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The Acquisition of Reference
Nov 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Ludovica Serratrice and
Shanley E.M. Allen
Referring to entities is one of the key functions of language; learning to understand and use the relevant referential expressions is one of children’s major linguistic achievements. The 13 chapters of this volume bring together a wealth of information on the acquisition of referential processes in infants pre-schoolers and school-age children drawing on data from more than 25 languages ranging from Italian to Inuktitut and from Norwegian to Turkish. This book presents the state-of-the-art of corpus and experimental research on the acquisition of reference. The breadth of aspects of referential acquisition will make the volume appealing to a wide audience of researchers including linguists and psycholinguists working on phonological morpho-syntactic and discourse-pragmatic aspects of language development. The cross-linguistic perspective adopted by several of the contributors will be of particular interest to researchers investigating the relevance of typological differences. The state-of-the-art approach makes the research accessible to specialist and non-specialist researchers alike and will provide an invaluable resource for graduate-level courses.
Verb Classes and Aspect
Nov 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Elisa Barrajón López,
José Luis Cifuentes Honrubia and
Susana Rodríguez Rosique
This volume offers a variety of perspectives on two of the main topics situated at the crossroads between lexical semantics and syntax namely: (a) aspect and its correspondence with syntactic structure; and (b) the delimitation of syntactic structures from verb classes. Almost from Aristotle’s Metaphysics it has been assumed that verbs invoke a mental image about the way in which eventualities are distributed over time. When it comes to determining time schemata the lexical class to which the verb belongs represents a first step. Speaking about verb classes does not exclusively mean a semantic similarity; rather verb classes exhibit a bundle of common features and thus show a set of recursive behavior patterns. Beyond the meaning of the verb both semantic and syntactic factors together with pragmatic ones play a decisive role when establishing the aspectual classification of an eventuality. The contributions collected in this book approach the aforementioned lines either analyzing the relationships between aspect and syntactic structure or traversing the path from a verb class to its syntactic manifestation. Some of them stress diachronic filiations while others include processes of word formation in the debate; some of them focus on certain classes such as movement verbs or psychological verbs while others examine specific constructions. A number of chapters also discuss relevant theoretical issues concerning the analysis of aspect. In sum the kaleidoscopic view provided by this book allows the reader to delve deeper into one of the most controversial – as well as exciting – topics within current linguistics.
The Phonetics–Phonology Interface : Representations and methodologies
Nov 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Joaquín Romero and
María Riera
This volume is a collection of advanced laboratory phonology research papers concerned with the interaction between the physical and the mental aspects of speech and language. The traditional linguistic theoretic distinction between phonetics and phonology is put to the test here in a series of articles that deal with some of the fundamental issues in the field from first and second language acquisition to segmental and supra-segmental phenomena in a range of different languages. Unique features of this volume are the development of innovative experimental methodologies advanced techniques of data analysis latest-generation equipment for the observation of speech and their combined critical application to the study of the phonetics-phonology interface. The volume is therefore not only of great interest but of outstanding value and importance to anyone who wishes to be completely apprised of the latest advances in this crucial area of phonological research.
The Pragmatics of Personal Pronouns
Nov 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Laure Gardelle and
Sandrine Sorlin
This volume presents new research on the pragmatics of personal pronouns. Whereas personal pronouns used to have a reputation of poor substitutes for full NP’s recent research shows that personal pronouns are a fundamental if not universal category whose pragmatics is central to their understanding. For instance personal pronouns may indicate attentional continuity or social deixis and take on genre-specific pragmatic effects. The authors of the present collection investigate such effects and analyse competing forms in context (e.g. she / her in subject position) as well as their pragmatic functions in an extensive range of genres such as advertising TV series charity appeals mother/child interaction or computer-mediated communication. Moreover one section is devoted to the pragmatics of antecedentless pronouns and so-called ‘impersonal’ personal forms. The volume will be of interest to both scholars and students interested in the pragmatics of functional words.
The Diachrony of Grammar
Nov 2015
Book
Author(s):
T. Givón
The case-studies assembled in these two volumes span a lifetime of research into the diachrony of grammar. That is into the rise and fall of syntactic constructions and their attendant grammatical morphology. While focused squarely on the data the studies are nonetheless cast in an explicit theoretical perspective – adaptive developmental variationist. Taken as a whole this work constitutes a frontal assault on Ferdinand de Saussure's corrosive legacy in linguistics. Over the years reviewers slapped the author's wrist periodically for having dared to commit that most heinous of sins against de Saussure's hallowed legacy – panchronic grammar. In this work he pleads guilty having never seen a piece of synchronic data that didn't reek to high heaven of the diachrony that gave it rise. Reek in two distinct ways: first with the frozen relics of the past that prompt us to reconstruct prior diachronic states; and second with the synchronic variation that hints at ongoing change. Conversely the author confesses to having never seen a diachronic explanation that did not hinge on the synchronic principles – Carnap's general propositions – that govern language behavior. The synchrony and diachrony of grammar are twin faces of the same coin. To study one without the other is to gut both. By understanding how synchronic grammars come into being we also understand the cognitive communicative neurological and developmental universals that constrain diachronic change – and through it synchronic typology.
Domains and Directions in the Development of TBLT : A decade of plenaries from the international conference
Nov 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Martin Bygate
This volume brings together contemporary position statements and research reviews which were originally presented as Plenary Addresses to the Biennial International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching between 2005 and 2013. It thus assembles up-to-date reflections critiques and recommendations from influential researchers working within the TBLT paradigm over the last 30 years thereby also highlighting most of the major theoretical perspectives so far developed. While the plenarists structured their chapters around their original presentations they have been invited to update their thinking as they feel appropriate and in response to recent developments in the field. The collection thus offers representative and accessible coverage of a range of approaches to the overall philosophy of TBLT to the relationship between TBLT and the study of second language acquisition and to the development and implementation of TBLT as a comprehensive approach to language education curriculum and pedagogy.
Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística, la gramática y la lexicografía del español (BICRES V) : Desde el año 1861 hasta el año 1899
Oct 2015
Book
Author(s):
Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres and
Hans-Josef Niederehe
Since the publication of the still very valuable Biblioteca histórica de la filología by Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano conde de la Viñaza (Madrid 1893) our knowledge of the history of the study of the Spanish language has grown considerably and most manuscript and secondary sources had never been tapped before Hans-Josef Niederehe of the University of Trier courageously undertook the task to bring together any available bibliographical information together with much more recent research findings scattered in libraries journals and other places. The resulting Bibliografía cronológica de la lingüística la gramática y la lexicografía del español: Desde los principios hasta el año 1600 (BICRES) began appearing in 1994. BICRES I covered the period from the early beginnings to 1600 followed by BICRES II (1601–1700) BICRES III (1701–1800) and together with Miguel Ángel Esparza Torres of Madrid there followed BICRES IV (1801 to 1860). Now the fifth volume has become available covering the years from 1861 to 1899. Access to the bibliographical information of altogether 5272 titles is facilitated by several detailed indexes such as a short title index a listing of printers publishers and places of production and an author index.
More than twenty years of research in the major libraries of Spain and other European countries have gone into this unique work — relative sources of the Americas have also been covered — making it exhaustive source for any serious scholar of any possible aspect of the Spanish language.
More than twenty years of research in the major libraries of Spain and other European countries have gone into this unique work — relative sources of the Americas have also been covered — making it exhaustive source for any serious scholar of any possible aspect of the Spanish language.
Discourse, Politics and Women as Global Leaders
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
John Wilson and
Diana Boxer
Discourse Politics and Women as Global Leaders focuses on the discourse practices of women in global political leadership. It provides a series of discursive studies of women in positions of political leadership. ‘Political leadership’ is defined as achieving a senior position within a political organization and will often indicate a senior role in government or opposition. The volume draws on a diverse collection of studies from across the globe reflecting a variety of cultures and distinct polities. The primary aim is to consider in what way(s) discursive practice underpins reflects or is appropriated in terms of women’s political success and achievements within politics. The chapters employ differing theoretical approaches all bound by the discursive insights they provide and in terms of their contribution to understanding the role of language and discourse in the construction of gendered identities within political contexts.
Corpora, Grammar and Discourse : In honour of Susan Hunston
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Nicholas Groom,
Maggie Charles and
Suganthi John
Corpus linguistics has had a revolutionary impact on grammar and discourse research. Not only has it opened up entirely new theoretical perspectives and methodological possibilities for both fields but it has also to a considerable extent erased the boundaries that have traditionally been drawn between them. This book showcases a variety of current corpus-based approaches to the study of grammar and discourse and makes a case for seeing grammar and discourse as fundamentally inter-related phenomena. The book features contributions from leading experts in cognitive linguistics construction grammar critical discourse studies genre and register analysis phraseology language learning and teaching languages for specific purposes second language acquisition sociolinguistics systemic functional linguistics and text linguistics. An essential reference point for future research Corpora Grammar and Discourse has been edited in honour of Susan Hunston whose own work has consistently pushed at the boundaries of corpus-based research on grammar and discourse for over three decades.
Scrutinizing Argumentation in Practice
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Frans H. van Eemeren and
Bart Garssen
<i>Scrutinizing Argumentation in Practice</i> contains a selection of papers reflecting upon the use of argumentation in real life contexts. The first five sections are devoted to argumentation in a specific institutional context: scientific controversies argumentation in politics argumentation in a legal context argumentation in education argumentation in an interpersonal context. The last section deals with strategic maneuvering as a vital concept in studying argumentation in practice.<br />The contributors are: Francesco Arcidiacono Michael J. Baker Sarah Bigi Marina Bletsas Stephanie Breux William O. Dailey Marianne Doury Claudio Duran Frans H. van Eemeren Lindsay M. Ellis Jeanne Fahnestock Eveline T. Feteris Bart Garssen Anca Gâţă Salma I. Ghanem Sara Greco Edward A. Hinck Robert S. Hinck Shelly S. Hinck Henrike Jansen Takayuki Kato Susan L. Kline Pascale Mansier Bert Meuffels Celine Miserez-Caperos D’Arcy Oaks Sachinidou Paraskevi Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont H. José Plug Takeshi Suzuki and David Zarefsky.
Trilingual Language Acquisition : Contextual factors influencing active trilingualism in early childhood
Oct 2015
Book
Author(s):
Sarah Chevalier
This book examines the language development of two children from the ages of two till four who are growing up exposed to English Swiss German and French. Its aim is to ascertain the importance of different environmental factors in fostering active trilingualism. These factors include the quantity of input for each language whether or not the societal language is spoken in the home and the conversational style of the caregivers. Although increasing numbers of children are being raised trilingually research in this field is scarce; this study thus makes an important contribution to our knowledge of trilingual language acquisition. A special point of interest lies in a comparison of the acquisition of two minority languages by a single child since this allows us to pinpoint more precisely how the development of non-societal languages can be influenced. This book will be of considerable interest to researchers and students working on multilingualism and language acquisition alike.
Singing, Speaking and Writing Politics : South African political discourses
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Mirjana N. Dedaić
The discourses of the post-apartheid South Africa embody symbols of change and promises of new lessons in history. This is the first volume that brings together analyses of a variety of discourses produced in South Africa through which we follow the evolution of transitional processes in the country’s political institutions and in the opinions of its populace. The book offers to the reader a visit to the Parliament a peek into the internet forums analyses of the country's official papers and speeches and the media accounts. Through all these discourses we see the burning questions – "Who Are We Now?" and "Who Do We Want To Be?" – being repetitively examined and identities cross-formed while the country deals with new post-apartheid challenges as well as successes.
New Perspectives on the Study of Ser and Estar
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Isabel Pérez-Jiménez,
Manuel Leonetti and
Silvia Gumiel-Molina
This is the first book entirely and exclusively devoted to the grammar of the two copular verbs ser and estar certainly one of the most intriguing features of Spanish grammar. Although the topic has long attracted the interest of scholars it had never given rise to a collection of papers that covers both theoretical issues in syntax and semantics and topics in the acquisition domain. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the central research questions concerning the ser / estar alternation: the syntactic or semantic nature of the distinction its link with aspect and with the Individual-Level / Stage-Level distinction and its connection with interface phenomena. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Hispanic linguistics but can be equally attractive for researchers working on Romance linguistics theoretical linguistics (syntax semantics pragmatics) acquisition theory and historical linguistics.
Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
James Essegbey,
Brent Henderson and
Fiona Mc Laughlin
This volume brings together a number of important perspectives on language documentation and endangerment in Africa from an international cohort of scholars with vast experience in the field. Offering insights from rural and urban settings throughout the continent these essays consider topics that range from the development of a writing system to ideologies of language endangerment from working with displaced communities to the role of colonial languages in reshaping African repertoires and from the insights of archeology to the challenges of language documentation as a doctoral project. The authors are concerned with both theoretical and practical aspects of language documentation as they address the ways in which the African context both differs from and resembles contexts of endangerment elsewhere in the world. This volume will be useful to fieldworkers and documentalists who work in Africa and beyond.
The Power of Satire
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Marijke Meijer Drees and
Sonja de Leeuw
Satire is clearly one of today’s most controversial socio-cultural topics. In this edited volume The Power of Satire it is studied for the first time as a dynamic discursive mode of performance with the power of crossing and contesting cultural boundaries. The collected essays reflect the fundamental shift from literary satire or straightforward literary rhetoric with a relatively limited societal impact to satire’s multi-mediality in the transnational public space where it can cause intercultural clashes and negotiations on a large scale. An appropriate set of heuristic themes – space target rhetoric media time – serves as the analytical framework for the investigations and determines the organization of the book as a whole. The contributions written by an international group of experts with diverse disciplinary backgrounds manifest academic standards with a balance between theoretical analyses and evaluations on the one hand and in-depth case studies on the other.
Afro-Peruvian Spanish : Spanish slavery and the legacy of Spanish Creoles
Oct 2015
Book
Author(s):
Sandro Sessarego
The present work not only contributes to shedding light on the linguistic and socio-historical origins of Afro-Peruvian Spanish it also helps clarify the controversial puzzle concerning the genesis of Spanish creoles in the Americas in a broader sense. In order to provide a more concrete answer to the questions raised by McWhorter’s book on The Missing Spanish Creoles the current study has focused on an aspect of the European colonial enterprise in the Americas that has never been closely analyzed in relation to the evolution of Afro-European contact varieties the legal regulations of black slavery. This book proposes the 'Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis' which ascribes a prime importance in the development of Afro-European languages in the Americas to the historical evolution of slavery from the legal rules contained in the Roman Corpus Juris Civilis to the codes and regulations implemented in the different European colonies overseas. This research was carried out with the belief that creole studies will benefit greatly from a more interdisciplinary approach capable of combining linguistic socio-historical legal and anthropological insights. This study is meant to represent an eclectic step in such a direction.
Vom Paläolithikum zur Postmoderne – Die Genese unseres Epochen-Systems : Bd. II: Das 18. und 19. Jahrhundert
Oct 2015
Book
Author(s):
Andreas Kamp
Mit dem vorliegenden Buch setzen wir unsere Studie zur Genese der heutigen Epochen-Systematik fort. Aufgrund der ebenso vielfältigen wie profunden Transformationen die während des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts stattfanden konzentriert es sich die Analyse der jüngeren Entwicklungen für den dritten Band reservierend ganz auf diesen Zeitraum. <br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Unter Fokussierung auf die führenden europäischen Volkssprachen (Englisch Französisch Deutsch Italienisch Spanisch Portugiesisch) thematisieren wir jeweils zum einen die für die Anfänge bzw. Ausgestaltungen des konzeptionellen Wandels relevanten Literaten zum anderen seine durch die ungemein reichhaltige Lexikographie dokumentierte Verbreitung. Detailliert berücksichtigt wird hierbei auch die signifikante schon recht früh einsetzende Globalisierungstendenz die sich in der kräftigen Resonanz des ursprünglich rein europäischen Konzepts in der autochthonen literarischen wie lexikographischen Produktion des anglo- hispano- und lusophonen Amerika manifestierte.<br/>Der Adressatenkreis des Buches umfaßt Lehrende und Studierende der Geschichtswissenschaft im allgemeinen der Historie zahlreicher weiterer Disziplinen wie etwa Geschichte der Philosophie der Künste des Rechts oder der Geologie ferner der klassischen Philologie und ihrer modernen Pendants wie Anglistik Romanistik oder Germanistik sowie nicht zuletzt der Lexikographie.<br/>---<br/>The volume at hand is a continuation of our studies on the genesis of today’s system of epochs. Owing to the equally profound and multifarious transformations taking place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it focuses exclusively on this period with an analysis of the most recent developments to follow in a third volume. <br/>In concentrating on the preeminent European vernaculars (English French German Italian Spanish Portuguese) we will lay special emphasis for one on the authors who were most influential concerning the beginnings and specific contents of conceptual changes. On the other hand we will focus on the exceptional abundance of lexicographical sources to show how and when these transformations spread. Furthermore the significant tendency to globalization which can already be seen fairly early on is given ample recognition in this context. Indeed the autochthonous literary and lexicographical productions of Anglophone Hispanophone and Lusophone America are manifestations of the vivid reverberations of a concept that was originally purely European. <br/>This publication addresses teachers and students of historical scholarship in general as well as of the subject-specific history of various disciplines such as history of philosophy law or geology art history classical philology and their modern counterparts such as English Romance or German Studies and last but not least the history of lexicography.
Multimodality and Cognitive Linguistics
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
María Jesús Pinar Sanz
The aim of this volume is to advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of the relationship between Multimodality and Cognitive Linguistics. The innovative nature of the volume in relation to those existing in the field lies in the fact that it brings together contributions from three of the main approaches dealing with Multimodality – Cognitive Linguistics and multimodal metaphors (Forceville & Urios Aparisi 2009) social semiotics and systemic functional grammar and multimodal interactional analysis (Jewitt 2009) –highlighting the importance of multimodal resources and showing the close relationship between this field of study and Cognitive Linguistics applied to a variety of genres –ranging from comics films cartoons picturebooks or visuals in tapestry to name a few. Originally published in Review of Cognitive Linguistics Vol. 11:2 (2013).
Language Endangerment : Disappearing metaphors and shifting conceptualizations
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Elisabeth Piirainen and
Ari Sherris
Languages and language varieties around the globe have been diminishing at an astonishing rate. Despite great efforts at language documentation scholarship on metaphors and figurative units – often particularly fragile parts of language – has been largely neglected until recently. This book like its predecessor Endangered Metaphors (CLSCC 2 2012) focuses on disappearing metaphors and idioms from languages of diverse continents. Moreover the book analyzes work from online social interaction discusses topics such as language maintenance educational practice and revitalization as well as future directions for endangered metaphor studies. The book is highly innovative and produces new findings for linguistics and cultural studies: the more languages are examined especially minority varieties distant from western languages the more questionable becomes “universality” in the field of metaphor with unique linguistic data across chapters evidencing the non-universality of conceptual metaphors and calling for a revision of existing metaphor theories. The book will be of special interest to: linguistics (metaphor and phraseology research applied linguistics sociolinguistics linguistic anthropology) public policy sociology; community activists and educators of language maintenance and revitalization.
The Acquisition of the Present
Oct 2015
Book
Editor(s):
Dalila Ayoun
This is the first edited volume that tackles the acquisition of the present (tense aspect temporality) an under-researched area particularly compared to the acquisition of past temporality. The first two chapters focus on the L1 acquisition of English from the perspective of the Aspect hypothesis and the Verb-Island hypothesis Wang & Shirai) and the L1 acquisition of French from the perspective of the zero-tense hypothesis (Demirdache & Lungu). The remaining chapters tackle the L2 acquisition of English (Liszka Al-Thubaiti Vraciu) French (Ayoun Saillard) Spanish (Gabriele et al.) Russian (Martelle) and Japanese (Shirai & Li) by learners of different L1s (French English Arabic Chinese and Korean) testing various semantic and syntactic hypotheses. The last chapter presents a summary of the findings and offers a few conclusions as well as broad directions for future research.