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Pragmatics forms nowadays an integral part of the description not only of modern languages but also of ancient languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek. This book explores various pragmatic phenomena in these two languages which are accessible through corpora consisting of a broad range of text types. It comprises empirical synchronic studies that deal with three main topics: (i) speech acts and pragmatic markers (ii) word order and (iii) discourse markers and particles. The specificity of this book consists in the discussion and application of various methodological approaches. It provides new insights into the pragmatic phenomena encountered compares where possible the results of the investigation of the two languages and draws conclusions of a more general nature. The volume will be of interest to linguists working on pragmatics in general and to scholars of Latin and Ancient Greek in particular.

What is the conscious mind? What is experience? In 1968 David Armstrong asked “What is a man?” and replied that a man is “a certain sort of material object”. This book starts from his question but proceeds along a different path. The traditional mind-brain identity theory is set aside and a mind-object identity theory is proposed in its place: to be conscious of an object is simply to be made of that object. Consciousness is physical but not neural.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>This groundbreaking hypothesis is supported by recent empirical findings in both perception and neuroscience and is herein tested against a series of objections of both conceptual and empirical nature: the traditional mind-brain identity arguments from illusion hallucinations dreams and mental imagery. The theory is then compared with existing externalist approaches including disjunctivism realism embodied cognition enactivism and the extended mind. Can experience and objects be one and the same?

The current volume contains a selection from papers presented at the 45th meeting of the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL 45) which took place from May 6 to 9 2015 at the University of Campinas Brazil. A volume of selected papers such as this one will ultimately be successful contingent upon the success of the event itself which proved a strong commitment to theoretical and empirical rigor to the studies in Romance linguistics. All the chapters in this volume are high-quality papers on the state-of-the-art in linguistic research into Romance languages. The studies offer a variety of topics on the syntax phonology semantics-pragmatics L2 acquisition and contact situations of Romance languages (Peninsular and American Spanish; European Brazilian and African Portuguese; French; Italian) Romance dialects (Borgomanerese) and Romance-based creoles (Palenquero).

This book is the first collective volume specifically devoted to the multifaceted phenomenon of intensification which has been traditionally regarded as related to the expression of degree scaling a quality downwards or upwards. In spite of the large amount of studies on intensifiers there is still a need for the characterization of intensification as a distinct functional category in the domain of modification. The eighteen papers of the volume contribute to this aim with a new approach (mainly corpus-based). They focus on intensification from different perspectives (both synchronic and diachronic) and theoretical frameworks concern ancient languages (Hittite Greek Latin) and modern languages (mainly Italian German English Kiswahili) and involve different levels of analysis. They also identify and examine different types of intensifiers applied to different forms and structures such as adverbs adjectives evaluative affixes discourse markers reduplication exclamative clauses coordination prosodic elements and shed light on issues which have not been extensively studied so far.

The philosophy of language of Robert Brandom is based on a theoretical structure composed of three main elements: the normative analysis of linguistic practices the inferential characterization of conceptual contents and the expressive articulation of the relations between the former two. Normative pragmatics aims to explain how linguistic practices are sufficient to confer contentful states in those who engage in them. Inferential semantics provides a theory of such pragmatic significances in terms of the inferential relations that articulate conceptual contents. Rational expressivism is the thesis that concept application is essentially a process of turning something that can only be done into something that can also be said. Such a threefold structure is the core of normative inferentialism. This book is a concise self-contained and comprehensive presentation of this philosophical enterprise. It guides the reader through the analysis of Brandom's imposing theoretical apparatus the discovery of the roots of his approach in American pragmatism and German idealism till the exploration of some of its most interesting and recent outcomes in pragmatics and semantics. It is a valuable resource for both those who approach Brandom's work for the first time and those who are interested in the potential of normative inferentialism.

Translation practice and workflows have witnessed significant changes during the last decade. New market demands to handle digital content as well as technological advances are leading this transition. The development and integration of machine translation systems have given post-editing practices a reason to be in the context of professional translation services. Translators may still work from a source text but more often than not they are presented with already translated text involving different degrees of translation automation. This scenario radically changes the cognitive demands of translation.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Technological development has inevitably influenced the translation research agenda as well. It has provided new means of penetrating deeper into the cognitive processes that make translation possible and has endorsed new concepts and theories to understand the translation process. Computational analysis of eye movements and keystroke behaviour provides us with new insights into translational reading processes of literality effects of directionality similarities between inter- and intralingual translation as well as the effects of post-editing on cognitive processes and on the quality of the final outcome. <br/>All of these themes are explored in-depth in the articles in this volume which presents new and valuable insights to anyone interested in what is currently happening in empirical process-oriented translation research.<br/>

This book offers an original treatment of the Italian clitic si. Sharply separating encoded grammar from inference in discourse it proposes a unitary meaning for si including impersonals passives and reflexives. Si signals third-person participancy but makes no distinctions of number gender or case role. The analysis advances the Columbia School framework by relying on just these straightforward oppositions attributing variety of interpretation largely to language use rather than to grammar. The analysis places si within a network of oppositions involving all the other clitics. Data come primarily from twentieth-century and more recent published and on-line literature. The book will be of interest to functional linguists students of reflexivity and scholars of the Italian language.

The use of printed words to capture language is one of the most remarkable inventions of humankind and learning to read them is one of the most remarkable achievements of individuals. In recent decades how we learn to read and understand printed text has been studied intensely in genetics education psychology and cognitive science and both the volume of research papers and breadth of the topics they examine have increased exponentially.

Theories of Reading Development collects within a single volume state-of-the-art descriptions of important theories of reading development and disabilities. The included chapters focus on multiple aspects of reading development and are written by leading experts in the field. Each chapter is an independent theoretical review of the topic to which the authors have made a significant contribution and can be enjoyed on its own or in relation to others in the book.

The volume is written for professionals graduate students and researchers in education psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It can be used either as a core or as a supplementary text in senior undergraduate and graduate education and psychology courses focusing on reading development.

The history of English news discourse is characterised by intriguing multilevel developments and the present cannot be separated from them. For example audience engagement is by no means an invention of the digital age. This collection highlights major topics that range from newspaper genres like sports reports advertisements and comic strips to a variety of news practices. All contributions view news discourse in a specific historical period or across time and relate language features to their sociohistorical contexts and changing ideologies. The varying needs and expectations of the newspaper producers writers and readers and even news agents are taken into account. The articles use interdisciplinary study methods and move at interfaces between sociolinguistics journalism semiotics literary theory critical discourse analysis pragmatics and sociology.

This volume contains a selection of papers from the 12th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian (Leiden 2015). The contributions cover a wide range of topics and their significance in generative theorizing.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The papers about morphosyntax focus on the formation of comparative clauses the behavior of particle verbs scope taking in deverbal nominal constructions measure constructions classifier constructions the mass/count distinction as well as focus and quantifier scope.<br/>The papers about phonology investigate coexisting patterns of variation in vowel harmony the representational account of vowel harmony and the nature of heteromorphemic vowel sequences. <br/>While the focus of the volume is on Hungarian comparison is made with several other languages such as English German and Portuguese among others.<br/>The broad range of topics discussed in this volume will appeal both to scholars working on Hungarian and to a general audience of generative linguists.

In middle-class Anglo-speaking circles imperatives are considered impolite forms that command another to do something; etiquette manuals recommend avoiding them. The papers in this collection de-construct such lay beliefs. Through the empirical examination of everyday and institutional interaction across a range of languages they show that imperatives are routinely used for constructing turns that further sociality in interactional situations. Moreover they show that for understanding the use of an imperatively formatted turn its specific design (whether it contains e.g. an overt subject object modal particles or diminutives) and its sequential and temporal positioning in verbal and embodied activities are crucial. The fact that the same type of imperative turn is appropriate under the same circumstances across linguistically diverse cultures suggests that there are common aspects of imperative turn design and common pragmatic dimensions of situations warranting their use. The volume provides new insights into the resources and processes involved when social actors try to get another to do something.

This book fills an existing gap in the field of third language acquisition (L3A) by bringing together theoretical empirical and practical accounts that contribute to informed teaching practices in multilingual classrooms. The volume is organised into three sections that focus on prominent syntactic transfer models in the field of L3A and together provide insights into the interplay of the influences of prior languages in L3 syntax and how we can enrich the practical field of instructed L3 acquisition. Part I includes original papers dealing with new developments of existing theoretical models on syntactic transfer in L3A and Part II consists of empirical studies testing existing models from different perspectives (formal lexico-functional and neurocognitive). Following these two sections Part III discusses how theory can inform practices for L3 learning and teaching. This concise compilation brings to light innovations not only in terms of theoretical refinements and practical implementations but also in offering an impressive range of language combinations. This book is intended to act as a unique resource for scholars applied linguists language educators both novices and experts alike in and beyond the field of L3A.

Space is a fundamental dimension of human life and is pervasive in human experience. Research on space has highlighted the possible asymmetrical nature of spatial relations. Differences in the encoding of goals and sources of motion are a case in point and cross-linguistic coding tendencies show that path is less frequently flagged by a dedicated case than goal source/origin and (static) location (locative). Interestingly such asymmetries may correlate with certain types of landmark as in the case of toponyms or of animate entities. Even though these issues have been focused upon both in typological and psycholinguistic research they remain largely open. The papers in this collection aim to show that a diachronic approach may shed light on the way in which asymmetries in the space domain come about over time thus contributing to the clarification of synchronically puzzling facts.

Prototypical Argumentative Patterns reports about a research project started at the University of Amsterdam in 2012. In this project distinctive argumentative patterns have been identified in argumentative discourse in the political the legal and the medical domain. These patterns consist of constellations of argumentative moves in which in order to deal with a particular kind of difference of opinion in defence of a particular type of standpoint a particular argument scheme or combination of argument schemes is used in a particular kind of argumentation structure. The composition of these prototypical argumentative patterns can be explained by referring to the institutional characteristics of the communicative activity types in which they occur. By exploring the relationship between argumentative discourse and the institutional context Frans van Eemeren Bart Garssen Corina Andone Eveline Feteris and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans have provided a new and illuminating perspective on the context-dependency of argumentative discourse.

This book addresses term variation which has been a very important topic in terminology computational terminology and natural language processing for up to twenty years. This book presents the first complete inventory of term variants and the linguistic procedures that lead to their formation. It also takes into account issues raised by multilingual applications and presents ways to detect variants in five different languages: French English German Spanish and Russian.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The book provides insights into the following issues: What is a variant? What are the main linguistic mechanisms involved in the transformation of base terms into variants? How can variants be automatically detected in texts? Should variation be taken into account in natural language processing applications?<br/>This book is targeted at terminologists and linguists interested in term variation as well as researchers in natural language processing and computer science that must handle term variants in different kinds of applications.

Since its onset the Greek crisis has given rise to an abundance of relevant text and talk. This volume offers an insider’s view of the discursive manifestations of the crisis focusing on discourses in the Greek language and by Greek social actors. The contributions investigate the diverse ways in which the crisis has been communicated to the public by domestic policymakers or debated by elite non-elite and resistant participants. Crisis discourses are also examined in the light of the rise of neo-nationalism and the extreme Right in both Greece and Cyprus. All contributions seek to meaningfully combine critical discourse and corpus linguistics perspectives for a better understanding of the Greek crisis as a socio-economic episode and as a discourse construct. Discourse-driven quantification and corpus-driven quantification complement each other in the critical examination of textual data as diverse as official government communications party leader speeches newspaper articles public assembly resolutions song lyrics social media commentary and terrorist proclamations.

This posthumous work by Jacques Arends offers new insights into the emergence of the creole languages of Suriname including Sranantongo or Suriname Plantation Creole Ndyuka and Saramaccan and the sociohistorical context in which they developed. Drawing on a wealth of sources including little known historical texts the author points out the relevance of European settlements prior to colonization by the English in 1651 and concludes that the formation of the Surinamese creoles goes back further than generally assumed. He provides an all-encompassing sociolinguistic overview of the colony up to the mid-19th century and shows how ethnicity language attitude religion and location had an effect on which languages were spoken by whom. The author discusses creole data gleaned from the earliest sources and interprets the attested variation. The book is completed by annotated textual data both oral and written and representing different genres and stages of the Surinamese creoles. It will be of interest to linguists historians anthropologists literary scholars and anyone interested in Suriname.

Among emotions surprise has been extensively studied in psychology. In linguistics surprise like other emotions has mainly been studied through the syntactic patterns involving surprise lexemes. However little has been done so far to correlate the reaction of surprise investigated in psychological approaches and the effects of surprise on language. This cross-disciplinary volume aims to bridge the gap between emotion cognition and language by bringing together nine contributions on surprise from different backgrounds – psychology human-agent interaction linguistics. Using different methods at different levels of analysis all contributors concur in defining surprise as a cognitive operation and as a component of emotion rather than as a pure emotion. Surprise results from expectations not being met and is therefore related to epistemicity. Linguistically there does not exist an unequivocal marker of surprise. Surprise may be either described by surprise lexemes which are often associated with figurative language or it may be expressed by grammatical and syntactic constructions. Originally published as a special issue of Review of Cognitive Linguistics 13:2 (2015)

This book presents the latest research on the syntax of the “Insular Scandinavian” languages (Faroese and Icelandic) with contributions from thirteen experts and a significant introductory chapter by the four editors. The topics covered include some that have figured extensively in recent literature on Scandinavian syntax and its implications for syntactic theory: case agreement embedded clause word order stylistic fronting and the nature of “expletive” constructions. The volume is conceived around the topic of variation both within and between the two languages studied—as well as more generally—and stands out for the wealth of new empirical detail from both Faroese and Icelandic relating to each of the topics and theoretical issues discussed. Each chapter is written in a way to make it accessible to a wide audience within linguistics; the book will be essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in the syntax of the Germanic languages.

The proposed framework of concept linking combines insights of construction grammar with those of traditional functional descriptions to explain particularly challenging but often neglected areas of English grammar such as negation modality adverbials and non-finite constructions. To reach this goal the idea of a unified network of constructions is replaced by the triad of verb-mediated constructions attribution and scope-based perspectivizing each of them understood as a syntactically effective concept-linking mechanism in its own right but involved in interfaces with the other mechanisms.

In addition concept linking supplies a novel approach to early child language. It casts fresh light on widely accepted descriptions of early two-word utterances and verb islands in usage-based models of language acquisition and encourages a new view of children’s ‘mistakes’.

Intended readership: Constructionist and cognitive linguists; linguists and psychologists interested in language acquisition; teachers and students of English grammar and grammar in general.

Within Construction Grammar this volume moves away from a compartmentalized view of constructions with the aim of providing a more holistic description of grammar. Thus the book brings together analyses that look at constructional families within the “constructicon” of such languages as English Spanish German Polish Croatian and Hungarian. Part 1 focuses on how different analytical perspectives may be applied to comparable and/or connected constructions with a view to enhancing our understanding of their similarities differences and relations. Part 2 contributes to the state of the art in Construction Grammar in three ways: (i) by reconciling aspects of various constructionist analyses; (ii) by determining to what extent competing constructionist perspectives can offer more adequate approaches to specific analytical needs; and (iii) by challenging central assumptions within Construction Grammar. This book is expected to encourage further research into the anatomy of constructional families and their interrelations in all domains of constructional organization.

This volume presents five variants of the Imdeduya myth: two versions of the actual myth a short story a song and John Kasaipwalova’s English poem “Sail the Midnight Sun”. This poem draws heavily on the Trobriand myth which introduces the protagonists Imdeduya and Yolina and reports on Yolina’s intention to marry the girl so famous for her beauty on his long journey to Imdeduya’s village and on their tragic love story. The texts are compared with each other with a final focus on the clash between orality and scripturality. Contrary to Kasaipwalova’s fixed poetic text the oral Imdeduya versions reveal the variability characteristic for oral tradition. This variability opens up questions about traditional stability and destabilization of oral literature especially questions about the changing role of myth – and magic – in the Trobriand Islanders' society which gets more and more integrated into the by now “literal” nation of Papua New Guinea.

Satire Humor and the Construction of Identities conveys how satire can contribute to the construction of social subjects’ identities. It attempts to provide a theoretical ground for a novel understanding of the relationship between satire and identity by finding their common denominator namely opposition in order to explain the mechanism through which satire can form identities. After establishing the role of opposition in satire and identity construction through a detailed analysis of various theories it will be argued that satire can contribute to the construction of racial ethnic national religious and gender identities. Several examples from British Persian ancient Roman literary traditions and different epochs illustrate the theoretical discussions. The prevalence of satire and the challenges that identity has encountered in our contemporary world guarantee the significance of this study and its socio-political implications.

This volume offers a collection of original articles on the teaching of translation and interpreting responding to the increased interest in this area not only within translation and interpreting studies but also in related fields. It contains empirical theoretical and state-of-the-art original pieces that address issues relevant to translation and interpreting pedagogy such as epistemology technology language proficiency and pedagogical approaches (e.g. game-based task-based). All of the contributors are researchers and educators of either translation or interpreting – or both. The volume should be of interest to researchers and teachers of translation and interpreting second language acquisition and language for specific purposes. An introduction by the editors – both distinguished scholars in translation & interpreting pedagogy – provides the necessary context for the contributions. Originally published as a special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies 10:1 (2015) edited by Brian James Baer and Christopher D. Mellinger.

Having been established as a field in its own right for the last decade intercultural pragmatics is increasingly being recognized as an important area of research among scholars working in pragmatics. The present volume is a collection of selected papers from the 6th International Conference on Intercultural Pragmatics and Communication – admittedly the biggest venue for researchers in the area and comprises contributions that report on recent research that deals with or can directly inform work in intercultural pragmatics. Given the breadth of research areas that are<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>represented herein ranging from lingua franca and business communication to the study of cultural perceptions translation and pragmatic development this volume is bound to be of interest to not only students and scholars engaged in the area of intercultural pragmatics but also to all those with a more general interest in the sociocultural turn in the study of pragmatics.