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The Evolution of Englishes : The Dynamic Model and beyond
Sept 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Sarah Buschfeld,
Thomas Hoffmann,
Magnus Huber and
Alexander Kautzsch
This two-part volume provides a collection of 27 linguistic studies and contributions that shed light on the evolution of different Englishes world-wide (varieties learner Englishes dialects creoles) from a broad spectrum of different perspectives including both synchronic and diachronic approaches. What makes the volume unique is that it is the first-ever contribution to the field which includes a section exclusively commited towards testing discussing and refining Schneider’s (2007) Dynamic Model against recent realities of English world-wide (Part 1). These realities include a wide variety of case studies ranging from regions (socio)linguistically as diverse as South Africa the Phillipines Cyprus or Germany. Part 2 goes beyond the Dynamic Model and offers both empirical and theoretical perspectives on the evolution of World Englishes. In doing so it provides contributions with a theoretical focus on the topic as well as cross-varietal accounts; it sheds light on individual Englishes from different geographical regions and offers new perspectives on “old” varieties.
Interacting with Objects : Language, materiality, and social activity
Sept 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Maurice Nevile,
Pentti Haddington,
Trine Heinemann and
Mirka Rauniomaa
Objects are essential for how together people create and experience social life and relate to the physical environment around them. Interacting with Objects: Language materiality and social activity presents studies which use video recordings of real-life settings to explore how objects feature in social interaction and activity. The studies consider many objects (e.g. paper documents food a camera art furniture and even the human body) across various situations such as shopping visiting the doctor interviews and meetings surgery and instruction in dance craft or cooking. Analyses reveal in precise detail how as people interact objects are seen touched and handled heard created transformed planned imagined shared discussed or appreciated. With the companion collection Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond multitasking the book advances understanding of the complex organisation and accomplishment of social interaction especially the significance of embodiment materiality participation and temporality. By focussing on objects in and for actual occasions of human action Interacting with Objects: Language materiality and social activity will interest many researchers and practitioners in language and social interaction communication and discourse design and also more widely within anthropology sociology psychology and related disciplines.
Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English
Sept 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Simone E. Pfenninger,
Olga Timofeeva,
Anne-Christine Gardner,
Alpo Honkapohja,
Marianne Hundt and
Daniel Schreier
The papers in this volume aim at facilitating exchange between three fields of inquiry that are of great importance in historical linguistics: language change (socio)linguistic research on variation and contact linguistics. Drawing on a range of recently-developed methodological innovations such as methods for quantifying the linguistic variation (that is a prerequisite for language change) or new corpus-based methods for investigating text-type variation the contributors are able to trace linguistic change in different periods and contact situations demonstrate how variation occurs and in how far language change results out of this variation. Thus the chapters go beyond core issues of language variation and change focusing on the boundary between word and grammar discourse and ideology in the history of the English language.
The (Ir)reversibility of English Binomials : Corpus, constraints, developments
Sept 2014
Book
Author(s):
Sandra Mollin
This book focuses on binomials (word pairs such as heart and soul rich and poor or if and when) and in particular on the degree of reversibility that English binomials demonstrate. Detailed and innovative corpus linguistic analyses investigate the correlates of the degree of reversibility linguistic constraints that influence the ordering and reversibility of binomials and the diachronic development of reversibility. In addition judgment data are analyzed for their convergence and divergence with corpus data regarding degrees of reversibility. The book thus establishes reversibility as a complex characteristic of the binomial construction at the same time throwing light on general questions in phraseology lexicalization language structure and language processing.
Contexts of Subordination : Cognitive, typological and discourse perspectives
Sept 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Laura Visapää,
Jyrki Kalliokoski and
Helena Sorva
Contexts of Subordination: Cognitive typological and discourse perspectives is a collection of articles that approaches linguistic subordination as a semantico-grammatical and pragmatic phenomenon. The volume brings together cognitive interactional and typological perspectives and is characterised by extensive use of multi-genre data. The collection aims at a more precise understanding of subordination by emphasizing its pragmatic and contextual nature. Subordination and its linguistic realizations are studied from the perspective of language in its actual contexts of use as an interactional resource available to language users in both written and spoken language. In addition the authors produce typologically relevant information about subordination in the different varieties and genres of the studied languages (English Estonian Finnish and French). These qualities make the book unique in the field of subordination studies.
The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Sept 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Claudia V. Angelelli
Increasing attention has been paid to the agency of translators and interpreters as well as to the social factors that permeate acts of translation and interpreting. In addition agency and social factors are discussed in more interdisciplinary terms. Currently the focus is not only on translators or interpreters – i.e. the exploration of their inter/intra-social agency and identity construction (or on their activities and the consequences thereof) but also on other phenomena such as the displacement of texts and people and issues of access and linguicism. The displacement of texts (whether written or oral) across time and space as well as the geographic displacement of people has encouraged researchers in Translation and Interpreting Studies to consider issues related to translation and interpreting through the lens of the Sociology of Language Sociolinguistics and Historiography. Researchers have employed a myriad of theoretical and methodological lenses borrowed from other disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Therefore the interdisciplinarity of Translation and Interpreting Studies is more evident now than ever before. This volume originally published as a special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies (issue 7:2 2012) is a perfect example of such interdisciplinarity reflecting the shift that has occurred in Translation and Interpreting Studies around the world over the last 30 years.
Multiactivity in Social Interaction : Beyond multitasking
Sept 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Pentti Haddington,
Tiina Keisanen,
Lorenza Mondada and
Maurice Nevile
Doing more than one thing at the same time – a phenomenon that is often called ‘multitasking’ – is characteristic to many situations in everyday and professional life. Although we all experience it its real time features remain understudied. Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond multitasking offers a fresh view to the phenomenon by presenting studies that explore how two or more activities can be related and made co-relevant as people interact with one another. The studies build on the basis that multiactivity is a social verbal and embodied phenomenon. They investigate multiactivity by using video recordings of real-life interactions from a range of different contexts such as medical settings office workplaces and car driving. With the companion collection Interacting with Objects: Language materiality and social activity the book advances understanding of the complex organisation and accomplishment of social interaction especially the significance of embodiment materiality participation and temporality. A close appreciation of how people use language and interact for and during multiactivity will not only interest researchers in language and social interaction communication studies and discourse analysis but will be very valuable for scholars in cognitive sciences psychology and sociology.
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIV–XXV : Papers from the annual symposia on Arabic Linguistics. Texas, 2010 and Arizona, 2011
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Samira Farwaneh and
Hamid Ouali
This volume provides important contributions to Arabic linguistics and Linguistic research in general by presenting new empirical facts and innovative theoretical analyses. It consists of two major parts: the first contains four papers on phonology and morphology most of which deal with phonology/morphology interface while the second part includes five papers on syntax. The papers featured represent some of the current trends in Arabic Linguistics especially in the areas of Phonology and Syntax. Some of the articles are contributions to ongoing debates on the nature and properties of specific aspects of Arabic such as: gemination and stress assignment in Phonology and negation in Syntax. Other papers introduce new topics such as: analyzing intonational patterns in Arabic Phonology investigating the source of the morpheme /-in/ in the less studied varieties of Central Asian Arabic in Morphology and analyzing “sluicing” in Syntax.
Profiling Discourse Participants : Forms and functions in Spanish conversation and debates
Aug 2014
Book
Author(s):
Barbara De Cock
The construction of discourse is a challenging field where many discourse structures and interactional effects remain poorly understood. This analysis provides a systematic explanation for the way in which discourse participants (speaker and hearer) are construed in Spanish through a corpus-driven analysis of informal conversation TV-debates and parliamentary debates. It deals not only with person deixis but with the full range of possibilities speakers choose from when profiling their self or their relationship with the interlocutor. This analysis also offers new insights into the operationalization of the concepts of subjectivity and intersubjectivity as tools for the analysis of person reference and genre comparison. The comparative and corpus-driven approach offers methodological tools for genre analysis that can be transposed to other languages and/or genres. The detailed description of three socially highly relevant discourse types from a cognitive-functional perspective makes this book a useful resource not only for pragmatists but also for researchers in political and media discourse.
Beyond ‘Khoisan’ : Historical relations in the Kalahari Basin
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Tom Güldemann and
Anne-Maria Fehn
Greenberg’s (1954) concept of a ‘Khoisan’ language family while heartily embraced by non-specialists has been harshly criticized by linguists working on these languages. Evidence for Greenberg's hypothesis has proved to be seriously insufficient and little progress has been made in the intervening years in substantiating his claim by means of the standard comparative method. This volume goes beyond “Khoisan” in the linguistic sense by exploring a more complex history that includes multiple and widespread events of language contact in southern Africa epitomized in the areal concept ‘Kalahari Basin’. The papers contained herein present new data on languages from all three relevant lineages Tuu Kx’a and Khoe-Kwadi complemented by non-linguistic research from molecular and cultural anthropology. A recurrent theme is to disentangle genealogical and areal historical relations — a major challenge for historical linguistics in general. The multi-disciplinary approach reflected in this volume strengthens the hypothesis that Greenberg’s “Southern African Khoisan” is better explained in terms of complex linguistic cultural and genetic convergence.
The Evaluation of Language Regimes : Theory and application to multilingual patent organisations
Aug 2014
Book
Author(s):
Michele Gazzola
Building on existing analytical frameworks this book provides a new methodology allowing different language policies in international multilingual organisations (or “language regimes”) to be compared and evaluated on the basis of criteria such as efficiency and fairness. It explains step-by-step how to organise the evaluation of language regimes and how to design and interpret indicators for such evaluation. The second part of this book applies the theoretical framework to the evaluation of the language policy of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) division of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). Results show that an increase in linguistic diversity of the language regimes of patent organisations can both improve the efficiency of the patent system and lead to a more balanced distribution of costs among countries. This book is a resource for scholars in language policy and planning and for policy-makers in the international and European patent system.
Intersubjectivity and Intersubjectification in Grammar and Discourse : Theoretical and descriptive advances
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Lieselotte Brems,
Lobke Ghesquière and
Freek Van de Velde
Recent years saw a growing interest in the study of subjectivity as the linguistic expression of speaker involvement. Intersubjectivity defined by Traugott as "the linguistic expression of a speaker/writer's attention to the hearer/reader" on the other hand has so far received little explicit attention in its own right let alone systematic definition and operationalization. Intersubjectivity and seemingly related notions such as interpersonal meaning appraisal stance and metadiscourse frequently appear in cognitive-functional accounts as well as historical and more applied approaches. These domains offer (partly) conflicting uses of 'intersubjectivity' differ in the overall scope of the concept and the phenomena it may cover.This book brings together contributions from a variety of different approaches with the aim of disentangling the current web of intertwined notions of intersubjectivity. Rather than focusing on the potentially conflicting views the volume aspires to resolve some of the conceptual puzzle by cross-fertilization between the different views and spark discussion on how to operationalize 'intersubjectivity' in linguistic research. Originally published in English Text Construction 5:1 (2012).
History of Linguistics 2011 : Selected Papers from the 12th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XII), Saint Petersburg, 28 August - 2 September 2011
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Vadim Kasevich,
Yuri A. Kleiner and
Patrick Sériot
This volume brings together a selection of papers presented at the 12th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XII) held in St. Petersburg Russia 28 August – 2 September 2011. It begins with contributions on 17th-century rationalist ideas and practical grammar writing and then covers a great variety of 18th and 19th century topics from Western grammars of Chinese to Saussure’s remarks on semiology of the years 1881–1891. The most noteworthy feature however is an entire section devoted to linguistics in Russia from the early Soviet period until the 1950s including attempts to establish a Marxist view of language as well as phases to critically adapt Western ideas and at times efforts to participate successfully in international linguistic scholarship both in phonetics and semantics.
Romance Perspectives on Construction Grammar
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Hans C. Boas and
Francisco Gonzálvez-García
The chapters in this book show how the different flavors of Construction Grammar provide illuminating insights into the syntax semantics pragmatics and discourse-functional properties of specific phenomena in Romance languages such as (Castilian) Spanish French Romanian and Latin from a synchronic as well as a diachronic viewpoint. The phenomena surveyed include the role of constructional meanings in novel verb-noun compounds in Spanish the relevance of lexicalization for a constructionist analysis of complex prepositions in French the complementariness of fragments patterns and constructions as theoretical and explanatory constructs in verb complementation in French Latin and Spanish non-constituent coordination phenomena (e.g. Right Node Raising Argument Cluster Coordination and Gapping) in Romanian and variable type framing in Spanish constructions of directed motion in the light of Leonard Talmy’s (2000) typological differences of lexicalization between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages.
Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space
Aug 2014
Book
Author(s):
Christopher S. Butler and
Francisco Gonzálvez-García
This book intended primarily for researchers and advanced students expands greatly on previous work by the authors exploring the topography of the multidimensional “functional-cognitive space” within which functional cognitive and/or constructionist approaches to language can be located. The analysis covers a broad range of 16 such approaches with some additional references to Chomskyan minimalism and is based on 58 questionnaire items each rated by 29 experts on particular models for their importance in the model concerned. These ratings are analysed statistically to reveal overall patterns of (dis)similarity across models. The questionnaire ratings and experts’ comments are then used together with the authors’ close reading of the literature in detailed discussion leading to a final dichotomous rating for each feature in each model the results again being analysed statistically. The final chapter presents the overall conclusions and suggests how existing collaborations between approaches could be strengthened and new ones created in future research.
Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space has been awarded the 2016 prize of the Spanish Association for Applied Linguistics (Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada AESLA) for work by experienced researchers.
Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space has been awarded the 2016 prize of the Spanish Association for Applied Linguistics (Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada AESLA) for work by experienced researchers.
English in the Indian Diaspora
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Marianne Hundt and
Devyani Sharma
Diasporic populations offer unique opportunities for the study of language variation and change. This volume is the first collection of sociolinguistic studies of English use across the historically complex and widely dispersed Indian diaspora. The contributions describe particular sociohistorical contexts (the UK Fiji South Africa Singapore and the Caribbean) and then use this rich empirical base to examine diverse questions in theory and method such as the extent to which different settings see different or similar linguistic outcomes; the role of community structures transnational ties attitudes and identity; reasons for differing rates of change adaptation and focussing; and the relevance of endonormative stabilization of Asian Englishes. These themes do not simply further our understandings of diaspora. They can ultimately feed into wider theoretical questions in language contact studies including universals selection and adaptation of traits and interactions between social contact identity and language change.
True Emotions
Aug 2014
Book
Author(s):
Mikko Salmela
True Emotions discusses several key problems in emotion research. The question about the true nature of emotions focuses on the role of cognition in human emotions at different levels of analysis: functional role types of processes and representations and neural implementation. Truth to the self or authenticity has two meanings psychological and normative where the latter is analyzed as coherence between the evaluative content of an emotion and the subject’s internally justified beliefs and values. Truth to the world is argued to be a matter of correct evaluative representation of the emotional object on the one hand and the existence of the object or the actuality or accurate probability of the represented situation on the other hand. Finally authenticity and truth are applied to analyses of the authenticity of occupational emotions and the constitution of sentimental values respectively. Recommended reading for philosophers psychologists sociologists and gender researchers.
Perspectives on Semantic Roles
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Silvia Luraghi and
Heiko Narrog
Semantic roles have continued to intrigue linguists for more than four decades now starting with determining their kind and number with their morphological expression and with their interaction with argument structure and syntax. The focus in this volume is on typological and historical issues. The papers focus on the cross-linguistic identification of semantic-role equivalents on the regularity of and exceptions concerning change and grammaticalization in semantic roles the variation of encoding the roles of direction and experiencer in specific languages presenting evidence for identifying a new semantic role of speech addressee in Caucasian languages on semantic roles in word formation and finally a cross-linguistic comparison of the functions and the grammaticalization of the ethical dative in some Indo-European languages. The book will be of interest to anyone involved with case and semantic roles with the syntax-semantics interface and with semantic change and grammaticalization.
Literature as Dialogue : Invitations offered and negotiated
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Roger D. Sell
How is it that some texts achieve the status of literature? Partly at least because the relationship they allow between their writers and the people who respond to them is fundamentally egalitarian. This is the insight explored by members of the Åbo literary communication network who in this new book develop fresh approaches to literary works of widely varied provenance. The authors examined have written in Ancient Greek Táng Dynasty Chinese Middle Modern and Contemporary English German Romanian Polish Russian and Hebrew. But each and every one of them is shown as having offered their human fellows something which despite some striking appearances to the contrary amounts to a welcoming invitation. This their audiences have then been able to negotiate in a spirit of dialogical interchange.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Part I of the book poses the question: How in offering their invitation have writers respected their audiences’ human autonomy? This is the province of what Åbo scholars call "communicational criticism". Part II asks how an audience negotiating a literary invitation can be encouraged to respect the human autonomy of the writer who has offered it. In Åbo parlance such encouragement is the task of "mediating criticism". These two modes of criticism naturally complement each other and in their shared concern for communicational ethics ultimately seek to further a post-postmodern world that would be global without being hegemonic.
From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance : Essays in honor of Adam Kendon
Aug 2014
Book
Editor(s):
Mandana Seyfeddinipur and
Marianne Gullberg
Language use is fundamentally multimodal. Speakers use their hands to point to locations to represent content and to comment on ongoing talk; they position their bodies to show their orientation and stance in interaction; they use facial displays to comment on what is being said; and they engage in mutual gaze to establish intersubjectivity. This volume brings together studies by leading scholars from several fields on gaze and facial displays on the relationship between gestures sign and language on pointing and other conventionalized forms of manual expression on gestures and language evolution and on gestures in child development. The papers in this collection honor Adam Kendon whose pioneering work has laid the theoretical and methodological foundations for contemporary studies of multimodality gestures and utterance visible action.