Subject collection: Linguistics (2,773 titles, 1967–2015)

Diachronic corpus pragmatics extends the pragmatic perspective to developments in the history of various languages and uses corpus-linguistic methods to trace them. The chapters in this volume focus on linguistic elements at several levels, from individual words to phrases, clauses and entire genres and discourse forms. Using the most recent corpus tools, the authors investigate correlations between forms, functions and contexts in diachronic case studies that combine quantitative precision with close qualitative interpretation. The articles deal with different languages including English, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Estonian and Japanese, bringing their research traditions in pragmatics and corpus linguistics in dialogue with each other. This is the first time that such a wide range of languages has been brought together to showcase an exciting new field at the intersection of pragmatics, historical linguistics and corpus methodology.

This monograph presents an ecological perspective to the study of language maintenance and shift in immigrant contexts. The ecology incorporates past, present and future and treats spatial and temporal dimensions as the main organizing frames in which everyday language use and identity development can be explored. The methods combine a quantitative domain-based sociolinguistic survey with discourse analytic approaches. The novel approach is valuable for fellow researchers working in interdisciplinary fields of language maintenance, language shift, multilingualism andlanguage planning in migration contexts. The ecological perspective adds to sociolinguistic theories of globalization and responds to current dynamics of translocality in modern immigrant contexts. The research presents language use and language planning efforts in the Sudanese community of Australia. Language, culture, race and ethnic identity are explored in unique sociolinguistic contexts using an emic research lens and giving voice to the participants.

This volume proposes a new way to address the classical question concerning the relation between language, cognition, and culture from the perspective of two basic systems: deixis and the pronominal system. It investigates the linguistic structuring of basic concepts of person, place and time in Romance languages, disclosing structural differences that may be related to mental parameters and other extra-linguistic circumstances and thus possibly linked to a light revision of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

The methodological and theoretical focus is based on the discursive and pragmatic functional approach to deixis. The articles concern linguistic variation and language change, and most of the studies adopt cross linguistic perspectives, primarily among Romance languages, but also with a classical perspective from Ancient Greek discussing the existence of universal categorical patterns. The studies reveal similarities and differences between Romance languages mutually, and set the stage for comparisons between Romance and non-Romance languages. These similarities and differences are subject to change in connection with cultural developments in society and offer in this volume a coordinated effort in exploring the linguistic expressions of these extra-linguistic concepts.

This monograph is about how the Scots language is discursively constructed, both from ‘above’ (through texts such as educational policies, debates in parliament and official websites) and from ‘below’ (in focus group discussions among Scottish people). It uses the interdisciplinary discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis to examine what discursive strategies are used in different texts, and also to investigate salient features of context. This allows a broader discussion of the role of this language in Scotland, and how different ways of constructing a language can percolate through society, appearing in both important, elite texts and discussions among ordinary people. It thus contributes to the body of knowledge about contemporary Scots, but also expands the range of possible applications for critical discourse analysis approaches.

Shortlisted for the Christopher Brumfit Award in Applied Linguistics.

The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition focuses on the acquisition process of early L2 learners. It is based on the following key hypothesis: the initial mental grammatical system of L2 learners is constrained semantically, syntactically and mnemonically. This hypothesis is formalised as the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis. The empirical test of the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis is based on a large database including cross-sectional and longitudinal data from square-one ESL beginners. The study demonstrates that the postulated constraints are relaxed successively as learning progresses. The book is intended for postgraduate students as well as SLA researchers.

Le parole di una lingua non sono mai isolate ma si usano in combinazione e non con qualunque parola ma solo con alcune. Per parlare bene bisogna usare le combinazioni appropriate. In italiano si dice un tozzo di pane per indicare un pezzo di pane, ma si dice anche un tozzo di carne? E una discussione si solleva? O si solleva un’obiezione? Una discussione si affronta, ma un’obiezione? In italiano non si dice fare un appuntamento con qualcuno ma fissare o prendere un appuntamento. Ogni lingua preferisce combinazioni diverse e quindi è facile sbagliare quando ci si serve di una lingua straniera. A volte però anche il parlante nativo sbaglia o non è sicuro.



Questo dizionario ricostruisce l’ambiente linguistico di circa 6.500 entrate per aiutare ogni parlante a comunicare in italiano. È destinato allo straniero che ha una conoscenza avanzata della lingua italiana ma anche al parlante nativo che è in cerca della parola giusta. Sarà inoltre molto utile per i traduttori, per il mondo aziendale, scientifico e quello dell'insegnamento. Un dizionario che si distingue dai normali dizionari monolingui e bilingui perché indica sistematicamente le combinazioni lessicali (circa 220.000), molto spesso spiegandole e/o accompagnandole con esempi (12.000) per chiarirne l’uso.

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Words are never used in isolation but in combination and not with any word but only with certain specific words. To use a language properly the appropriate combinations must be used. In Italian a piece of bread is a tozzo di pane, but is that the case for meat? Is a tozzo di carne an appropriate combination? If you want to make an appointment with somebody you should not say (as in English) fare un appuntamento but fissare un appuntamento. An Italian affronta una discussione (enters or tackles a discussion), but is it possible for him to say affrontare un’obiezione (to enter or tackle an objection)? Yes it is, as this dictionary shows. So every language has its own preferences in word combinations, misleading non-native speaker into making mistakes influenced by their own language.

This dictionary reconstructs the frame to which 6,500 Italian entries belong and aims to help non-Italian speakers with an advanced linguistic competence to find the appropriate word combinations for communicating in Italian. Moreover, this dictionary can also be useful for native speakers who want to improve their lexical choices in writing and speaking Italian, as for translators, business people, researchers, teachers, and students.

The dictionary, contrary to ordinary monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, systematically lists (nearly 220,000) word combinations, with explanations and with examples (approx. 12,000) to demonstrate their usage.

Also available: Dizionario Combinatorio Compatto Italiano, a compact paperback student edition with 3,000 entries listing almost 90,000 word combinations.

This volume provides new insights into the nature of the Early Modern English discourse markers marry, well and why through the analysis of three corpora (A Corpus of English Dialogues, 1560-1760, the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence, and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English). By combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches in the study of pragmatic markers, innovative findings are reached about their distribution throughout the period 1500-1760, their attestation in different speech-related text types as well as similarities and differences in their functions. Additionally, this work engages in a sociopragmatic study, based on the sociopragmatically annotated Drama Corpus of almost a quarter of a million words, to enhance our understanding about their use by characters of different social status and gender. This volume therefore constitutes an essential piece of the puzzle in our attempt to gain a full picture of discourse marker use.This book won the 2014 ESSE book award in English Language and Linguistics

China’s opening up to the West, its extraordinary economic rise, and the subsequent internal and global issues, are an object of huge interest and concern. Discourse and Socio-political Transformations in Contemporary China focuses on one aspect of the contemporary Chinese phenomenon, one that is so obvious that it is generally ignored in the mainstream academic departments – that politics, society and transformation are the product of myriad collective linguistic interchanges, some stabilized, some competing, some agonistic, some new and emerging.

As an outcome of dialogue between Chinese and Western scholars, the present volume contains case studies that offer a survey of the discourse aspect of Chinese society in social stratification, government service, policy consultancy, higher education, foreign policy, and TV. The conceptual reflections on discourse and critique in different cultures offer new considerations for discourse analysis, including critical discourse analysis, in the context of Chinese society today.

This volume was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Language and Politics 9:4 (2010).

This first Dutch for Reading Knowledge book on the market promotes a high level of reading and translation competency by drawing from Dutch grammar, vocabulary and reading strategies, and providing many translation “shortcuts” and tips when tackling complex texts in Dutch. Aimed at students, researchers and scholars who need to learn how to read and translate modern Dutch texts for their academic research, this book focuses on those areas where the Netherlands plays or has played a leading and innovative role in the world. These areas include architecture, art history, design, the Dutch Golden Age, (post)colonialism, (im)migration, social legislation and water management. For all areas the authors combine profound knowledge of the field with great expertise in teaching Dutch language and culture. This book can be used for a Dutch for Reading Knowledge course or curriculum, and is also highly suitable for self study.

The book is a themed, mutually referenced collection of articles from a very high-powered set of authors based on the workshop on “Current developments in non-human primate gesture research”, which was held in July 2010 at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. The motivation for this book – following on from the motivation for the workshop series – was to present the state of the art in non-human primate gesture research with a special emphasis on its history, interdisciplinary perspectives, developments and future directions. This book provides, for the first time in a single volume, the most recent work on comparative gestural signaling by many of the major scholars in the field, such as W.D. Hopkins, D. Leavens, T. Racine, J. van Hooff, and S. Wilcox (in alphabetical order).