriguez-Luis, H. Lopez Morales, Maria Elena Rodriguez Castro, Silvio Torres Saillant, Seymour Menton, Ian I. Smart, Efrain Barradas, Raquel Chang-Rodriguez, Carlos Alonso, Ivan A. Schulman, W.L. Siemens, William Luis, Gustavo Pellon, Emilio Bejel, Sandra M. Cypess, Peter Earle, Adriana Mndez Rodenas, J. Michael Dash, Ulrich Fleischmann, Maximilien Laroche, Rgis Antoine, Lon-Franois Hoffmann, Randolph Hezekiah, Bridget Jones, F.I. Case, Marie-Denise Shelton, Beverly Ormerod, J. Michael Dash, Jack Corzani, Anthea Morrison, Juris Silenieks, Frantz Fanon, Vere Knight.
-
-
-
A History of Literature in the Caribbean
More LessCross-Cultural Studies is the culminating effort of a distinguished team of international scholars who have worked since the mid-1980s to create the most complete analysis of Caribbean literature ever undertaken. Conceived as a major contribution to postcolonial studies, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and regional studies of the Caribbean and the Americas, Cross-Cultural Studies illuminates the interrelations between and among Europe, the Caribbean islands, Africa, and the American continents from the late fifteenth century to the present. Scholars from five continents bring to bear on the most salient issues of Caribbean literature theoretical and critical positions that are currently in the forefront of discussion in literature, the arts, and public policy.
Among the major issues treated at length in Cross-Cultural Studies are: The history and construction of racial inequality in Caribbean colonization; The origins and formation of literatures in various Creoles; The gendered literary representation of the Caribbean region; The political and ideological appropriation of Caribbean history in creating the idea of national culture in North and South America, Europe, and Africa; The role of the Caribbean in contemporary theories of Modernism and the Postmodern; The decentering of such canonical authors as Shakespeare; The vexed but inevitable connectedness of Caribbean literature with both its former colonial metropoles and its geographical neighbors.
Contributions to Cross-Cultural Studies give a concrete cultural and historical analysis of such contemporary critical terms as hybridity, transculturation, and the carnivalesque, which have so often been taken out of context and employed in narrowly ideological contexts.
Two important theories of the simultaneous unity and diversity of Caribbean literature and culture, propounded by Antonio Benítez-Rojo and +douard Glissant, receive extended treatment that places them strategically in the debate over multiculturalism in postcolonial societies and in the context of chaos theory. A contribution by Benítez-Rojo permits the reader to test the theory through his critical practice.
Divided into nine thematic and methodological sections followed by a complete index to the names and dates of authors and significant historical figures discussed, Cross-Cultural Studies will be an indispensable resource for every library and a necessary handbook for scholars, teachers, and advanced students of the Caribbean region.
-
-
-
A History of Literature in the Caribbean
More LessFor the first time the Dutch-speaking regions of the Caribbean and Suriname are brought into fruitful dialogue with another major American literature, that of the anglophone Caribbean. The results are as stimulating as they are unexpected. The editors have coordinated the work of a distinguished international team of specialists.
Read separately or as a set of three volumes, the History of Literature in the Caribbean is designed to serve as the primary reference book in this area. The reader can follow the comparative evolution of a literary genre or plot the development of a set of historical problems under the appropriate heading for the English- or Dutch-speaking region. An extensive index to names and dates of authors and significant historical figures completes the volume.
The subeditors bring to their respective specialty areas a wealth of Caribbeanist experience. Vera M. Kutzinski is Professor of English, American, and Afro-American Literature at Yale University. Her book Sugar’s Secrets: Race and The Erotics of Cuban Nationalism, 1993, treated a crucial subject in the romance of the Caribbean nation. Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger has been very active in Latin American and Caribbean literary criticism for two decades, first at the Free University in Berlin and later at the University of Maryland. The editor of A History of Literature in the Caribbean, A. James Arnold, is Professor of French at the University of Virginia, where he founded the New World Studies graduate program. Over the past twenty years he has been a pioneer in the historical study of the Négritude movement and its successors in the francophone Caribbean.
-
-
-
A History of Russian Symbolism
More LessThe era of Russian Symbolism (1892-1917) has been called the Silver Age of Russian culture, and even the Second Golden Age. Symbolist authors are among the greatest Russian authors of this century, and their activities helped to foster one of the most significant advances in cultural life (in poetry, prose, music, theater, and painting) that has ever been seen there. This book is designed to serve as an introduction to Symbolism in Russia, as a movement, an artistic method, and a world view. The primary emphasis is on the history of the movement itself. Attention is devoted to what the Symbolists wrote, said, and thought, and on how they interacted. In this context, the main actors are the authors of poetry, prose, drama, and criticism, but space is also devoted to the important connections between literary figures and artists, philosophers, and the intelligentsia in general. This broad, detailed and balanced account of this period will serve as a standard reference work an encourage further research among scholars and students of literature.
-
-
-
A History of the English Language
More LessThis edition has been replaced by a new edition and is no longer available for purchase.
This exceptionally clear text focuses on internal changes in the English language. It outlines the history of English from pre-Old English times to the present. Not only does it present the traditional morphological descriptions of the various stages of the language, it provides many example sentences, texts, and cartoons that are analyzed for the benefit of the student and which make this book ideal for class use. Some language-external topics are covered such as early printing and authorship debates. Tables and figures complement the material covered and exercises review the main points as well as ask further, more challenging, questions. Answers to the exercises are provided, as is a time line listing some of the external events, and some guidance on how to use the OED. Complementary web site information is provided throughout the book, and a companion web site accompanies the book.
-
-
-
The Habsburg Monarchy's Many-Languaged Soul
More LessIn the years between 1848 and 1918, the Habsburg Empire was an intensely pluricultural space that brought together numerous “nationalities” under constantly changing – and contested – linguistic regimes. The multifaceted forms of translation and interpreting, marked by national struggles and extensive multilingualism, played a crucial role in constructing cultures within the Habsburg space. This book traces translation and interpreting practices in the Empire’s administration, courts and diplomatic service, and takes account of the “habitualized” translation carried out in everyday life. It then details the flows of translation among the Habsburg crownlands and between these and other European languages, with a special focus on Italian–German exchange. Applying a broad concept of “cultural translation” and working with sociological tools, the book addresses the mechanisms by which translation and interpreting constructs cultures, and delineates a model of the Habsburg Monarchy’s “pluricultural space of communication” that is also applicable to other multilingual settings.
Published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
The e-book edition of this title is available as Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND license.
-
-
-
Hand Preference and Hand Ability
More LessThis volume adds new dimension and organization to the literature of touch and the hand, covering a diversity of topics surrounding the perception and cognition of touch in relation to the hand. No animal species compare to humans with regard to the haptic (or touch) sense, so unlike visual or auditory cognition, we know little about such haptic cognition. We do know that motor skills play a major role in haptics, but senses like vision do not determine hand preference or hand ability. It seems also that the potential ability to perform a task may be present in both hands and evidence indicates that the hand used to perform tactile tasks in blind or in sighted conditions is independent of one’s hand preference. This book will be useful for those in education and robotics and can serve as a general text focusing on touch and developmental psychology.
-
-
-
Handbook of Australian Languages
More LessThis handbook makes available short grammatical sketches of Australian languages. Each grammar is written in a standard format, following guidelines provided by the editors, and includes a sample text and vocabulary text. The contributions to this volume are salvage studies, giving all the information that is available on four languages which are on the point of extinction, and an assessment of what linguistic impressions can be inferred from the scant material that is available on the extinct languages of Tasmania.
-
-
-
Handbook of Australian Languages
More LessThis handbook makes available short grammatical sketches of Australian languages. Each grammar is written in a standard format, following guidelines provided by the editors, and includes a sample text and vocabulary text. The contributions to this volume are salvage studies, giving all the information that is available on four languages which are on the point of extinction, and an assessment of what linguistic impressions can be inferred from the scant material that is available on the extinct languages of Tasmania.
-
-
-
Handbook of Australian Languages
More LessThis handbook makes available short grammatical sketches of Australian languages. Each grammar is written in a standard format, following guidelines provided by the editors, and includes a sample text and vocabulary text. In the introduction the editors discuss some of the recurrent features of languages across the continent, together with grammars of Guugu Yimidhirr by John Haviland; Pitta-Pitta by Barry J. Blake; Gumbaynggir by Diana Eades; and Yaygir by Terry Crowley.
-
-
-
Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology
More LessThe Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology, Volume 2, expands on the coverage of both regions and methodologies in the investigation of nonlinguists' perceptions of language variety. New areas studied include Canada (anglophone and francophone), Cuba, Hungary, Italy, Korea, and Mali, and most prominent among the new approaches are studies of the salience of specific linguistic features in variety identification and assessment. As in Volume I, the reader will find in these chapters everything from the statistical treatment of the ratings of dialect attributes to studies of the actual discourses of nonlinguists discussing language variety. Dialectologists, sociolinguistics, ethnographers, and applied linguists who work in areas where language variety is a concern will appreciate the findings and methods of these studies, but social scientists of every sort who want to understand the role of language in the cultural lives of ordinary people will also find much of interest here.
-
-
-
Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology
More LessPerceptual dialectology investigates what ordinary people (as opposed to professional linguists) believe about the distribution of language varieties in their own and surrounding speech communities and how they have arrived at and implement those beliefs. It studies the beliefs of the common folk about which dialects exist and, indeed, about what attitudes they have to these varieties. Some of this leads to discussion of what they believe about language in general, or “folk linguistics”. Surprising divergences from professional results can be found. For the professional, it is intriguing to find out why and whether the folk can be wrong or whether the professional has missed something.Volume 1 of this handbook aims to provide for the field of perceptual dialectology:
• a historical survey;
• a regional survey, adding to the earlier preponderance of studies in Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States;
• a methodological survey, showing, in detail, how data have been acquired and processed;
• an interpretive survey, showing how these data have been related to both linguistic and other socio-cultural facts;
• a comprehensive bibliography.
The results and methods of perceptual dialectical studies should be interesting not only to linguists, variationists, dialectologists, and students of the social psychology of language but also to sociologists, anthropologists, folklorists, and other students of culture as well as to language planners and educators.
-
-
-
Handbook of Pragmatics
More LessThis encyclopaedia of one of the major fields of language studies is a continuously updated source of state-of-the-art information for anyone interested in language use. The IPrA Handbook of Pragmatics provides easy access — for scholars with widely divergent backgrounds but with convergent interests in the use and functioning of language — to the different topics, traditions and methods which together make up the field of pragmatics, broadly conceived as the cognitive, social and cultural study of language and communication, i.e. the science of language use.
The Handbook of Pragmatics is a unique reference work for researchers, which has been expanded and updated continuously with annual installments since 1995.
Also available as Online Resource: https://www.benjamins.com/online/hop/
-
-
-
Handbook of Terminology
More LessThe current volume represents a revival of Arabic translation and terminology studies. These disciplines have been dominated by Western scholarship in recent decades, but in truth their historical tradition as a whole owes a great debt to Arabic scholarship. The first systematic translation activity ever organized was under the Abbasids in Baghdad in the 9th Century CE, and Arabic domination continued for several centuries before the tide turned. In this collection, the importance of the ongoing translation and terminology movement in the Arab world is revealed through the works of some of the most distinguished scholars, who investigate a wide range of relevant topics from the making of the first ever Arabic monolingual dictionary to modern-day localization into Arabic. Arabic terminology standardization as well as legal, medical, Sufi and Quranic terms — issues with both cultural and economic ramifications for the Arab world — are thoroughly examined, completing the solid framework of this rich tradition that still has a lot to offer.
-
-
-
Handbook of Terminology Management
More LessThe Handbook of Terminology Management is a unique work designed to meet the practical needs of terminologists, translators, lexicographers, subject specialists (e.g., engineers, medical professionals, etc.), standardizers and others who have to solve terminological problems in their daily work.
In more than 900 pages, the Handbook brings together contributions from approximately 50 expert authorities in the field. The Handbook covers a broad range of topics integrated from an international perspective and treats such fundamental issues as: practical methods of terminology management; creation and use of terminological tools (terminology databases, on-line dictionaries, etc.); terminological applications.
The high level of expertise provided by the contributors, combined with the wide range of perspectives they represent, results in a thorough coverage of all facets of a burgeoning field. The lay-out of the Handbook is specially designed for quick and for cross reference, with hypertext and an extensive index.
See also Handbook of Terminology Management set (volumes 1 and 2).
-
-
-
Handbook of Terminology Management
More LessThe Handbook of Terminology Management is a unique work designed to meet the practical needs of terminologists, translators, lexicographers, subject specialists (e.g., engineers, medical professionals, etc.), standardizers and others who have to solve terminological problems in their daily work.
In more than 900 pages, the Handbook brings together contributions from approximately 50 expert authorities in the field. The Handbook covers a broad range of topics integrated from an international perspective and treats such fundamental issues as: practical methods of terminology management; creation and use of terminological tools (terminology databases, on-line dictionaries, etc.); terminological applications.
The high level of expertise provided by the contributors, combined with the wide range of perspectives they represent, results in a thorough coverage of all facets of a burgeoning field. The lay-out of the Handbook is specially designed for quick and for cross reference, with hypertext and an extensive index.
See also Handbook of Terminology Management set (volumes 1 and 2).
-
-
-
Handbook of Terminology
More LessTerminology has started to explore unbeaten paths since Wüster, and has nowadays grown into a multi-facetted science, which seems to have reached adulthood, thanks to integrating multiple contributions not only from different linguistic schools, including computer, corpus, variational, socio-cognitive and socio-communicative linguistics, and frame-based semantics, but also from engineering and formal language developers. In this ever changing and diverse context, Terminology offers a wide range of opportunities ranging from standardized and prescriptive to prototype and user-based approaches. At this point of its road map, Terminology can nowadays claim to offer user-based and user-oriented, hence user-friendly, approaches to terminological phenomenona, when searching, extracting and analysing relevant terminology in online corpora, when building term bases that contribute to efficient communication among domain experts in languages for special purposes, or even when proposing terms and definitions formed on the basis of a generally agreed consensus in international standard bodies.
Terminology is now ready to advance further, thanks to the integration of meaning description taking into account dynamic natural language phenomena, and of consensus-based terminology management in order to help experts communicate in their domain-specific languages. In this Handbook of Terminology (HoT), the symbiosis of Terminology with Linguistics allows a mature and multi-dimensional reflection on terminological phenomena, which will eventually generate future applications which have not been tested yet in natural language.
The HoT aims at disseminating knowledge about terminology (management) and at providing easy access to a large range of topics, traditions, best practices, and methods to a broad audience: students, researchers, professionals and lecturers in Terminology, scholars and experts from other disciplines (among which linguistics, life sciences, metrology, chemistry, law studies, machine engineering, and actually any expert domain). In addition, the HoT addresses any of those with a professional or personal interest in (multilingual) terminology, translation, interpreting, localization, editing, etc., such as communication specialists, translators, scientists, editors, public servants, brand managers, engineers, (intercultural) organization specialists, and experts in any field.
Moreover, the HoT offers added value, in that it is the first handbook with this scope in Terminology which has both a print edition (also available as a PDF e-book) and an online version. For access to the Handbook of Terminology Online, please visit http://www.benjamins.com/online/hot/ . The HoT is linked to the Handbook of Translation Studies, not in the least because of its interdisciplinary approaches, but also because of the inevitable intertwining between translation and terminology. All chapters are written by specialists in the different subfields and are peer-reviewed.
-