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This is the first of two volumes emanating from the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages held at the University of Texas at Austin in February 2005. It features the keynote address delivered by Denis Bouchard on exaptation and linguistic explanation as well as seventeen contributions by emerging and internationally recognized scholars of Spanish French Italian as well as Rumanian. While the emphasis bears on formal analyses the coverage is remarkably broad as topics range from morphology syntax semantics pragmatics and language acquisition. Each article seeks to represent a new perspective on these topics and a variety of frameworks and concepts are exploited: distributive morphology entailment theory grammaticalization information structure left-periphery polarity lattice spatial individuation thematic hierarchy etc. This volume will challenge anyone interested in current issues in theoretical Romance Linguistics.

Par le biais d’une méthode philologique historique et philosophique ce livre établit l’absence de lien direct entre Maître Eckhart et Jacob Böhme. En réalité le concept de la “philosophie mystique allemande” commençant soit disant avec Eckhart et finissant avec Böhme a son origine dans la philosophie romantique du 19ème siècle et est toujours en usage aujourd’hui. L'étude se concentre sur la théorie eckhartienne du “grunt” et de l’“abgrunt” et sur sa relation possible avec la théorie böhmienne de l’“Ungrund”. elle montre que les différences entre les deux théories sont essentielles et qu’elles aboutissent à une opposition philosophique profonde entre l’intellectualisme de Maître Eckhart et le volontarisme de Böhme. Ainsi il faudrait réviser aussi bien la relation de Böhme à Maitre Eckhart que la place de ce dernier au sein de l’histoire de la philosophie.Through methods of philology history and philosophy this book establishes that there is no direct connection between Master Eckhart and Jacob Böhme. The concept of the “German mystic philosophy” starting supposedly with Eckhart and ending with Böhme actually has its origin in the Romantic philosophy of the 19th century and and is still usual today. This study focuses on the eckhartian theory of the “grunt” and “abgrunt” and its possible relation to the böhmist theory of the “Ungrund”. It shows that the differences between both theories are significant and that they culminate in a deep philosophical opposition between the intellectualism of Master Eckhart and the voluntarism of Böhme. Thus both Böhme’s relationship to Master Eckhart and the position of the latter in the history of philosophy should be revised.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

How do media inform our representations of the Other and how does this influence intercultural / international relations? While officially dialogues between different national societies are conducted by diplomats in bilateral and multilateral settings in practice journalists also participate every day in such dialogues through the phenomenon of the “international media echo” in which they report on each others’ societies. Until now media have only been investigated for their potential role in the foreign policy of specific states. In a case study involving media in three national cultures and languages (French American and Russian) this book presents an interdisciplinary framework that combines quantitative and qualitative analyses for the study of the international media echo in an intercultural / international relations perspective. In particular the fundamental functioning of “spirals of anti-Other rhetoric” i.e. media wars is examined in a Critical Discourse Analysis approach completed with Social Identity Theory and International Relations theories.

The Sociology of Language and Religion (SLR) is still in its infancy as a sub-discipline in the macrosociolinguistic tradition. It is therefore no coincidence that the editorial collaboration to produce its first definitive text Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion has involved Joshua A. Fishman often cited in the literature as one of the founders of the Sociology of Language. Tope Omoniyi brings to the collaboration an insightful and incisive critical eye for engaging with diversity in the treatment of language and religion. Together as editors they have successfully midwived the birth of SLR. The studies and debates contained in this volume revisit those themes that both of the contributory disciplines of Sociology of Language and Religion have common interest in. The contributing authors explore new methodologies and paradigms of analysis that they deem appropriate for this interesting and complex interface in an attempt to demonstrate how the shared interests of these disciplines impact social practices in various communities around the world. The ultimate objective of the discussions is to fashion tools for creating a body of new knowledge that supports the emergence of a better society. Towards this end the authors have harnessed resources from varied geographical cultural linguistic and religious constituencies without compromising analytical depth. In the process they have opened up new areas of sociolinguistic inquiry. The volume is thus presented as a highly useful reference resource both for undergraduate and postgraduate scholarship.

This volume is part of a research program which started with the publication in 1972 of Anna Wierzbicka’s groundbreaking work on Semantic Primitives. The first within the program to focus on a number of typologically similar languages it proposes a French Spanish Portuguese and Italian version of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) elaborated over the years by Wierzbicka and colleagues. Repetition is avoided through teamwork: a number of authors working on the languages under examination have had equal input in a set of five papers dealing with distinct parts of the metalanguage. Some of the findings presented here invite us to have a fresh look at what has already been achieved and to amend some of the working hypotheses of the NSM approach accordingly. The volume also contains six case studies (on Italian sfogarsi Portuguese saudades Spanish crisis French certes Spanish expressions of sincerity and Italian and Spanish diminutives respectively).

This book explores how the voices of authors and other researchers are manifested in academic discourse and how the author handles the polyphonic interaction between these various parties. It represents a unique study of academic discourse in that it takes a doubly contrastive approach focusing on the two factors of discipline and language at the same time. It is based on a large electronic corpus of 450 research articles from three disciplines (economics linguistics and medicine) in three languages (English French and Norwegian). The book investigates whether disciplines and languages may be said to represent different cultures with regard to person manifestation in the texts. What is being studied is thus cultural identities as tendencies in linguistic practices. For the majority of the features focused on (e.g. metatext and bibliographical references) the discipline factor turns out to contribute more strongly to the variation observed than the language factor. However for some of the features (e.g. pronouns and negation) the language factor is also quite strong.



Additional background information on the investigations reported in this book can be found at www.uib.no/kiap/.

Translation Studies has recently been searching for connections with Cultural Studies and Sociology. This volume brings together a range of ways in which the disciplines can be related particularly with respect to research methodologies. The key aspects covered are the agents behind translation the social histories revealed by translations the perceived roles and values of translators in social contexts the hidden power relations structuring publication contexts and the need to review basic concepts of the way social and cultural systems work. Special importance is placed on Community Interpreting as a field of social complexity the lessons of which can be applied in many other areas. The volume studies translators and interpreters working in a wide range of contexts ranging from censorship in East Germany to English translations in Gujarat. Major contributions are made by Agnès Whitfield Daniel Gagnon Franz Pöchhacker Michaela Wolf Pekka Kujamäki and Rita Kothari with an extensive introduction on methodology by Anthony Pym.

Agreement plays a central role in modern generative grammar. The present collection brings together contributions from experts on various aspects of agreement systems in the world’s languages in an attempt to formulate formal and substantive universals in this domain. All the papers contained here focus on the formalization of the mechanisms of agreement and on the relationship between case and agreement. All the papers propose solutions by seriously examining cross-linguistic data from the usual Germanic and Romance languages to Lummi Greek Hindi Turkish and other Turkic languages Japanese Tsez Masaai Russian Arabic Basque Warlpiri Kaltakungu and Bantu.

This volume presents a collection of new articles by sixteen specialists in the field of pidgin and creole studies assembled in honor of the world-renowned creolist Albert Valdman. The articles written from a variety of theoretical perspectives are organized thematically in three sections: on the history of specific pidgins or creoles (including Louisiana Creole and Haitian Creole); on the sociohistorical settings that gave rise to these contact languages and issues affecting their future development; and on issues of linguistic variation and change. In keeping with Valdman’s own primary interests the French-based creoles receive the most attention including both those of the Atlantic zone and those of the Indian Ocean but the volume also presents significant scholarship on English- and Portuguese-based varieties.

The selected contributions of this volume focus on various issues related to second language pedagogy and second language acquisition in the Japanese context. Part I covers such topics as discourse pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics in language teaching; the instruction of conversation through training in story telling skills; task activities as a means for grammarization in grammar teaching; the development of a computerized speaking test and a proficiency scale for EFL learners; and the social aspects of the language teacher expertise. Part II deals with the cognitive transformation involved in the acquisition of syntactic structures; the application of ZPD to adult learners not only in terms of interpersonal interaction but also through interfacing with other media; examination of learners’ narrative data to analyze linguistic and gestural reference and to investigate learners’ use of phrasal verbs; learner’s strategy use in self-instruction that utilizes audiovisual materials; and network computer technology in computer-assisted language learning.