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This volume places topicality at the very heart of grammatical explanation drawing on richly annotated discourse corpora from lesser-studied languages across the Americas and beyond. Through nine original studies it demonstrates how aspects of discourse relevance (rather than just abstract syntactic relations) shape word order argument encoding case marking and voice systems in natural speech. Several chapters revisit and critically reassess Givón's seminal work on topic continuity and discourse motivation and re-examine classic frameworks such as “Preferred Argument Structure” through contemporary corpus-based work. The volume spans a remarkable typological range of linguistic systems combining methodological innovation with fine-grained empirical analysis. Essential reading for linguists working on information structure typology and language documentation this book demonstrates why topicality remains a powerful engine of grammatical design diversity and change.

Lexical Variation and Knowledge Construction across Historical Methodological and Cultural Ecologies provides a comprehensive examination of the intricate interplay between language and knowledge viewing words not as mere vessels but as dynamic agents that sculpt our understanding of the world. Contributions of leading scholars from linguistics lexicography and related disciplines are presented in a tripartite structure —historical methodological and sociocultural— illustrating how this interplay unfolds across diverse contexts from the depths of historical lexicography to methodological innovation and sociocultural analyses of language and identity. Drawing on a wide range of data sources and analytical frameworks its multidimensional perspective on the interaction between language and cognition makes this book a crucial resource for both scholars and learners inviting readers to rethink the very foundations of how we communicate and understand our reality.

The goal of this volume is to explore and make sense of the overall scope implications and consequences of shifting discourses of war peace and neutrality across time and space in relation to conflict-ridden geopolitical environments characterized by power struggles political polarizations divergent goal settings and ideological confrontations (from the Russo-Japanese war 1904–1905 to Russia’s war against Ukraine 2022-present). Through a broad range of cutting-edge case studies (Finland Germany India Japan Poland Romania Russia/Soviet Union/Russian Federation Slovakia Sweden The Netherlands Ukraine USA) the authors go beyond mainstream studies on war and peace by challenging existing paradigms and undergoing in-depth scrutiny of discourse argumentation strategies historical metanarratives reflective storytelling and visual mediatization. Readers are called upon to reflect on evaluate and discuss issues raised by questions like the following: To what extent are dogmatic and power-based discourse practices consequential in the evolution of political language and the language of international diplomacy regarding processes of war peace and neutrality? In what ways have the mainstream and alternative news media changed the war reporting style the audience-oriented verbal and visual communication strategies and the emotion-triggering narratives?Reaching beyond the boundaries of pragmatics and discourse analysis this book should be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of rhetoric argumentation media studies history social and political sciences.

This book offers the first systematic investigation of the instrumental role across syntax semantics and language acquisition. Focusing primarily on Italian within a comparative perspective the book addresses a long-standing puzzle: why Instruments can be syntactically omitted even when they remain semantically present.Combining theoretical analysis with experimental evidence corpus data and innovative methodologies the study redefines the status of Instruments with respect to the argument-adjunct distinction and introduces a new principled account of their syntactic omission based on semantic recoverability. It proposes a refined typology of Instruments grounded in verb meaning and contextual factors and tests its predictions through behavioral experiments and large-scale corpus analyses.The book also breaks new ground in acquisition research presenting the first experimental investigation of how Italian-speaking children acquire Instruments. The results reveal a striking dissociation between early syntactic mastery and the slower development of Instrument semantic recoverability shedding new light on the acquisition of syntactically optional elements.By integrating syntax semantics and acquisition Silent Instruments provides a robust and empirically grounded framework that is readily applicable to cross-linguistic research and to other phenomena at the syntax-semantics interface. It will be of interest to linguists working on argument structure optionality language acquisition and experimental and corpus-based approaches to grammar.

Register and Discourse through the Lens of Corpus Linguistics offers a rigorous and engaging exploration of two of the field’s most dynamic areas. Drawing on key frameworks – including Construction Grammar Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies Speech Act Theory and Local Grammar – the volume showcases how qualitative and quantitative corpus-driven methods illuminate the interplay between linguistic form communicative function and contextual embedding. Across eleven chapters contributors examine a breadth of linguistic features from swearing syntactic fragments prenominal modification nonstandard forms and phraseology to interruption and humour expressive acts epistemic presupposition expertise and predictive stance. The studies span diverse settings – teen talk Reddit forums news media historical newspapers workplace interaction political debate and economic discourse – and incorporate synchronic and diachronic perspectives as well as cross-linguistic comparisons. Collectively the chapters demonstrate how register and discourse intersect as mutually informing dimensions of language use enriching established research traditions and offering practical models for future inquiry. Their insights extend beyond corpus linguistics resonating with scholarship in sociolinguistics pragmatics World Englishes and applied linguistics.

The modern world to the extent that it disassociates us from the secular traditional world from the “primordial” jobs and words that support the cultural particularity forged over the centuries weakens the borders between languages. Neologisms bring languages closer together irreversibly and the loss of primordial words (the local ways of designating a plant or a bird the words that designated instruments that are no longer used) often accelerated by standardization processes which impose a term above all other possibilities weakens the distinctions and singularity of languages. From this point of view linguistic diversity seems typical of a less globalized world and languages with less communicative influence seem doomed to dissolution. The ideology of the national language has weakened and almost extinguished in many cases the internal dialectal diversity of the languages. Could it be that now for this same reason these national languages specially those with reduced dimensions and lacking a projection beyond their historical territories are in danger? What role can the preservation of the primordial language play in the attempt to combat the dynamics of linguistic globalization? These reflections are the focus of the contributions included in this volume.

For sixty years applied linguistics has stood at the crossroads of language and society by meeting real-world needs. 60 Years of Applied Linguistics: Toward more engaged research offers a compelling reflection on the field’s evolution while calling for a renewed commitment to socially responsive ethically grounded scholarship. Inspired by the momentum of the 2023 AILA World Congress in France this collective volume brings together leading international applied linguists to examine how applied linguistics has transformed in response to shifting political landscapes technological change and global challenges. From different perspectives the contributors explore how research has both shaped—and been shaped by—the world we live in. Looking ahead the book advocates for research that reaches beyond academic borders engaging with communities policymakers and practitioners to confront contemporary issues. This book is an essential reference for scholars students and practitioners. It celebrates a rich intellectual legacy while charting bold new directions.

Zero elements are used by several theories in morphology and syntax as analytical tool but the question of whether phonologically empty elements should be structurally present or not has been a controversial issue from the very beginning. In addition to analyses that work with zero there are also a whole series of works that explicitly reject a description with zero or allow them only under restricted circumstances. This volume aims at getting a more complete picture of zero elements as a theoretic construct its empirical necessity and its nature in different components of grammar by focusing on Romance languages. The volume presents multi-facetted viewpoints and methodologies such as formal theoretic and data-based ones addressing researchers advanced students and everyone interested in linguistics. Furthermore this volume deals with various Romance languages and varieties such as Catalan (Old and Modern) French Italian and Sicilian (Brazilian and European) Portuguese and Spanish.

The source text is an unescapable part of any translation or translation process. Without source text no translation. Yet it is only recently that scholars in the field of translation studies have begun exploring theorizing and conceptualizing the source text in a more systematic fashion. The present volume builds on and expands this work exposing how source texts are never merely given but always constructed by translators and used for various purposes. The seven case studies by researchers working in translation studies or at the intersection of translation studies and other disciplines explore the role and function of the source text in journalistic translation pseudotranslation indirect translation children’s literature and biblical translation. The authors ask questions such as: How do translators turn specific texts into source texts? How do translators conceptualize their originals? How do source texts of the ‘same’ work change over time?

A current trend in contrastive corpus linguistics is to take register variation as a point of departure for identifying similarities and differences across languages. This volume looks back at central previous contributions in this area and adds to our store of knowledge in the form of nine studies comparing English to five other languages in a wide variety of registers representing written spoken and written-to-be-spoken modes of communication. The volume starts with a semi-systematic review of previous research on corpus-based register variation comparing English with the other languages represented in the volume’s studies which are Dutch French German Norwegian and Spanish. In the subsequent nine chapters a variety of topics are explored ranging from verb and noun phrases to adverbials and other lexico-grammatical constructions. This book will be of interest to scholars experts and novices in the fields of contrastive corpus linguistics register studies and translation studies.