Browse Books

This collection of twenty-nine research papers is dedicated to the eminent Balticist Slavicist and Indo-Europeanist William R. Schmalstieg in commemoration of his seventy-fifth birthday. It contains contributions by specialists of mainly Baltic and Indo-European linguistics which are reflective of Schmalstieg's own scholarly interests over the decades of his career including technical aspects of Baltic and Indo-European phonology morphology and syntax etymology language universals the history of linguistics and the Baltic text tradition. Contributors include prominent scholars from the United States and Europe both east and west. All papers are in English and all linguistic material in less commonly known languages is provided with an English translation making the contents accessible to a wider audience of readers.

Through the development of a valid and reliable instrument this book sets out to study the role that interpreters play in the various settings where they work i.e. the courts the hospitals business meetings international conferences and schools. It presents interpreters’ perceptions and beliefs about their work as well as statements of their behaviors about their practice. For the first time the administration and results of a survey administered across languages in Canada Mexico and the United States offer the reader a glimpse of the interpreters' views in their own words. It also discusses the tension between professional ideology and the reality of interpreters at work. This book has implications for the theory and practice of interpreting across settings.

This book results from a group meeting held at the Institute for Scientific Exchange in Torino Italy. The central aim was for scientists to “think together” in new ways with those in the humanities inspired by quantum theory and especially quantum brain theory. These fields of inquiry have suffered conceptual estrangement but now are ripe for rapprochement if academic parochialism is put aside. A prevalent theme of the book is a moving away from individual elements and individual actors acting upon each other toward a coordinate hermeneutic dynamics that manifests as a coherent totality. Among the topics covered are image in photography and in neuroscience; language; time; brain and mathematics; quantum brain dynamics and quantum communication.

When the first European missionaries arrived on other continents it was decided that the indigenous languages would be used as the means of christianization. There emerged the need to produce grammars and dictionaries of those languages. The study of this linguistic material has so far not received sufficient attention in the field of linguistic historiography. This volume is the first published collection of papers on missionary linguistics world-wide; it represents the insights of recent research containing an introduction and papers on methodology meta-historiography the historical and cultural background. The book contains studies about early-modern linguistic works written in Spanish Portuguese English and French describing among others indigenous languages from North America and Australia Maya Quechua Xhosa Japanese Kapampangan and Visaya. Topics dealt with include: innovations of individual missionaries in lexicography grammatical analysis phonology morphology or syntax; creativity in descriptive techniques; differences and/or similarities of works from different continents and different religious backgrounds (Catholic or Protestant).

This book presents the multifunctional nature of pragmatic discourse markers in English and Catalan oral narratives from the point of view of text linguistics and contrastive analysis. It is argued that English and Catalan markers are distributed and operate differently at four different levels in the varied discourse structures of the text i.e. at the ideational the rhetorical the sequential and the inferential levels. The results confirm the distinctions in functional-systemic levels and indicate that the nature of the two languages has a direct influence on the presence and nature of markers in the texts. The study is built up on a corpus of English and Catalan elicited narratives of native speakers adopting the sociolinguistic Labovian framework adapted to the situation of educated adults.

The study results in a better understanding of the contribution of pragmatic markers to the organization and the interpretation of oral texts bringing insights from relevance and cognitive approaches to text structure and moving from descriptive to theoretical levels of analysis and discussion.

This volume brings together for the first time research by linguists working in cross-linguistic discourse analysis and by second language researchers working in the contrastive rhetoric tradition. The collection of articles by prominent authors and younger scholars encompasses a variety of research approaches and treats numerous naturally-occurring spoken and written genres including conversations narratives academic expository writing journalism advertising and professional promotional texts. Languages examined include English Spanish French Brazilian Portuguese Korean Japanese Chinese Hebrew Urdu Dutch Turkish and Serbo-Croatian. Taken individually and collectively the articles in this collection draw important conclusions concerning the roles of cognition multilingualism communities of practice and linguistic typology in shaping discourse within and across cultures.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art treatment of research on language attrition the non-pathological loss of a language through lack of exposure. It combines a review of past and present research with in-depth treatments of specific theoretical and methodological issues and reports on individual studies. Special prominence is given to the identification of problematic areas in attrition research with a view to pointing out possible solutions. The book specifically addresses itself to those who wish to acquaint themselves with the research area of language attrition providing them with both a thorough overview of the field and a basis on which to build their own research. The combination of experience and an innovative outlook present in this collection however make it a valuable source for those familiar with attrition as well. Especially useful to both beginners and veterans is the extensive annotated bibliography.

Introduction to Discourse Studies follows on Jan Renkema’s successful Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook (1993) published in four languages. This new book deals with even more key concepts in discourse studies and approaches major issues in this field from the Anglo-American and European as well as the Australian traditions. It provides a ‘scientific toolkit’ for future courses on discourse studies and serves as a stepping stone to the independent study of professional literature.Introduction to Discourse Studies is the result of more than twenty-five years of experience gained in doing research and teaching students professionals and academics at various universities. The book is organized in fifteen comprehensive chapters each subdivided in modular sections that can be studied separately. It includes



• 400 references from the most-cited contemporary publications to influential classic works;

• 500 index entries covering frequently used concepts in the field;

• more than 100 thought-provoking questions all elaborately answered which are ideal for teacher-supported self-education;

• nearly 100 assignments that provide ample material for teachers to focus on specific topics of their own preference in their lectures.



Jan Renkema is a member of the Department of Communication and Information Sciences at Tilburg University The Netherlands. He is also editor of Discourse of Course (2009) and author of The Texture of Discourse (2009). In 2009 a Chinese edition of Introduction to Discourse Studies was published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

The eleven chapters of Vocabulary in a Second Language are written by the world’s leading researchers in the field of vocabulary studies in second language acquisition. Each chapter presents experimental research leading to new conclusions about and insights into the selection the learning and teaching or the testing of vocabulary knowledge in foreign languages. This book is intended as an up-to-date overview of the important domain of the lexicon for researchers in the field of second language acquisition teacher trainers and professional teachers of second or foreign languages.

Principles of Generative Phonology is a basic thorough introduction to phonological theory and practice. It aims to provide a firm foundation in the theory of distinctive features phonological rules and rule ordering which is essential to be able to appreciate recent developments and discussions in phonological theory.

Chapter 1 is a review of phonetics; chapter 2 discusses contrast and distribution with emphasis on rules as the mechanism for describing distributions; chapter 3 introduces distinctive features natural classes and redundancy; chapter 4 builds on the concept of rules and shows how these can account for alternations; chapter 5 demonstrates the use of rule ordering; chapter 6 discusses abstractness and underlying representations; chapter 7 discusses post-SPE developments serving as a prelude to more advanced texts.

Each chapter includes exercises to guide the student in the application of the principles introduced in that chapter and to encourage thinking about theoretical issues. The text has been classroom tested.