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Manipulation and Ideologies in the Twentieth Century : Discourse, language, mind
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Louis de Saussure and
Peter J. Schulz
This book is a collection of 12 papers dealing with manipulation and ideology in the 20th century mostly with reference to political speeches by the leaders of major totalitarian regimes but also addressing propaganda within contemporary right-wing populism and western ideological rhetoric. This book aims at bringing together researchers in the field of ideology reproduction in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms of speaker-favourable belief inculcation through language use. The book covers a wide range of theoretical perspectives from psychosocial approaches and discourse analysis to semantics and cognitive linguistics and pragmatics. The book’s central concern is to provide not only a reference work with up-to-date information on the analysis of manipulation in discourse but also a number of tools for the scholar some of them being developed within theories originally not designed to address belief-change through language interpretation. Foreword by Frans van Eemeren.
Fossilized Second Language Grammars : The acquisition of grammatical gender
Dec 2005
Book
Author(s):
Florencia Franceschina
This monograph is a theoretical and empirical investigation into the mechanisms and causes of successful and unsuccessful adult second language acquisition.Couched within a generative framework the study explores how a learner’s first language and the age at which they acquire their second language may contribute to the L2 knowledge that they can ultimately attain. The empirical study focuses on a group of very advanced L2 speakers and through a series of tests aims to discover what underpins their near mastery of grammatical gender and other grammatical properties.The book explores an account of persistent selective divergence based on the idea that child and adult learners are fundamentally similar except that in adults the L1 plays the role of a fairly rigid filter of the linguistic input. The impossibility of representing the new target language other than by using the building blocks of the previously established L1 is argued to be the main reason why near but not totally native like language representations are formed and become established in adult L2 learners.
Les Périphrases Verbales
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot and
Nicole Le Querler
This comprehensive volume contains twenty-six out of thirty three papers that were presented at the International Conference on "Les Périphrases Verbales". The conference took place at the University of Caen-Basse-Normandie from June 25th to June 28th 2003 and was co-organized by the Crisco umr cnrs research group and the French Department at Tel Aviv University Israel. The contributors to this volume aim to present a broad spectrum of theoretical approaches to the analysis of constructions entitled "périphrases verbales". Their work revolves around three central themes: the definition of these constructions and the distinction between certain verbal expressions and true periphrastic expressions; a particular meaning or function of these expressions; and specific nominal constructions considered as periphrastic expressions. The volume is divided into seven sections each throwing light on a particular aspect of periphrastic expression from various perspectives. The issues discussed are: temporal and aspectual periphrases; auxiliaries copula and support verbs; causative periphrases; venire and aller + infinitive / participle; inchoative periphrases; modal periphrases; and the heritage of Gustave Guillaume.
Exploring Corpora for ESP Learning
Dec 2005
Book
Author(s):
Laura Gavioli
This book investigates the effects of corpus work on the process of foreign language learning in ESP settings. It suggests that observing learners at work with corpus data can stimulate discussion and re-thinking of the pedagogical implications of both the theoretical and empirical aspects of corpus linguistics. The ideas presented here are developed from the Data-Driven Learning approach introduced by Tim Johns in the early nineties. The experience of watching students perform corpus analysis provides the basis for the two main observations in the book: a) corpus work provides students with a useful source of information about ESP language features b) the process of "search-and-discovery" implied in the method of corpus analysis may facilitate language learning and promote autonomy in learning language use. The discussion is carried out on the basis of a series of corpus-based "explorations" by students and provides suggestions for developing new tasks and tools for language learners.
Grammar and Inference in Conversation : Identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese
Dec 2005
Book
Author(s):
Michael C. Ewing
This study analyzes how morphosyntactic structures and information flow characteristics are used by interlocutors in producing and understanding clauses in conversational Javanese focusing on the Cirebon variety of the language. While some clauses display grammatical mechanisms used to code their structure explicitly and redundantly many other clauses include few if any of these grammatical resources. These extremes mark a cline between the morphosyntactic and paratactic expression of clauses. The situation is thrown into relief by the frequency of unexpressed referents and conversationalists’ heavy reliance on shared experience and cultural knowledge. In all cases pragmatic inference grounded in the interactional context is essential for establishing not only the discourse functions but indeed also the very structure of clauses in conversational Javanese. This study contributes to our understanding of transitivity emergent constituency prosodic organization and the co-construction of meaning and structure by conversational interlocutors.
Dialects Across Borders : Selected papers from the 11th International Conference on Methods in Dialectology (Methods XI), Joensuu, August 2002
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Markku Filppula,
Juhani Klemola,
Marjatta Palander and
Esa Penttilä
Nonstandard varieties of languages have recently become an object of new interest in scholarly research. This is very much due to the advances in the methods used in data collection and analysis as well as the emergence of new language-theoretical frameworks. The articles in this volume stem from the 11th International Conference on Methods in Dialectology (Methods XI August 2002 Joensuu). The theme for this conference was “Dialects across borders”. The selection of contributions included in this volume demonstrates how various kinds of borders exert major influence on linguistic behaviour all over the world. The articles have been grouped according to whether they deal primarily with the linguistic outcomes of political and historical borders between states (Part I); various kinds of social and regional boundaries including borders in a metaphorical sense i.e. social barriers and mental or cognitive boundaries (Part II); and finally boundaries between languages (Part III).
Strategies in Academic Discourse
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Elena Tognini-Bonelli and
Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti
This book focuses on theoretical and descriptive issues and techniques in the study of text and discourse. Drawing on a large number of corpora containing academic language from spoken language to published research papers the authors approach their subject from multiple angles: The academic language of biology literature philosophy economics agriculture linguistics and applied linguistics. The analysis of intertextual features these papers show leads to penetrating results.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>
Cross-Linguistic Aspects of Processability Theory
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Manfred Pienemann
Seven years ago Manfred Pienemann proposed a novel psycholinguistic theory of language development Processability Theory (PT). This volume examines the typological plausibility of PT. Focusing on the acquisition of Arabic Chinese and Japanese the authors demonstrate the capacity of PT to make detailed and verifiable predictions about the developmental schedule for each language. This cross-linguistic perspective is also applied to the study of L1 transfer by comparing the impact of processability and typological proximity. The typological perspective is extended by including a comparison of different types of language acquisition. The architecture of PT is expanded by the addition of a second set of principles that contributes to the formal modeling of levels of processability namely the mapping of argument-structure onto functional structure in lexical mapping theory. This step yields the inclusion of a range of additional phenomena in the processability hierarchy thus widening the scope of PT.
Grammatical Constructions : Back to the roots
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Mirjam Fried and
Hans C. Boas
This volume brings into focus the conceptual roots of the notion ‘grammatical construction’ as the theoretical entity that constitutes the backbone of Construction Grammar a unique grammatical model in which grammatical constructions have the status of elementary building blocks of human language. By exploring the analytic potential and applicability of this notion the contributions illustrate some of the fundamental concerns of constructional research. These include issues of sentence structure in a model that rejects the autonomy of syntax; the contribution of Frame Semantics in establishing the relationship between syntactic patterning and the lexical meaning of verbs; and the challenge of capturing the dynamic and variable nature of grammatical structure in a systematic way. All the authors share a commitment to studying grammar in its use which gives the book a rich empirical dimension that draws on authentic data from typologically diverse languages.
English General Nouns : A corpus theoretical approach
Dec 2005
Book
Author(s):
Michaela Mahlberg
This book proposes an innovative approach to general nouns. General nouns are defined as high-frequency nouns that are characterised by their textual functions. Although the concept is motivated by Halliday & Hasan (1976) the corpus theoretical approach adopted in the present study is fundamentally different and set in a linguistic framework that prioritises lexis. The study investigates 20 nouns that are very frequent in mainstream English as represented by the Bank of English Corpus. The corpus-driven approach to the data involves a critical discussion of descriptive tools such as patterns semantic prosodies and primings of lexical items and the concept of 'local textual functions' is put forward to characterise the functions of the nouns in texts. The study not only suggests a characterisation of general nouns but also stresses that functions of lexical items and properties of texts are closely linked. This link requires new ways of describing language.
Aspects of English Negation
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Yoko Iyeiri
This book contains eleven carefully selected papers all discussing negative constructions in English. The aim of this volume is to bring together empirical research into the development of English negation and analyses of syntactic variations in Present-day English negation. The first part "Aspects of Negation in the History of English" includes six contributions which focus on the usages of the negative adverbs ne and not the decline of negative concord and the development of the auxiliary do in negation. Most of the themes discussed here are then linked to the second part "Aspects of Negation in Present-day English". Especially the issue of negative concord is repeatedly explored by three of the five papers in this part one related to British English dialects in general another to Tyneside English and the other to African American Vernacular English. This book uniquely highlights the importance of continuity from Old English to Present-day English while in its introduction it provides a useful detailed survey of previous studies on English negation.
Missionary Linguistics II / Lingüística misionera II : Orthography and Phonology. Selected papers from the Second International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, São Paulo, 10–13 March 2004
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Otto Zwartjes and
Cristina Altman
This is the second volume to be dedicated to the pioneering linguistic work produced by the religious missionaries who within the scope of the European colonial enterprises along the period 1550–1850 described dozens of autochthonous languages many of which are only known today thanks to their endeavours. The twelve papers joint in the present volume — which dedicated special attention to the orthographical and phonological dimension of their work — provide a comprehensive picture of the descriptive problems faced by these linguists avant la lettre notably: the difficulties faced before the less familiar features of these languages such as vowel quantity accentuation tonality nasalization glottalization ‘gutturalization’; the building of (re)definitions and the creation of a new metalanguage like ‘saltillo’ ‘guturaciones’ etc.; The book elucidates the creativity and innovations proposed by individual missionaries and the instructive and pedagogical dimension of their work.
Analogy as Structure and Process : Approaches in linguistics, cognitive psychology and philosophy of science
Dec 2005
Book
Author(s):
Esa Itkonen
The concept of analogy is of central concern to modern cognitive scientists whereas it has been largely neglected in linguistics in the past four decades. The goal of this thought-provoking book is (1) to introduce a cognitively and linguistically viable notion of analogy; and (2) to re-establish and build on traditional linguistic analogy-based research.
As a starting point a general definition of analogy is offered that makes the distinction between analogy-as-structure and analogy-as-process.
Chapter 2 deals with analogy as used in traditional linguistics. It demonstrates how phonology morphology syntax semantics and diachronic linguistics make use of analogy and discusses linguistic domains in which analogy does or did not work. The appendix gives a description of a computer program which performs such instances of analogy-based syntactic analysis as have long been claimed impossible.
Chapter 3 supports the ultimate (non-modular) ‘unity of the mind’ and discusses the existence of pervasive analogies between language and such cognitive domains as vision music and logic.
The final chapter presents evidence for the view that the cosmology of every culture is based on analogy.
At a more abstract level the role of analogy in scientific change is scrutinized resulting in a meta-analogy between myth and science.
As a starting point a general definition of analogy is offered that makes the distinction between analogy-as-structure and analogy-as-process.
Chapter 2 deals with analogy as used in traditional linguistics. It demonstrates how phonology morphology syntax semantics and diachronic linguistics make use of analogy and discusses linguistic domains in which analogy does or did not work. The appendix gives a description of a computer program which performs such instances of analogy-based syntactic analysis as have long been claimed impossible.
Chapter 3 supports the ultimate (non-modular) ‘unity of the mind’ and discusses the existence of pervasive analogies between language and such cognitive domains as vision music and logic.
The final chapter presents evidence for the view that the cosmology of every culture is based on analogy.
At a more abstract level the role of analogy in scientific change is scrutinized resulting in a meta-analogy between myth and science.
Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Romance Linguistics : Selected papers from the 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Salt Lake City, March 2004
Dec 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Randall Gess and
Edward J. Rubin
The 20 papers in this volume are a selection from those presented at the 34th LSRL held in Salt Lake City in 2004. The papers deal with a wide range of theoretical issues in Romance Linguistics and include several from the conference parasession which focused on experimental approaches to problems in Romance Linguistics. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in current issues in theoretical Romance Linguistics.
Die Aktualität der Philosophie Kants : Bochumer Ringvorlesung Sommersemester 2004
Nov 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Kirsten Schmidt,
Klaus Steigleder and
Burkhard Mojsisch
This book is a collection of articles based on a lecture series about Kant's philosophy. The contributions present an excellent overview of Kant's work – the subjects range from metaphysical ethical aesthetical teleological historical and political aspects to questions of mind nature and education.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The common topic of all articles is the examination of Kant's current relevance in the context of modern philosophy and society. Each author gives various arguments why a close reading of Kant is still worthwhile and can make important contributions to present philosophical and social discussions.<br/>The lecture series from which the book developed was conceived as an introduction of Kant for students but some of the articles are very profound. Therefore while students and Kant-beginners may find the texts helpful as introductory reading philosophers and Kant-experts will also appreciate the book for opening up new perspectives on their specific field of interest.<br/>Dieser Sammelband basiert auf einer einführenden Ringvorlesung zur Philosophie Kants. Die Beiträge behandeln sowohl metaphysische ethische ästhetische teleologische und politische Aspekte als auch Fragen zu Natur Geist und Erziehung und bieten damit einen ausgezeichneten Überblick über Kants Werk.<br/>Der Schwerpunkt liegt in allen Artikeln auf der aktuellen Bedeutung Kants im Kontext der modernen Philosophie und Gesellschaft. Den Autoren gelingt es zu zeigen dass die Auseinandersetzung mit Kant nicht nur immer noch lohnenswert ist sondern auch wichtige Beiträge zu den philosophischen und gesellschaftlichen Diskussionen der Gegenwart – von bioethischen und neurophilosophischen Fragen bis hin zu Problemen von Krieg und Frieden – liefern kann.<br/>Die Texte sind nicht nur als Einstieg in die Kantlektüre für Studenten und Kant-Neulinge wertvoll auch Philosophen und Kant-Experten werden darin zahlreiche neue Gesichtspunkte für eine fruchtbare Auseinandersetzung mit Kant finden.
Clusivity : Typology and case studies of the inclusive–exclusive distinction
Nov 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Elena Filimonova
This book presents a collection of papers on clusivity a newly coined term for the inclusive–exclusive distinction. Clusivity is a widespread feature familiar from descriptive grammars and frequently figuring in typological schemes and diachronic scenarios. However no comprehensive exploration of it has been available so far. This book is intended to make the first step towards a better understanding of the inclusive–exclusive opposition by documenting the current linguistic knowledge on the topic.
The issues discussed include the categorial and paradigmatic status of the opposition its geographical distribution realization in free vs bound pronouns inclusive imperatives clusivity in the 2nd person honorific uses of the distinction etc. These case studies are complemented by the analysis of the opposition in American Sign Language as opposed to spoken languages. In-depth areal and family surveys of clusivity consider this opposition in Austronesian Tibeto-Burman central-western South American Turkic languages and in Mosetenan and Shuswap.
The issues discussed include the categorial and paradigmatic status of the opposition its geographical distribution realization in free vs bound pronouns inclusive imperatives clusivity in the 2nd person honorific uses of the distinction etc. These case studies are complemented by the analysis of the opposition in American Sign Language as opposed to spoken languages. In-depth areal and family surveys of clusivity consider this opposition in Austronesian Tibeto-Burman central-western South American Turkic languages and in Mosetenan and Shuswap.
Language, Communication and the Economy
Nov 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Guido Erreygers and
Geert Jacobs
This volume brings together a number of wide-ranging transdisciplinary research articles on the interface between discourse studies and economics. It explores in what way economics can contribute to the analysis of discursive practices in various institutional settings as well as investigating what role discourse studies can play in economic research. The contributors are linguists communication scholars economists and other social scientists drawing on various traditions including Critical Discourse Analysis Cognitive Linguistics ethnography and the literature on the rhetoric of economics and on economic storytelling. All articles are essentially empirical focusing on the details of actual language use. The type of data analysed ranges from the minutes of university policy meetings and large-scale corpora of newspaper language over books of economic theory from both well-respected economists and monetary cranks to cartoons from The Economist.
Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse
Nov 2005
Book
Author(s):
Simone Müller
While discourse markers have been examined in some detail little is known about their usage by non-native speakers. This book provides valuable insights into the functions of four discourse markers (so well you know and like) in native and non-native English discourse adding to both discourse marker literature and to studies in the pragmatics of learner language. It presents a thorough analysis on the basis of a substantial parallel corpus of spoken language. In this corpus American students who are native speakers of English and German non-native speakers of English retell and discuss a silent movie. Each of the main chapters of the book is dedicated to one discourse marker giving a detailed analysis of the functions this discourse marker fulfills in the corpus and a quantitative comparison between the two speaker groups. The book also develops a two-level model of discourse marker functions comprising a textual and an interactional level.
Language and Meaning : The structural creation of reality
Nov 2005
Book
Author(s):
Christopher Beedham
This book illustrates the structuralist idea that language creates the reality we perceive. The data presented in this volume focus on the problematic issues of the passive construction and irregular (strong) verbs with examples taken primarily from English with separate subsections on German and Russian. The author presents a new and different analysis of these complex topics which proceeds from the levels of form to meaning rather than the traditional and generative methodologies that follow the opposite path from meaning to form. This book will be of interest to all linguists who have ever confronted the controversial question of the interaction between lexical exceptions and grammatical rules. The scope of this volume is rather broad and it compares and contrasts text grammar versus sentence grammar in an innovative way.
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003 : Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2003, Nijmegen, 20–22 November
Nov 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Twan Geerts,
Ivo van Ginneken and
Haike Jacobs
The annual Going Romance conference is the major European discussion forum for theoretically relevant research on Romance languages where current ideas about language in general and about Romance languages in particular are tested. Starting with the thirteenth conference held in 1999 volumes with selected papers of the conferences are published under the title Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory This is the fifth such volume containing a selection of papers that have been presented at the seventeenth Going Romance conference held at the Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) from 20–22 November 2003. The three-day program included a workshop on ‘Diachronic Phonology’. The present volume contains a broad range of articles dealing not only with syntax and phonology but also with morphology semantics and acquisition of the Romance languages.
The Role of Agreement in Non-Finite Predication
Nov 2005
Book
Author(s):
Gréte Dalmi
This comparative syntactic study claims that agreement is the most central functional category responsible for licensing predication in finite non-finite and small clauses alike. Intriguing syntactic phenomena like Icelandic infinitival predicates taking non-nominative (quirky) subjects; psych-impersonal and modal predicates in Italian Hungarian and Russian; meteorological predicates existential clauses post-verbal and null subjects in the so-called null-subject VSO languages can all be better analyzed through a concept of predication that is closely related to AGRP manifesting subject-verb agreement. The overt agreement marking in Hungarian and Portuguese infinitival clauses further strengthens this view. Obviation and control subjunctive clauses in the Balkan languages Welsh finite and non-finite infinitival clauses as well as case-marked secondary predicates in Icelandic Slovak Hungarian Russian and Finnish also lend support to an analysis where the [+pred] feature is checked in AGRP.
Written Communication across Cultures : A sociocognitive perspective on business genres
Nov 2005
Book
Author(s):
Yunxia Zhu
Winner of ABC's award for Distinguished Publication for 2006
This book explores effective written communication across cultures both theoretically and practically. Specifically it conceptualizes cross-cultural genre study and compares English and Chinese business writing collected from Australia New Zealand and China. It is also one of those inspired by contrastive rhetoric but has contributed innovatively and uniquely by incorporating research findings from genre analysis in particular the sociocognitive genre perspective into this cross-cultural study.
On the one hand the endeavor represents an in-depth theoretical exploration by considering not only discourse community and cognitive structuring but also the deep semantics of genre and intertextuality while broadening genre study by integrating insights from cross-cultural communication as well as the Chinese perspectives. On the other hand the book also addresses pragmatic issues. As a particular feature it solicits professional members’ intercultural viewpoints; thus confirming the shared social "stock of knowledge" employed in the culturally defined writing conventions.
Last but not least this book explores the implications for genre education and training and develops an appropriate model for cross-cultural genre learning which encourages learning through legitimate peripheral participation and intercultural learning in business organizations.
The Acquisition of Swahili
Nov 2005
Book
Author(s):
Kamil Deen
This monograph is the first study of the acquisition of Swahili as a first language. It focuses on the acquisition of inflectional affixes with a particular emphasis on subject agreement and tense. Other inflectional affixes are also investigated including object agreement and mood. The study surveys the adult dialect in question Nairobi Swahili discussing social phonological morphological and syntactic properties. Data analyses and copious examples are presented of the naturalistic speech of four Swahili speaking children. The data are tested against six influential theories of child language and the results show that processing and metrical theories of telegraphic speech fail to account for the observed patterns while grammatical theories of child language fair significantly better. The data and analyses presented in this book are indispensable for linguists and psychologists interested in the acquisition of inflectional material and other cross-linguistic properties of child language.
Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness
Oct 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Robin T. Lakoff and
Sachiko Ide
This collection of 19 papers celebrates the coming of age of the field of politeness studies now in its 30th year. It begins with an investigation of the meaning of politeness especially linguistic politeness and presents a short history of the field of linguistic politeness studies showing how such studies go beyond the boundaries of conventional linguistic work incorporating as they do non-language insights. The emphasis of the volume is on non-Western languages and the ways linguistic politeness is achieved with them. Many if not most studies have focused on Western languages but the languages highlighted here show new and different aspects of the phenomena.The purpose of linguistic politeness is to aid in successful communication throughout the world and this volume offers a balance of geographical distribution not found elsewhere including Japanese Thai and Chinese as well as Greek Swedish and Spanish. It covers such theoretical topics as face wakimae social levels gender-related differences in language usage directness and indirectness and intercultural perspectives.
Athabaskan Prosody
Oct 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Sharon Hargus and
Keren Rice
This collection of articles on stress and tone in various Athabaskan languages will interest theoretical linguists and historically oriented linguists alike. The volume brings to light new data on the phonetics and/or phonology of prosody (stress tone intonation) in various Athabaskan languages Chiricahua Apache Dene Soun'liné Jicarilla Apache Sekani Slave Tahltan Tanacross Western Apache and Witsuwit’en. As well some contributions describe how prosody is to be reconstructed for Proto-Athabaskan and how it evolved in some of the daughter languages.
Topics in Signed Language Interpreting : Theory and practice
Oct 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Terry Janzen
Interpreters who work with signed languages and those who work strictly with spoken languages share many of the same issues regarding their training skill sets and fundamentals of practice. Yet interpreting into and from signed languages presents unique challenges for the interpreter who works with language that must be seen rather than heard. The contributions in this volume focus on topics of interest to both students of signed language interpreting and practitioners working in community conference and education settings. Signed languages dealt with include American Sign Language Langue des Signes Québécoise and Irish Sign Language although interpreters internationally will find the discussion in each chapter relevant to their own language context. Topics concern theoretical and practical components of the interpreter’s work including interpreters’ approaches to language and meaning their role on the job and in the communities within which they work dealing with language variation and consumer preferences and Deaf interpreters as professionals in the field.
Epistemic Modality : Functional properties and the Italian system
Oct 2005
Book
Author(s):
Paola Pietrandrea
This volume offers an original theoretical and methodological approach to the hotly debated issue of epistemic modality. The analysis is conducted in a rigorous typological frame developed after a careful consideration of a wealth of cross-linguistic data and focuses on Italian a language often disregarded in comparative analyses. The complexity of the Italian epistemic system provides relevant information that will undoubtedly foster a better understanding of the topic. A new definition of epistemic modality is proposed on a functional basis and the structure of the Italian epistemic system is closely described. The morpho-syntactic characteristics of Italian epistemic forms are regarded as the result of the dialectic between universal functional pressures and peculiar system resistances. Shaped by the system epistemic modality emerges as an intrinsically linguistic category which cannot be downsized to a mere conceptual notion as other approaches would propose.
Calling for Help : Language and social interaction in telephone helplines
Oct 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Carolyn Baker,
Michael Emmison and
Alan Firth
Telephone helplines have become one of the most pervasive sites of expert-lay interaction in modern societies throughout the world. Yet surprisingly little is known of the in situ language-based processes of help-seeking and help-giving behavior that occurs within them. This collection of original studies by both internationally renowned and emerging scholars seeks to improve upon this state of affairs. It does so by offering some of the first systematic investigations of naturally-occurring spoken interaction in telephone helplines. Using the methods of Conversation Analysis each of the contributors offers a detailed investigation into the skills and competencies that callers and call-takers routinely draw upon when engaging one another within a range of helplines. Helplines in the US the UK Australia Scandinavia The Netherlands and Ireland dealing with the provision of healthcare emotional support and counselling technical assistance and consumer rights tourism and finance make up the studies in the volume. Collectively and individually the research provides fascinating insight into an under-researched area of modern living and demonstrates the relevance and potential of helplines for the growing field of institutional interaction.
This book will be of interest to students of communication applied linguistics discourse and conversation sociology counselling technology and work social psychology and anthropology.
This book will be of interest to students of communication applied linguistics discourse and conversation sociology counselling technology and work social psychology and anthropology.
Talk and Practical Epistemology : The social life of knowledge in a Caribbean community
Oct 2005
Book
Author(s):
Jack Sidnell
Drawing on the methods of conversation analysis and ethnography this book sets out to examine the epistemological practices of Indo-Guyanese villagers as these are revealed in their talk and daily conduct. Based on over eighty-five hours of conversation recorded during twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork the book describes both the social distribution of knowledge and the villagers' methods for distinguishing between fact and fancy knowledge and belief through close analyses of particular encounters. The various chapters consider uncertainty and expertise in advice-giving the cultivation of ignorance in an attempt to avoid scandal and the organization of peer groups through the display of knowledge in the activity of reminiscing local history. An orienting chapter on questions and an appendix provide an introduction to conversation analysis. The book makes a contribution to linguistic anthropology conversation analysis and cross-cultural pragmatics. The conclusion discusses the implications of the analysis for current understanding of practice knowledge and social organization in anthropology and neighboring disciplines.
Copular Clauses : Specification, predication and equation
Oct 2005
Book
Author(s):
Line Mikkelsen
This book is concerned with a class of copular clauses known as specificational clauses and its relation to other kinds of copular structures predicational and equative clauses in particular. Based on evidence from Danish and English I argue that specificational clauses involve the same core predication structure as predicational clauses — one which combines a referential and a predicative expression to form a minimal predicational unit — but differ in how the predicational core is realized syntactically. Predicational copular clauses represent the canonical realization where the referential expression is aligned with the most prominent syntactic position the subject position. Specificational clauses involve an unusual alignment of the predicative expression with subject position. I suggest that this unusual alignment is grounded in information structure: the alignment of the less referential DP with the subject position serves a discourse connective function by letting material that is relatively familiar in the discourse appear before material that is relatively unfamiliar in the discourse. Equative clauses are argued to be fundamentally different.
The Rise of Agreement : A formal approach to the syntax and grammaticalization of verbal inflection
Oct 2005
Book
Author(s):
Eric Fuß
This book investigates the historical paths leading from pronouns to markers of verbal agreement and proposes a unified formal account of this grammaticalization process. In opposition to beliefs widely held in the literature it is argued that new agreement formatives can be coined in a multitude of syntactic environments. Still the individual paths toward agreement are shown to exhibit a set of underlying similarities which are attributed to universal principles that govern the reanalysis of pronominal clitics as exponents of verbal agreement across languages. It is claimed that syntactic principles impose only a set of necessary conditions on the reanalysis in question while its ultimate trigger is morphological in nature. More specifically it is argued that the acquisition of inflectional morphology is governed by blocking effects which operate during language acquisition and promote the grammaticalization of new markers if this change serves to replace ‘worn-out’ underspecified forms with new more specified candidates.
Clausal Architecture and Subject Positions : Impersonal constructions in the Germanic languages
Oct 2005
Book
Author(s):
Sabine Mohr
This book offers a comparative study of the Germanic languages. It promotes a new approach to the OV vs. VO classification according to which all clauses have a universal base where the internal argument is always merged in SpecVP. Word order differences and their correlates result from an interaction of checking conditions the EPP and different types of verb movement and from parametric variation concerning the location of the subject of predication in the I- or in the C-system. In the discussion of a range of impersonal constructions in German Dutch Afrikaans Yiddish Icelandic the Mainland Scandinavian languages and English it is shown that crosslinguistic variation as regards e.g. the distribution of the expletive in impersonal passives and the occurrence of a Definiteness Effect in Transitive Expletive Constructions is mainly due to the choice of different kinds of 'expletive' elements (each associated with different featural make-ups which force them to show up in different positions) namely true expletives event arguments and quasi-arguments whereas expletive pro is shown not to exist.
Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles
Sept 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Susanne Mühleisen and
Bettina Migge
Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles is the first collection to focus on socio-pragmatic issues in the Caribbean context including the socio-cultural rules and principles underlying strategic language use. While the Caribbean has long been recognized as a rich and interesting site where cultural continuities meet with new "creolized" or innovative practices questions of politeness practices constructions of personhood or the notion of face have so far been neglected in linguistic research on Caribbean Creoles. Drawing on linguistic politeness theory and Goffman's concept of face eleven mostly fieldwork-based innovative contributions critically examine a range of topics such as ritual insults strategic use of "bad language" kiss-teeth the performance of homophobic threats greetings address forms advice-giving socialization and discourse parent-child discourse register choice and communicative repertoire in the Caribbean context.
Syntax and Lexis in Conversation : Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction
Sept 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Auli Hakulinen and
Margret Selting
This volume is a collection of current work at the interface of linguistics and conversation analysis. The focus is on linguistic items in their action contexts: syntactic structures and lexical items in data from natural conversations in six European languages: Danish English Finnish German Italian and Swedish. Some of the studies deal with similar practices in two different languages which enables cross-linguistic comparisons. The notion of 'construction' is brought together with an interactional perspective; the fact that constructions cannot always be clearly analysed as either syntactic or lexico-semantic has its reflection in this volume. So far there have been fewer attempts at interactionally oriented work on lexical and semantic phenomena than on syntactic constructions. In this volume several papers show the interactional relevance of word selection and lexical semantic issues. In the future studies on syntax and lexico-semantics in interaction will enrich realistic grammars of our languages and cross-linguistic description of comparable practices of organizing talk in interaction will be invaluable for the study of both inter-European and international communication.
The Syntax–Discourse Interface : Representing and interpreting dependency
Sept 2005
Book
Author(s):
Petra B. Schumacher
This book combines theoretical and experimental aspects of the establishment of dependency. It provides an account of dependency relations by focusing on the representation and interpretation of referentially dependent elements particularly regular reflexives logophors and pronouns. First the establishment of dependency is discussed within a model of syntax–discourse correspondences that predicts an economy-based dependency hierarchy contingent on the level of representation at which the dependency is formed as well as the internal structure of the dependent element and its antecedent. Secondly the model’s predictions are substantiated by a series of experimental studies (conducted in English and Dutch) providing evidence from three sources of online sentence comprehension: reaction time studies Broca’s aphasia patient studies and event-related brain potential studies. The findings show that dependencies are established at distinct levels of linguistic encoding (i.e. syntax or discourse) determined by the presence or absence of coargumenthood and the representation of the dependency-forming elements.
The Rhetoric of Philosophy
Sept 2005
Book
Author(s):
Shai Frogel
The book claims that philosophy can be defined by its distinct rhetoric. This rhetoric is shaped by two values: humanism and critique. Humanism is defined as preferring the individual human deliberation to any external authority or method. Self-conviction is the touchstone of truth in philosophy. Critique is defined as suspecting your beliefs and convictions. This is the reason why the book uses Nietzsche’s definition of "the will to truth" – "the will not to deceive not even myself" – for explaining the nature of philosophical thinking and argumentation. This rhetorical analysis reveals that the danger of self-deception is a constitutive yet irresolvable problem of philosophy.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The subjects of the book are: the relations between philosophy and rhetoric the speaker and the addressee of philosophical arguments the subordination of logic to rhetoric in philosophy and the philosophical problem of self-deception. <br/>This work unburdened with philosophers’ jargon fits well in the current critical debate about the relevance of pragmatic features of the concepts of subjectivity and truth.
Argumentation in Practice
Sept 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Frans H. van Eemeren and
Peter Houtlosser
Since the late 1950s the study of argumentation has developed from a marginal part of logic and rhetoric into a genuine interdisciplinary academic discipline. After having first been primarily concerned with creating an adequate philosophical perspective on argumentation argumentation theorists have gradually shifted their focus of attention to a more immediate concern with the ins and outs of argumentative praxis. What exactly are the characteristics of situated argumentative discourse in different argumentative ‘action types’? How is the discourse influenced by institutional and contextual constraints? In what way can prominent cases of argumentative discourse be fruitfully analysed? Argumentation in Practice aims to provide insight into some important facets of argumentative praxis and the different ways in which it can be approached. The first part of this volume ‘Conceptions of problems in argumentative practice’ introduces useful theoretical perspectives. The second part ‘Empirical studies of argumentative practice’ contains both empirical studies of a general kind and several types of specific case studies.
Nominal Phrases from a Scandinavian Perspective
Sept 2005
Book
Author(s):
Marit Julien
This monograph presents a new model of the internal syntax of nominal phrases. The model is mainly based on Scandinavian since with the wide range of variation that Scandinavian displays in the nominal domain despite the close genetic relationship between the different varieties Scandinavian is particularly well-suited for explorations into nominal syntax. Among the topics covered are the basic syntactic structure of nominal phrases definiteness adjective phrases possessors relative clauses and nominal predicates. The model is however meant to be a tool for analysing the nominal phrases of any language. While the base-generated structure is taken to be universally uniform the model allows for variation in the feature makeup of individual elements in the phonological realisation of the features and in the movements that may or may not apply. Hence as shown in the final chapter patterns found in languages outside of Scandinavian can also be accounted for within the model.
Expertise and Explicitation in the Translation Process
Sept 2005
Book
Author(s):
Birgitta Englund Dimitrova
This book addresses the complexities of the translation process. Informed by theoretical and methodological advances in translation studies research on writing and the expertise paradigm it explores translation as a text reproduction task. With triangulation of data from Russian-Swedish translation – think-aloud-methodology and computer logging of the writing process - it makes a cross-sectional comparison of subjects with different amounts of translation experience highlighting crucial aspects of professional competence and expertise in translation. The book also elaborates a method for a combined product and process analysis applying it to the study of one type of explicitation: increased cohesive explicitness of the target text. The results have implications for translation theory and pedagogy. This volume will be of interest to translation scholars and translator trainers irrespective of language combination as well as to specialists in Russian and Swedish. It will also appeal to researchers on expertise in other domains.
The Dynamics of Language Use : Functional and contrastive perspectives
Sept 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Christopher S. Butler,
María de los Ángeles Gómez González and
Susana M. Doval-Suárez
This book brings together a collection of articles characterized by two main themes: the contrastive study of parallel phenomena in two or more languages and an essentially functional approach in which language is regarded first and foremost as a rich and complex communication system inextricably embedded in sociocultural and psychological contexts of use. The majority of the studies reported is empirical in nature many making use of corpora or other textual materials in the language(s) under investigation. The book begins with an introductory section in which the editors provide surveys of the state of the art in both functional and contrastive linguistics. The other five sections of the volume are devoted to (i) a cognitive perspective on form and function (ii) information structure (iii) collocations and formulaic language (iv) language learning and (v) discourse and culture.
Controversies and Subjectivity
Sept 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Pierluigi Barrotta and
Marcelo Dascal
This collective volume focuses on two closely connected issues whose common denominator is the embattled notion of the subject. The first concerns the controversies on the nature of the subject and related notions such as the concepts of ‘I’ and ‘self’. From both theoretical and historical viewpoints several of the contributors show how different and incompatible perspectives on the subject can help us understand today’s world its habits style power relations and attitudes. For this purpose use is made of insights in a broad range of disciplines such as sociology psychoanalysis pragmatics intellectual history and anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach helps to clarify the multifaceted character of the subject and the role it plays nowadays as well as over the centuries.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The second issue concerns the subject in inter-personal as well as in intra-personal controversies. The enquiry here focuses on the ways in which different aspects of the subject and subjective differences affect the conduct content and rationality of controversies with others as well as within oneself on a variety of topics. Among such aspects the contributors analyse the subject’s emotions cognitive states argumentative practices and individual and collective identity. The interaction between the two issues the controversies on the subject and the subject of controversies sheds new light on the debate on modernity and its alleged crisis.
Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World
Sept 2005
Book
Author(s):
Adrian Blackledge
In Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World the discourse of politicians and policy-makers in Britain links languages other than English and therefore speakers of these languages with civil disorder and threats to democracy citizenship and nationhood. These powerful arguments travel along ‘chains of discourse’ until they gain the legitimacy of the state and are inscribed in law. The particular focus of this volume is on discourse linking ‘race riots’ in England in 2001 with the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 which extended legislation to test the English language proficiency of British citizenship applicants.
Adrian Blackledge develops a theoretical and methodological framework which draws on critical discourse analysis to reveal the linguistic character of social and cultural processes and structures; on Bakhtin’s notion of the dialogic nature of discourse to demonstrate how voices progressively gain authority; and on Bourdieu’s model of symbolic domination to illuminate the way in which linguistic-minority speakers may be complicit in the misrecognition or valorisation of the dominant language.
Adrian Blackledge develops a theoretical and methodological framework which draws on critical discourse analysis to reveal the linguistic character of social and cultural processes and structures; on Bakhtin’s notion of the dialogic nature of discourse to demonstrate how voices progressively gain authority; and on Bourdieu’s model of symbolic domination to illuminate the way in which linguistic-minority speakers may be complicit in the misrecognition or valorisation of the dominant language.
Dramatized Discourse : The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction
Aug 2005
Book
Author(s):
Zhuo Jing-Schmidt
Language is a symbolic system of meanings evoked by linguistic forms. The choice of forms in communication is non-arbitrary. Rather speakers pick those forms whose meanings best convey their discourse intention. The meaning of the Mandarin ba-construction argues Jing-Schmidt is discourse dramaticity a concept that includes high conceptual salience and subjectivity. The ba-construction and its "syntactic variations" are never interchangeable because contrast in their meanings determines difference in their functions. Quantitative analyses based on authentic data validate the postulation of discourse dramaticity. By taking discourse pragmatics seriously the dramaticity hypothesis enables a unitary explanation that transcends sentence grammar. The diachronic treatment reveals the syntactic change of the ba-construction as an adaptive process of pragmatization which raises the issue of linguistic evolution as a result of socio-cultural development.
This book will be of particular value to readers interested in the interaction between grammar and pragmatics and to teachers confronting the controversy of the ba-construction in foreign language pedagogy.
This book will be of particular value to readers interested in the interaction between grammar and pragmatics and to teachers confronting the controversy of the ba-construction in foreign language pedagogy.
Linguistic Dimensions of Crisis Talk : Formalising structures in a controlled language
Aug 2005
Book
Author(s):
Claudia Sassen
This book offers an HPSG-based discourse grammar for a controlled language (Air Traffic Control) that allows the identification of well-formed discourse patterns. A formalisation of discourse theoretical structures that occur especially in crisis situations that involve potential aviation disasters is introduced. Of particular importance in this context are discourse sequences that help secure uptake among the crew and between crew and tower in order to coordinate actions that might result in avoiding a potential disaster. In order to describe the relevant phenomena an extended HPSG formalism is used. The extension concerns the capability of modelling speech acts as proposed by Searle & Vanderveken (1985). The grammar is modelled by employing XML as a denotational semantics and is applied to the corpus data. This work thus lays the foundation for the automatic recognition of discourse structures in aviation communication.
Negotiation of Contingent Talk : The Japanese interactional particles ne and sa
Aug 2005
Book
Author(s):
Emi Morita
Observing naturally occurring talk-in-interaction in Japanese this book examines how Japanese speakers segment their talk into relevant interactional units and use particles such as ne and sa to accomplish local pragmatic work. The study provides a conversation analytic action-oriented account for the ubiquity of such particles in Japanese talk.
The study argues that such particles are important resources for Japanese speakers to negotiate and fine-tune particular conversational contingencies within the emerging sequential environment of the talk. Various examples show that prospective alignment and the negotiability of conversational next action are ever-present issues for Japanese conversationalists and are handled at the precise moment of their relevance through interlocutors’ deployment of ne and sa. This study thus adds to the literature on Japanese conversational interaction a novel understanding of particle use in its synthesis of functional linguistics and conversation analysis.
The study argues that such particles are important resources for Japanese speakers to negotiate and fine-tune particular conversational contingencies within the emerging sequential environment of the talk. Various examples show that prospective alignment and the negotiability of conversational next action are ever-present issues for Japanese conversationalists and are handled at the precise moment of their relevance through interlocutors’ deployment of ne and sa. This study thus adds to the literature on Japanese conversational interaction a novel understanding of particle use in its synthesis of functional linguistics and conversation analysis.
The Function of Function Words and Functional Categories
Aug 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Marcel den Dikken and
Christina Tortora
This volume brings together papers which address a range of issues regarding the syntax of function words and functional categories in the Germanic languages. The works offered in this volume derive specifically from comparative studies of Germanic; at the same time they all bear directly on long-standing problems in syntactic theory and universal grammar. The contributions include novel theoretical and empirical approaches to infinitives the syntax and acquisition of Verb Second the structure and interpretation of present tense the syntax and semantics of reflexives the relationship between expletive syntax and the EPP the syntax of possession and the DP-internal syntax of pronouns. Some contributions present the results of experimental research which provide an entirely fresh perspective on previously unchallenged claims.
Multiple Case Narrative : A qualitative approach to studying multiple populations
Aug 2005
Book
Author(s):
Asher Shkedi
This book introduces a methodology for the construction of a comprehensive narrative description and narrative-based theory from the study of multiple populations. The book has two parallel foci. On the one hand it is a conceptual treatise focusing on the principles of the Multiple Case Narrative. On the other hand it also has a practical “how-to” focus with a step-by-step guide to conducting a Multiple Case Narrative. The book is accessible and comprehensive and addresses both those in the field as well as those with little background in the methodologies of narrative study and qualitative research.This book is also relevant to those who are interested in other qualitative varieties like single and collective narrative inquiry single and collective case study as well as ethnography because each of the procedures and techniques described here can be easily utilized for conducting other types of qualitative research.
The Order of Prepositional Phrases in the Structure of the Clause
Aug 2005
Book
Author(s):
Walter Schweikert
For a long time prepositions seemed to enjoy a clandestine status in linguistic research. This has changed with a novel path of inquiry into the inner structure of complex prepositional expressions. In a unique approach to the examination of the outer syntax of prepositions the author uses established and new syntactic and statistical tests to achieve a convincing hierarchy of thematic roles expressed by prepositional phrases. From an antisymmetric point of departure the author presents an overview of possible derivations that result in the observed different word orders of PPs in VO and OV languages. It leads to a refreshing new proposal of how to include morphology into syntax. The plausibility of this model is underscored by a wide range of explanatory data. This book is indispensable for linguists interested in the syntax of modifiers.
Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages : Theoretical and applied perspectives
Aug 2005
Book
Editor(s):
Dalila Ayoun and
M. Rafael Salaberry
This volume presents a state-of-the-art descriptive and explanatory analysis of the second language development of Romance tense-aspect systems. It contains new experimental data from adult French Catalan Portuguese learners and Italian children learners. Standing research questions are addressed and pedagogical implications for foreign language classrooms are proposed arguing that there are possible commonalities in the instructional sequences of tense-aspect development in Romance languages. The first chapter presents an overview of current theoretical approaches and a summary of empirical findings. The following four chapters introduce new empirical data from a variety of theoretical perspectives (e.g. the Aspect Hypothesis the UG/Minimalist framework). Chapter 5 proposes practical pedagogical approaches for the foreign language classroom based on empirical findings. The last chapter summarizes and discusses these findings in order to start elaborating a more comprehensive model of the development of tense-aspect marking in the Romance languages.
Speech and Thought Presentation in French : Concepts and strategies
Aug 2005
Book
Author(s):
Sophie Marnette
This book analyses and describes Speech and Thought Presentation (S&TP) in French from a broad theoretical perspective building bridges between linguistic stylistic and narratological frameworks that have until now been developed separately. It combines the French théorie de l’énonciation and different Anglo-Saxon approaches of reported discourse into a harmonious whole in order to create a new and exciting paradigm for our conception of S&TP strategies. Basing its findings on actual corpora and going beyond the canonical categories of reported discourse it shows that the study of S&TP strategies is essential to our understanding of phenomena as diverse as the evolution and categorization of literary genres the production and staging of ‘orality’ in literature the various conceptualizations of the notion of ‘Truth’ in fiction and non-fiction the expression of points of view in narrative the structuring of rhetorical strategies and the construction of the ‘Self’ versus the representation of the ‘Other’ in discourse.