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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Historical & comparative linguistics > General
This monograph presents a contrastive-corpus analysis of the semantic category of gratification. It takes as a case study the verb reward and its various forms in Polish and in English, as prototypical of the semantics of gratification. The study, set predominantly in the framework of semantic syntax, and drawing from the theory of valence and frame semantics, adopts a corpus-driven and usage-based approach to language analysis. By exploring the syntactic realization and distribution of arguments opened by the predicates of gratification in the two languages, the book offers new insights into language representation in English and Polish, and addresses the combinatoricity of human thought and cognitive mechanisms reflected in the lexicalization patterns of the situation of rewarding.
Outlining an approach to the development of communicative behavior from early infancy to the onset of single word utterances, Nobuo Masataka's research is rooted in ethology and dynamic action theory. He argues that expressive and communicative actions are organized as a complex and cooperative system with other elements of the infant's physiology, behavior and social environments. This book offers new insights into the precursors of speech and will be of interest to researchers and students of psychology, linguistics and animal behavior biology.
This book implements a multidisciplinary approach in describing language both in its ontogenetic development and in its close interrelationship with other human subsystems such as thought, memory, and activity, with a focus on the semantic component of the evolutionary-synthetic theory. The volume analyzes, among others, the mechanisms for grammatical polysemy, and brings to light the structural unity of artefact and natural concepts (such as CHAIR, ROAD, LAKE, RIVER, TREE). Additionally, object and motor concepts are defined in terms of the language of thought, and their representation in neurobiological memory codes is discussed; finally, the hierarchic structure of basic meanings of concrete nouns is shown to arise as a result of their step-by-step development in ontogeny.
This book focuses on Henry IV of France as he is presented in selected works by Voltaire, Alfred de Vigny, Alexandre Dumas pere, and George Sand. The book depicts King Henry from his earliest years until his assassination, and shows how Henry was a dominant figure in life and an overwhelming figure as a memory in the minds of his descendants and his subjects. Special mention is made of the St. Bartholomew's Day's Massacre, the conquest of the throne, the Edict of Nantes, the religious conversions, and the ladies and multiple offspring of King Henry. This book will be of interest to students of both nineteenth-century French literature and sixteenth-century French history courses, as a text or as a supplement.
In the sign languages of the deaf some signs can meaningfully point toward things or can be meaningfully placed in the space ahead of the signer. Such spatial uses of signs are an obligatory part of fluent grammatical signing. There is no parallel for this in vocally produced languages. This book focuses on American Sign Language to examine the grammatical and conceptual purposes served by these directional signs and demonstrates a remarkable integration of grammar and gesture in the service of constructing meaning.
This book sheds new light on the nature of gerunds in English, utilizing data from very large electronic corpora in order to compare pairs of patterns viewed as constructions. It serves as a contribution to the study of complementation, an under-researched area of investigation which bridges observations at the intersection of lexico-grammar, syntax and semantics. As a result, the reader develops their understanding of the meaning and use of each pattern within the system of English predicate complementation as it has evolved in recent times. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of English linguistics, especially English grammar.
This book is the first comprehensive study of administrative reports. It investigates the reports prepared in the EU and national settings using a multidimensional genre analysis model. The book provides an account of the context of production and use of the reports and a corpus analysis of the macrostructure, lexico-grammatical patterns and multimodal aspects of the reports. Administrative reports are a hybrid and dynamic genre with salient linguistic features and two varieties: a highly institutionalised EU one, and a more varied national one. The reports are a powerful instrument in the communication policy of the institutions, performing informative and image-building functions. The book is an important contribution to the study of administrative language and the Eurolect.
The book consists of a comprehensive in-depth analysis of the Chinese post-1970s writers group, especially the literary xiangjun five young writers and their representative works. It includes a multi-dimensional interpretation of the writing characteristics, narrative law, and artistic construction of the "generation in the seam," fully displaying this transformation period of Chinese traditional values. Specifically, in terms of the book's content and structure, there is (1) a broad vision with the ideological premise of modernity, (2), a high degree of "local" and "globalization," and (3), a demonstration of the importance of China's excellent cultural resources.
This is the most detailed and comprehensive study to date of early Latin language, literary and non-literary, featuring twenty-nine chapters by an international team of scholars. 'Early Latin' is interpreted liberally as extending from the period of early inscriptions through to the first quarter of the first century BC. Classical Latin features significantly in the volume, although in a restricted sense. In the classical period there were writers who imitated the Latin of an earlier age, and there were also interpreters of early Latin. Later authors and views on early Latin language are also examined as some of these are relevant to the establishment of the text of earlier writers. A major aim of the book is to define linguistic features of different literary genres, and to address problems such as the limits of periodisation and the definition of the very concept of 'early Latin'.
This book asserts that language is a signaling system rather than a code, based in part on such research as the finding that 5-year-old English and Dutch children use pronouns correctly in their own utterances, but often fail to interpret these forms correctly when used by someone else. Emphasizing the unique and sometimes competing demands of listener and speaker, the author examines resulting asymmetries between production and comprehension. The text offers examples of the interpretation of word order and pronouns by listeners, and word order freezing and referential choice by speakers. It is explored why the usual symmetry breaks down in children but also sometimes in adults. Gathering contemporary insights from theoretical linguistic research, psycholinguistic studies and computational modeling, "Asymmetries between Language Production and Comprehension "presents a unified explanation of this phenomenon. ""Through a lucid, comprehensive review of acquisition studies on reference-related phenomena, Petra Hendriks builds a striking case for the pervasiveness of asymmetries in comprehension/production. In her view, listeners systematically misunderstand what they hear, and speakers systematically fail to prevent such misunderstandings. She argues that linguistic theory should take stock of current psycholinguistic and developmental evidence on optionality and ambiguity, and recognize language as a signaling system. The arguments are compelling yet controversial: grammar does not specify a one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning; and the demands of the mapping task differ for listeners and speakers. Her proposal is formalized within optimality theory, but researchers working outside this framework will still find it of great interest. In the language-as-code vs. language-as-signal debate, Hendriks puts the ball firmly in the other court." "Ana Perez-Leroux, University of Toronto, Canada "
This book presents a framework for the linguistic analysis of speech and a computer program to process the results of this analysis. The model of description for the linguistic analysis is that known as 'scale-and-category' grammar. It is particularly suited for a study of how people use their language, and especially for a sociologically-oriented study of linguistic behaviour. By incorporating a concept of 'delicacy', it enables the investigator to vary, according to his particular interests, the amount of detail he enters into at various points in the description. The present authors have made use of this facility and discuss the special interests, sociological and psychological, that influenced their choice of detail. The computer program analyzes the grammatical structures written in a linear notation. A second version has been written which allows easy modification to handle a variety of grammatical schemes, and the program has application to the processing of the analysis of sequential behaviour in general, especially where there are complex relations between the units analyzed.
Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, speaking about 250 languages. Through examination of published and unpublished materials on each of the individual languages, Dixon surveys the ways in which the languages vary typologically and presents a profile of this long-established linguistic area. The areal distribution of most features is illustrated with more than 30 maps and an index of languages and language groups is provided.
The present volume contributes to the growing body of work on sentence pro- cessing. The goal of work in this area is to construct a theory of human sen- tence processing in general, i.e., given a grammar of some particular language and a general characterization of the human sentence processing mechanisms, the particular processing system for that language should follows automati- cally. At least that's the goal. What is needed in order to pursue this goal is systematic in-depth analysis of the sentence routines of individual languages. With respect to German, that is precisely what the present volume delivers. In sharp contrast to a decade ago, the study of German sentence process- ing is flourishing today. Four lively and active centers have emerged. The University of Freiburg is one prominent center, represented in the present vol- ume by the editors Barbara Hemforth and Lars Konieczny (who was at Freiburg for many years) as well as by Christoph Scheepers (who is now in Glasgow) and Christoph Holscher. The University of Potsdam has recently begun an interdisciplinary collaboration on sentence processing involving Matthias Schlesewsky, Gisbert Fanselow, Reinhold Kliegl and Josef Krems. The University of Jena has several investigators trained in linguistics and interested in language processing. That group is represented here by Markus Bader and also includes his colleagues Michael Meng and Josef Bayer.
This volume links theoretical and instructional approaches on how reading is motivated and assessed, and examines the interrelationship between reading motivation and achievement among boys and girls in culturally and geographically different settings. Much of the research on children's reading has focused on cognitive processes; however, reading is an activity that also requires interest and motivation. These attitudes are generally defined as readers' affect toward reading and their consequence is that children with more positive attitudes are more motivated to read. Taking into account the variability that exists within the notion of gender and age, this volume aims to examine and scrutinize previous research on the topic, as well as test theories on how the different dimensions of reading motivation vary with gender, in relation to cultural issues, motivational constructs, such as engagement and classroom climate, the role of emotions, interests and attitudes towards reading, among others. The book will be of interest to researchers, educators, graduate students, and other professionals working in the area of literacy, reading motivation, reading achievement and gender differences.
Locating Poe firmly within his Zeitgeist vis-a-vis the science and pseudoscience of the early nineteenth century, Edgar Allan Poe as Amateur Psychologist: A Companion Anthology simultaneously looks back from the 1830s and 1840s (when his literary career was at its height) to eighteenth-century theories and sources of information on mental illness, as well as forward to our own time to demonstrate how Poe's dramatizations of psychological diseases occasionally anticipate modern nosological classifications and twenty-first-century forensic research. This interdisciplinary collection is a companion to its predecessor, Zimmerman's Edgar Allan Poe: Amateur Psychologist (Peter Lang, 2019); it gathers the most important essays by authors-Hungerford, Stauffer, Stern, Bynum, Cleman, Hester and Segir, Phillips, Shackelford, Scheckel, Lloyd-Smith, Whipple, Butler, Uba, Walker, Zimmerman-who employ historicist and history-of-ideas methodologies. Topics include Poe's use of and eventual disillusionment with phrenology; his attitude toward the controversial "moral treatment" of the insane as well as the "insanity defense" and its connection with the new theory of "moral insanity"; the possible sources of his knowledge of theories of mind, psychopathology and related therapies; his evolution as an amateur psychologist; the connection between physiological sickness and mental distress (the psychosomatic); and the ways in which the psychological profiles of his homicidal characters look forward to modern serial killers. This companion anthology represents a significant addition to Poe scholarship and will be of interest not only to Poe specialists but also to students, teachers, and any intelligent reader interested in the history of ideas and the intersection between literature and "mental philosophy."
This book systematically depicts the theory of textual patterns (chengshi) of the eight-part essays and logic in ancient Chinese texts. With the rare materials, it covers all the basic and important aspects of the whole process and values of chengshi, such as the transformation of different parts and the coherent expression of the doctrines, the planning of writing, and the application to the aesthetic and pedagogic fields. It also explores the similarities and disparities of logical patterns between ancient Chinese and Western texts. Though entirely fresh and tentative, the contrastive studies get new insights into the logic and philosophical concepts hidden in the writings for better understanding of the uniqueness and richness implied in Chinese culture.
A useful companion to the seventh volume of K. A. Kitchen's seminal Ramesside Inscriptions Ramesside Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated Notes and Comments, Volume VII complements the seventh volume of Kitchen's seminal hieroglyphic texts (KRI VII) and its companion volume of translations (KRITA VII) that cover the period between Ramesses I and Ramesses XI. This newly published reference work contains the supplementary inscriptions which were not included in the original publication (vols. I-VI), as well as improved readings in KRI VII that reflect a better understanding of the ancient sources. Following a practical and efficient format, each text is presented in its historical context and includes a list of principal references, succinct introductory notes, and comments on specific points of historical, biographical, and philological interest. Provides detailed notes and comments on the wide range of inscriptions in Kitchen's Ramesside Inscriptions, Volume VII and Translations, Volume VII Features new readings based on current scholarship, such as the detailed accounts of mining expeditions during the first years of the reign of Ramesses VII Contains inscriptions relating to members of the Ramesside royal family, as well as civil, military, and ecclesiastical administrators. Includes discussions of graffiti, funerary monuments, and personal documents from the royal workmen's village of Deir el-Medina A unique source of knowledge for understanding Ancient Egypt, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated Notes and Comments, Volume VII, is a must-have for academic scholars and advanced students of Egyptology.
This book is a selection of papers presented at the 11th International Conference on Middle English (ICOME11), held at the University of Florence, Italy from 5 to 8 February 2019. The papers, organised under three headings "Textual Interlacing," "Borrowing and the Lexicon," and "Language at Different Levels," interface different fields of linguistics, literature and philology in the context of Medieval England and offer a holistic view of current research within Middle English studies. The contributors employ a wealth of different new and traditional approaches and methodologies, and deal with materials ranging from canonical literary works to scientific and practical texts, including electronic corpora and databases.
In this re-evaluation of the writings of Joseph Conrad, Michael Greaney places language and narrative at the heart of his literary achievement. As a trilingual Polish expatriate, Conrad brought a formidable linguistic self-consciousness to the English novel and tensions between speech and writing are the defining obsessions of his career. Greaney examines a wide range of Conrad's work, combining recent critical approaches to language in post-structuralism with an impressive command of linguistic theory.
This book examines traditional theories of linguistic vitality in the context of subcultural languages. It argues that traditional methods of investigating linguistic vitality are, according to existing literature, not as reliable as they appear and therefore limited in their testability. The author looks at themes such as the relationships between language and culture, ethnicity within the scope of sociolinguistics, and the notion of ideolinguistic vitality where traditional views intersect with more contextually current ones. She also highlights the importance of studying the nature and principles of subcultural languages which help better inform our understanding of the superdiverse linguistic world. The volume makes a major contribution to modern sociolinguistics by offering a detailed account of developing a unique measuring instrument to gauge the vitality of subcultural languages, which is applicable to more than just subcultural linguistics. An indispensable text in the study of ethnolinguistic vitality, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, identity theory, philology, language and literature, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies.
This collection brings together the authors' previous research with new work on the Register-Functional (RF) approach to grammatical complexity, offering a unified theoretical account for its further study. The book traces the development of the RF approach from its foundations in two major research strands of linguistics: the study of sociolinguistic variation and the text-linguistic study of register variation. Building on this foundation, the authors demonstrate the RF framework at work across a series of corpus-based research studies focused specifically on grammatical complexity in English. The volume highlights early work exploring patterns of grammatical complexity in present-day spoken and written registers as well as subsequent studies which extend this research to historical patterns of register variation and the application of RF research to the study of writing development for L1 and L2 English university students. Taken together, along with the addition of introductory chapters connecting the different studies, the volume offers readers with a comprehensive resource to better understand the RF approach to grammatical complexity and its implications for future research. The volume will appeal to students and scholars with research interests in either descriptive linguistics or applied linguistics, especially those interested in grammatical complexity and empirical, corpus-based approaches.
This book reflects on key questions of enduring interest on the nature of syntax, bringing together Grant Goodall's previous publications and new work exploring how syntactic representations are structured and the affordances of experimental techniques in studying them. The volume sheds light on central issues in the theory of syntax while also elucidating the methods of data collection which inform them. Featuring Goodall's previous studies of linguistic phenomena in English, Spanish, and Chinese, and complemented by a new introduction and material specific to this volume, the book is divided into four sections around fundamental strands of syntactic theory. The four parts explore the dimensionality of syntactic representations; the relationship between syntactic structure and predicate-argument structure; interactions between subjects and wh-phrases in questions; and more detailed investigations of wh-dependencies but from a more overtly experimental perspective. Taken together, the volume reinforces the connections between these different aspects of syntax by highlighting their respective roles in defining what syntactic objects look like and how the grammar operates on them. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars in linguistics, particularly those with an interest in syntax, psycholinguistics, and Romance linguistics.
Appraisal is the way language users express their attitude towards things, people, behaviour or ideas. In the last few decades, significant achievements have been made in Appraisal Theory research, yet little attention has been paid to appraisal in scientific texts, especially in relation to the contrast to how it is applied in English and Chinese. This title examines the similarities and differences of Appraisal systems in English and Chinese scientific research articles. Using a self-constructed corpus of scientific research articles, the authors make cross-linguistic comparisons in terms of the quantity and distribution patterns of categories of appraisals. They creatively categorise articles into theoretical scientific research articles and applied studies and discover that for both languages, each genre can have its own favorite mode of distribution for the realization of appraisal systems. In addition, this research helps appraisal theory systems to become more explicit, specific, and more applicable for the analysis of scientific research articles. Students and scholars of applied linguistics, comparative linguistics and corpus linguistics will find this an essential reference.
This monograph offers an analysis of the lexical domain of beauty and other additional lexical domains that are figuratively used to refer to beauty, highlighting their central role in the Anglo-Saxon formulaic style. Using different methods from computational and cognitive linguistics, this study is aimed at determining the exact semantic value of these terms, detecting possible patterns of metaphorization and metonymization and identifying strategies behind their usage, ultimately determining how beauty was conceptualised and experienced in early Medieval England and in its literature. This research evidences the importance of this aesthetic idea in the Old English poetry and its aesthetic paradigm and revealing the core associations between beauty and other religious and social ideas. |
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