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This book presents the first detailed and comprehensive study of information highlighting in advanced learner language echoing the increasing interest in questions of near-native competence in SLA research and contributing to the description of advanced interlanguages. It examines the production and comprehension of specific means of information highlighting in English by native speakers and German learners of English as a foreign language presenting triangulated experimental and learner corpus data as corroborating evidence. The study focuses on learners’ use of discourse-pragmatically motivated variations of the basic word order such as inversion preposing and it- and wh-clefts an underexplored field in SLA research to date.The book also provides a critical re-assessment of the study of pragmatics within SLA. It has largely been neglected to date that L2 pragmatic knowledge includes more than the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities for understanding and performing speech acts. Thus the book argues for an extension of the scope of inquiry in interlanguage pragmatics beyond the cross-cultural investigation of speech acts. It also discusses pedagogical implications for foreign language teaching and will be of interest to applied linguists and SLA researchers language teachers and curriculum designers.

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In this new edition of TUFS Studies in Linguistics we aim to showcase the various linguistics research conducted at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. In this first volume we report on the international symposium hosted by the Global Center of Excellence Program "Corpus-based Linguistics and Language Education (CbLLE)" throughout 2008. Also in this collection we consider the timeless linguistics issue of "variation" by utilizing the corpus analysis method. Whether socio-linguistic stylistic or individual variations manifest in a variety of ways throughout time and space and are closely related to issues surrounding linguistic theories. Additionally this volume includes other research upon diverse themes such as diachronic variation analysis lexical variations second language acquisition and bilingualism.

The Derivation of Anaphoric Relations resolves a conspicuous problem for Minimalist theory the apparently representational nature of the binding conditions. Hicks adduces a broad variety of evidence against the binding conditions applying at LF and builds upon the insights of recent proposals by Hornstein Kayne and Reuland by reducing them to the core narrow-syntactic operations (specifically Agree and Merge). Several novel and independently motivated claims about syntactic features and phases are made not only explaining the previously stipulated roles played by c-command reference and locality but furnishing the dervational binding theory with sufficient flexibility to capture some long-problematic empirical phenomena: These include connectivity effects ‘picture-noun’ reflexives in English and anaphor/pronoun non-complementarity. Specific proposals are also made for extending the derivational approach to accommodate structured crosslinguistic variation in binding with thorough expositions and analyses of the Dutch Norwegian and Icelandic pronominal systems.

Professional translators are increasingly dependent on electronic resources and trainee translators need to develop skills that allow them to make the best use of these resources. The aim of this book is to show how CULT (Corpus Use for Learning to Translate) methodologies can be used to prepare learning materials and how novice translators can become autonomous users of corpora. Readers interested in translation studies translator training and corpus linguistics will find the book particularly useful. Not only does it include practical technical advice for using and learning to use corpora but it also addresses important issues such as the balance between training and education and how CULT methodologies reinforce student autonomy and responsibility. Not only is this a good introduction to CULT but it also incorporates the latest developments in this field showing the advantages of using these methodologies in competence-based learning.

This volume reviews a range of fascinating linguistic facts about ingestive predicates in the world’s languages. The highly multifaceted nature of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ events gives rise to interesting clausal properties of these predicates such as the atypicality of transitive constructions involving ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in some languages. The two verbs are also sources for a large number of figurative uses across languages with meanings such as ‘destroy’ and ‘savour’ as well as participating in a great variety of idioms which can be quite opaque semantically. Grammaticalized extensions of these predicates also occur such as the quantificational use of Hausa shaa 'drink’ meaning (roughly) ‘do X frequently regularly’. Specialists discuss details of the use of these verbs in a variety of languages and language families: Australian languages Papuan languages Athapaskan languages Japanese Korean Hausa Amharic Hindi-Urdu and Marathi.

The Language of Outsourced Call Centers is the first book to explore a large-scale corpus representing the typical kinds of interactions and communicative tasks in outsourced call centers located in the Philippines and serving American customers. The specific goals of this book are to conduct a corpus-based register comparison between outsourced call center interactions face-to-face American conversations and spontaneous telephone exchanges; and to study the dynamics of cross-cultural communication between Filipino call center agents and American callers as well as other demographic groups of participants in outsourced call center transactions e.g. gender of speakers agents’ experience and performance and types of transactional tasks. The research design relies on a number of analytical approaches including corpus linguistics and discourse analysis and combines quantitative and qualitative examination of linguistic data in the investigation of the frequency distribution and functional characteristics of a range of lexico/syntactic features of outsourced call center discourse.

Written in the cartographic tradition this monograph is concerned with the inner structure and derivation of noun phrases. It proposes that demonstratives and definite articles are similar to auxiliaries in the clause. Referencing mostly Germanic languages the book argues that determiners are base generated below adjectives and subsequently move to the left periphery in a successive-cyclic fashion. Demonstrating that determiners are complex elements it is proposed that languages vary with regard to when and what part of the determiner they move. This provides a novel account of the variation in the Scandinavian noun phrase. With various copies left behind by moving the determiner the restrictive and non-restrictive readings of adjectives and relative clauses are suggested to follow from the interpretation of these different copies. The system is extended to the strong and weak adjective inflections in German. Proposing that determiners are auxiliaries in the nominal domain explains these apparently unrelated data in a uniform way.

The book covers three major topics crucial for contemporary syntactic research. Firstly it offers a sketch of a general theory of dependency in natural language. Different types of linguistic dependencies are distinguished (semantic syntactic and morphological) the criteria for their recognition are formulated and all possible combinations are discussed in some detail. Secondly it demonstrates the application of the general theory in two specific domains: establishing the system of Surface-Syntactic Relations in French and linear positioning of clitics in Serbian. Thirdly it presents a formal sketch of Head-Driven Phrase-Structure Grammar modelled in terms of syntactic dependencies.

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The Senshu University Project The Development of the Anglo-Saxon Language and Linguistic Universals has as its general aim the investigation of structural characteristics common to the Germanic languages such as English German Norwegian and Icelandic all of which are descended from the so-called Proto-Germanic language and their clarification with regard to linguistic universals provided by the theoretical framework of Generative Grammar. In order to fulfill this aim the project has to be responsive to theoretical advances in a variety of linguistic domains and approaches such as language acquisition pragmatics and corpus linguistics as well as philological and historical contributions on Germanic languages in various stages of their development.

The present book seeks to advance these goals in ten chapters exemplifying work on a wide range of Germanic languages and linguistic universals. It is divided into three parts: Part 1. Old English and Germanic languages; Part 2. Generative Grammar; and Part 3. Pragmatics and Corpus Linguistics. Germanic Languages and Linguistic Universals will be of general interest to linguists who seek to understand the nature of the Germanic languages and the relationships obtaining between them.

Complex hierarchic syntax is a hallmark of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity recursive-embedded clauses has been singled out by some for a special status as the evolutionary apex of the uniquely - human language faculty - evolutionary yet mysteriously immune to Darwinian adaptive selection. Prof. Givón's book treats syntactic complexity as an integral part of the evolutionary rise of human communication. The book first describes grammar as an adaptive instrument of communication assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic object- and-event cognition and mental representation. It then surveys the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax and cross-language diversity; and ontogeny the individual endeavor directly responsible for acquiring the competent use of grammar. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is compared with second language acquisition pre-grammatical pidgin and pre-human communication. The evolutionary relevance of language diachrony language ontogeny and pidginization is argued for on general bio-evolutionary grounds: It is the organism's adaptive on-line behavior- invention learning and skill acquisition - that is the common thread running through all three developmental trends. The neuro-cognitive circuits that underlie language and their evolutionary underpinnings are described and assessed. Recursive embedding turns out to be not an adaptive target on its own but the by-product of two distinct adaptive moves: (i) the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on or referential specifiers of other clauses; and (ii) the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.

Spontaneous speech errors provide valuable evidence not only for the processes that mediate between a communicative intention and the articulation of an utterance but also for the types of grammatical entities that are manipulated during production. This study proposes an analysis of speech errors that is informed by grammar theory. In particular it is shown how characteristic properties of erroneous German utterances can be accounted for within Distributed Morphology (DM). The investigation focuses on two groups of errors: Errors that result from the manipulation of semantic and morphosyntactic features and errors which appear to involve the application of a post-error repair strategy. It is argued that a production model which incorporates DM allows for a straightforward account of the attested sometimes complex error patterns. DM mechanisms for instance render unnecessary the assumption of repair processes. Besides providing an account for the attested error patterns the theory also helps us in explaining why certain errors do not occur. In this sense DM makes for a psychologically real model of grammar.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

Voices of the Invisible Presence: Diplomatic interpreters in post-World War II Japan examines the role and the making of interpreters in the social political and economic context of postwar Japan using oral history as a method. The primary questions addressed are what kind of people became interpreters in post-WWII Japan how they perceived their role as interpreters and what kind of role they actually played in foreign relations. In search of answers to these questions the living memories of five prominent interpreters were collected in the form of life-story interviews which were then categorized based on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ ‘field’ and ‘practice’. The experiences of pioneering simultaneous interpreters are analyzed as case studies drawing on Erving Goffman’s ‘participation framework’ and the notion of kurogo in Kabuki theatre leading to the discussion of (in)visibility of interpreters and their perception of language culture and communication.

How children acquire a sign language and the stages of sign language development are extremely important topics in sign linguistics and deaf education with studies in this field enabling assessment of an individual child’s communicative skills in comparison to others. In order to do research in this area it is important to use the right methodological tools. The contributions to this volume address issues covering the basics of doing sign acquisition research the use of assessment tools problems of transcription analyzing narratives and carrying out interaction studies. It serves as an ideal reference source for any researcher or student of sign languages who is planning to do such work. This volume was originally published as a Special Issue of Sign Language & Linguistics 8:1/2 (2005)

The main focus of this collection is to explore the question of “representational deficits” in second language acquisition currently a much-debated topic. The volume is intended as a tribute to Roger Hawkins a leading scholar in generative second language acquisition whose research has been devoted to explaining lack of native-like success in terms of representational deficits. The papers in this volume feature a range of studies all undertaken within a generative linguistic framework which investigate various properties of L2 grammar bearing on the question of whether or not there are representational deficits in the post-critical-period L2 learners’ grammar. The significance of such deficits if their existence can be confirmed is that they provide support for the claim at least for the type of L2 learner under investigation that there are insurmountable obstacles to ultimate attainment. <br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

This collection of papers brings together contributions from experts in functional linguistics and in Construction Grammar approaches with the aim of exploring the concept of construction from different angles and trying to arrive at a better understanding of what a construction is and what roles constructions play in the frameworks which can be located within a multidimensional functional-cognitive space. At the same time the volume has a historical dimension for instance in plotting the developments which led to recent models. The book is organised in three sections: the first deals with particular theoretical issues the second is devoted to the recent Lexical Constructional Model and the third presents a number of analyses of specific constructions. The volume thus makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the relationship between functionalist and constructionist models.

This volume is a collection of papers that highlights some recurring themes that have surfaced in the generative tradition in linguistics over the past 40 years. The volume is more than a historical take on a theoretical tradition; rather it is also a "compass" pointing to exciting new empirical directions inspired by generative theory. In fact the papers show a progression from core theoretical concerns to data-driven experimental investigation and can be divided roughly into two categories: those that follow a syntactic and theoretical course and those that follow an experimental or applied path. Many of the papers revisit long-standing or recurring themes in the generative tradition some of which seek experimental validation or refutation. The merger of theoretical and experimental concerns makes this volume stand out but it is also forward looking in that it addresses the recent concerns of the creation and consumption of data across the discipline.

This volume covers a wide range of topics in Interpreting and Translation Research. Some deal with scientometrics and the history of Interpreting Studies arguments about conceptual analysis meta-language and interpreters’ risk-taking strategies. Other papers are on research skills like career management writing communicative abstracts and the practicalities of survey research. Several contributions address empirical issues such as expertise in Simultaneous Interpreting the cognitive load imposed on interpreters by a non-native accent the impact of intonation on interpreting quality linguistic interference in Simultaneous Interpreting similarities between translation and interpreting and the relation between translation competence and revision competence. <br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/> The collection is a tribute to Daniel Gile in appreciation of his creativity and his commitment to interpreting and translation research. All the contributions in some way show his influence or are related to the models and research he has shaped.