The Semantics of Chinese Classifiers and Linguistic Relativity focuses on the semantic structure of Chinese classifiers under the cognitive linguistics framework, and the implications thereof on linguistic relativity and language acquisition. It examines the semantic correlation between a given classifier and its associated nouns. Nouns in Chinese, which are assigned specific classifiers according to their selected characteristics, reflect the process of human categorization. The concrete categories formed by the relationship between nouns and classifiers may serve to explain the conceptual structure of the Chinese language and certain underlying aspects of culture and human cognition. Song Jiang is Assistant Professor of Chinese for the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at university of Hawai'i at Manoa.

This book documents changes and trends in English predicate complementation. In-depth case studies of grammatical patterns presented here uncover new links between form and meaning in these constructions, offering fresh insights into explanatory principles to account for variation and change in the system of English predicate complementation.

This book provides a summary of Radical Minimalism, putting forth a neurocognitively implementable theory of grammar as I-language. Radical Minimalism tries to give a 'fully explicit' description of syntactic structures mapped into cognitive frames of thought. It focuses on the division of labor between Narrow Syntax and Meaningful Units of the sentence and also on the role of Mental Lexicon (understood as a selection of Roots and Labels), the Labeling Mechanism, and the participation of the Senso-Motoric and Conceptual-Intentional Interfaces within a Crash-proof Grammar of Human Language. The data are taken from the languages of different genetic origins and types. The book is based on the idea that language and thought are closely connected and must be studied within the physical laws of the Anti-Entropy and Dynamical Frustration theory. Peter Kosta's new book touches on an exceptional range of subjects in theoretical syntax and the philosophy of grammar, bearing ample proof of his lifelong engagement with these vital disciplines within the humanities of the 20th/21st centuries. His acute awareness of important insights and discussions in current day minimalism is evident from every page, informing his treatment of a wide diversity of problems in the morphosyntax of Slavic languages and beyond. (Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen) This book provides a breath of fresh air in linguistic theorising by combining empirically based syntactic innovations with original discussions of long-standing semantic puzzles and a revised architecture of the Faculty of Language. Foundational notions in generative theory are thoroughly revised in the light of detailed comparative analyses. This remarkable work represents the culmination of years of research on what meaning is, how it is structured, and to what extent syntax encodes meaning. (Diego Gabriel Krivochen, University of Verona)

This book defends a version of linguistic idealism, the thesis that the world is a product of language. In the course of defending this radical thesis, Gaskin addresses a wide range of topics in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and syntax theory. Starting from the context and compositionality principles, and the idea of a systematic theory of meaning in the Tarski-Davidson tradition, Gaskin argues that the sentence is the primary unit of linguistic meaning, and that the main aspects of meaning, sense and reference, are themselves theoretical posits. Ontology, which is correlative with reference, emerges as language-driven. This linguistic idealism is combined with a realism that accepts the objectivity of science, and it is accordingly distinguished from empirical pragmatism. Gaskin contends that there is a basic metaphysical level at which everything is expressible in language; but the vindication of linguistic idealism is nuanced inasmuch as there is also a derived level, asymmetrically dependant on the basic level, at which reality can break free of language and reach into the realms of the unnameable and indescribable. Language and World will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and linguistics.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

In recent years, text and media linguistics have focused on genres in the new media. This is almost always accompanied by the question of the establishment and development of such content. Due to the diversity of genres and their dynamic development one can speak of an almost inexhaustible field of research. The book is located in this field of research. Its goal is to examine the origin and nature of readers' comments by readers of French and English popular science magazines. Media content is dissected by using text linguistic tools. Transmedial cultures are explored across time, platforms, languages, and editing houses.

The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language provides a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art interdisciplinary research on metaphor and language. Featuring 35 chapters written by leading scholars from around the world, the volume takes a broad view of the field of metaphor and language, and brings together diverse and distinct theoretical and applied perspectives to cover six key areas: Theoretical approaches to metaphor and language, covering Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Relevance Theory, Blending Theory and Dynamical Systems Theory; Methodological approaches to metaphor and language, discussing ways of identifying metaphors in verbal texts, images and gestures, as well as the use of corpus linguistics; Formal variation in patterns of metaphor use across text types, historical periods and languages; Functional variation of metaphor, in contexts including educational, commercial, scientific and political discourse, as well as online trolling; The applications of metaphor for problem solving, in business, education, healthcare and conflict situations; Language, metaphor, and cognitive development, examining the processing and comprehension of metaphors. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Metaphor is a must-have survey of this key field, and is essential reading for those interested in language and metaphor.

This book broadens the scope of the subject of rural education and enlivens the ways in which the subject may be studied. Through textual and visual analysis of a range of sources - including young adult novels, the farming simulation game 'Hay Day' and reality television programs - the contributors investigate how the lives of young people in rural spaces are mediated by a range of social locations including class, ethnicity and sexuality. Additionally, through rich and detailed ethnographic work, the book explores the complicated and multifaceted meanings of rural places and examines how these meanings shape experiences of schooling for teachers and students. In doing so, the book embeds the study of rural education in explorations of patrilineal inheritance on family farms, international migration, globalisation and economic restructuring. It aims to start a conversation about the robust and complex ways in which the confluence between 'rural' and 'education' may be imagined, experienced and researched. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

This volume develops a new multimodal semiotic approach to the study of communication, examining how multimodal discourse is construed transmedially and interculturally and how new technologies and cultural stances inform communicative contexts across the world. It contributes to current theoretical debates in the disciplines of semiotics, linguistics, multimodality, and pragmatics, as well as those aspects of pedagogy and film studies that engage with the notions of text and narrative by addressing questions such as: How do we study multimedia communication? How do we incorporate the impact of new media technologies into the study of Linguistics and Semiotics? How do we construe culture in modern communication? How useful are the current multidisciplinary approaches to multimodal communication? Through the analysis of specific case studies that are developed within diverse academic disciplines and which draw on a range of theoretical frameworks, the goal of this book is to provide a basis for an overarching framework that can be applied by scholars and students with different academic and cultural backgrounds.

This volume is the first book-length collection of studies on the assessment of pragmatic competencies in a second or foreign language. Grounded in theoretical perspectives on communicative and interactional competencies, the first section of the book examines the reception and production of speech acts through a variety of assessment methods and a range of quantitative and qualitative analyses. The second section investigates interviewer and candidate interaction in different forms of oral proficiency interview.

'Mythologies' is a series of essays on the codings that command our daily life, from hairstyles in the film 'Julius Caesar' to glossy photographs of gourmet cooking, to the cult of foam in detergents.

This book presents a portrait of actively engaged young people representing four linguistic minorities in Europe: the Kashubs (in Poland), the Upper Sorbs (in Germany), the Bretons (in France), and the Welsh (in the United Kingdom). In numerous statements cited in the book, drawn from interviews conducted by the author, young people speak for themselves and serve as guides to their minority cultures. They draw attention to the difficulties and challenges they encounter in their day-to-day life and activism. Based on their statements, the book examines the sociolinguistic situation of each of the minorities, the prevailing linguistic ideologies and the role of minority education; it also distinguishes different types of minority language speakers. The analysis focuses on the cultural and identity-forming practices of young people in the context of different forms of community life and their different pathways to becoming engaged representing their cultures and languages.

This book explores the ways in which professional groups develop specific interactional procedures for conducting and representing their activities, all of which contribute to a distinctive collaborative identity. It highlights the drawbacks as well as the advantages of collaborative talk, pointing to ways of improving professional performance. Its investigation of topics such as identity, argument, narrative, and metaphor means that it should appeal to researchers outside the fields of applied linguistics and professional communication, for whom it is primarily intended.

After everything that's happened, how is it possible that conservatives still win debates about the economy? Time and again the right wins over voters by claiming that their solutions are only common sense, even as their tired policies of budgetary sacrifice and corporate plunder both create and prolong economic disaster. Why does the electorate keep buying what they're selling? According to political communications expert Anat Shenker-Osorio, it's all about language,and not just theirs, but ours.In Don't Buy It Shenker-Osorio diagnoses our economic discourse as stricken with faulty messages, deceptive personification, and, worst of all, a barely coherent concept of what the economy actually is. Opening up the business section of most newspapers or flipping on cable news unleashes an onslaught of economic doomsaying that treats the economy as an ungovernable force of nature. Alternately, by calling the economy unhealthy" or recovering" as we so often do, we unconsciously give it the status of a living being. No wonder Americans become willing to submit to any indignity required to keep the economy happy. Tread lightly, we can't risk irritating the economy!Cutting through conservative myth-making, messaging muddles, and destructive misinformation, Shenker-Osorio suggests a new way to win the most important arguments of our day. The left doesn't have to self-destruct every time matters economic come to the fore,there are metaphors and frames that can win, and Shenker-Osorio shows what they are and how to use them. Don't Buy It is a vital handbook for seizing victory in the economic debate. In the end, it convincingly shows that radically altering our politics and policies for the better is a matter of first changing the conversation,literally.

The present volume is a collection of papers on Contrastive Pragmatics, involving research on interlanguage and cross-cultural perspectives with a focus on second language acquisition contexts. The subdiscipline of pragmatics is seen from a multilingual and multicultural perspective thus contributing to an emerging field of study, i.e. intercultural pragmatics which can be made fruitful to second language teaching/learning and contrastive analysis. The book is an important contribution to general linguistics, pragmatics, cross-cultural communication, second language acquisition, as well as minority issues in multilingual settings.

This book provides a stylistic and cognitive poetic account of ekphrastic poetry (poetry whose subject matter is predominantly artworks and images), examining the linguistic processes through which works of art can become literary objects. The author sheds light on the workings of ekphrasis at a textual level, while also considering the cognitive and psychological effects of reading ekphrastic poems, developing cognitive and stylistic analytical frameworks grounded on the four principles that govern ekphrasis: representation, narrativization, transposition, and collaboration. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners in various fields, including literary critics, art critics, rhetoricians, poets, visual artists, and stylisticians.

'A wide-ranging, erudite and multi-faceted analyses of the fundamental problem of who gets to be counted as human' - Kate Evans Refugee Talk explores cultural responses to the ongoing refugee crisis. Looking at ethical questions and political rhetoric surrounding the refugee experience, the authors uncover the reality behind the fraught discussions taking place today. With an understanding of how to meaningfully negotiate responses through philosophy, media representations, art, activism and literature, the authors insist that a radically different approach is needed, advocating for, along with other reorientations, a new refugee vocabulary as a launching pad for interventions into polarised debates. By centring conversation as a method and ethical practice to engage in the discourses surrounding refugees, Refugee Talk is structured around dialogues with academics, activists, journalists and refugee artists and writers, creating a comprehensive humanities approach that places ethics and aesthetics at its core.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies, which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics. For further publications in English linguistics see also our Dialects of English book series. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Natalie Fecher.

Der mit der Digitalisierung der Kommunikation einhergehende Wandel von Kommunikations- und Medienkulturen beeinflusst die Produktionsbedingungen und den Rezeptionsrahmen von Texten sowie kommunikative Praktiken und kommunikatives Handeln. Um kommunikative Praktiken zu vollziehen und kommunikatives Handeln möglichst effektiv zu gestalten, entstehen vielfältige diskursive Kommunikationsräume, in denen mediale Akteure zu verschiedenen Zwecken miteinander agieren. Mit der Verlagerung der kommunikativen Praktiken in die digitale Welt kommt es zur Verlinkung von Texten zu Diskursen, die multisemiotisch und multimedial geprägt und auf Interaktion ausgerichtet sind. Dieses Buch ist solchen diversen textuellen und diskursiven Erscheinungsformen der massenmedialen Kommunikation gewidmet, die auf der Grundlage erschlossener Textkorpora interdisziplinär untersucht werden. Gegenstand der breit gefächerten Diskussion sind hier einzelne Texte und zusammenhängende Textformate in verschiedenen Medien sowie diskursiv organisierte Textwelten diverser multimodaler und -medialer Ausgestaltung.

The semantic behavior of words has been greatly neglected in current literature, which has tended to emphasize sentential semantics and its relation to formal systems of logic. This textbook establishes the essential facts about lexical relations that any formal theory of semantics will encompass.

In this book, Amos Kiewe explores the story of the 1824 Presidential election, when the House of Representatives elected the president after no candidate won outright the majority of the Electoral College. Though most in the nation assumed that Andrew Jackson, who won the popular vote and the plurality of the Electoral College, would be elected the presidency by the House, Kiewe demonstrates how maneuvering, vote trading, and special favors dictated a different outcome. Through inspecting speeches, statements, private letters, and published accounts, Kiewe simultaneously intersects rhetoric, history, and politics as variables that help to tell the story of the 1824 presidential election. Scholars of communication, political science, and history will find this book of particular interest.

Many linguists and philosophers of language explain linguistic meaning in terms of truth conditions. This book focuses on the meanings of expressions that escape such truth-conditional treatment, in particular the concessives: "but," "even if," and "although." Corinne Iten proposes semantic analyses of these expressions based on the cognitive framework of relevance theory. A thoroughly cognitive approach to linguistic meaning is presented in which linguistic forms are seen as mapping onto mental entities, rather than individuals and properties in the real world. Researchers and advanced students in pragmatics will find this account lucid, clear and accessible.

The book presents a study into the trainee interpreters' and certified interpreters' subjective experience of psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting. In the form of four case studies, the book offers an insight in how the subjective experience of anxiety, fear, language ego/language inhibition/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress conditions and affects consecutive interpreting performance. What emerges from the study is that the interpreter's psycho-affectivity is a continually operating and intricate mechanism which may impact on nearly all constituents of the consecutive interpreting process and that its potential causes may lie in virtually all - even the seemingly unimportant - aspects of the interpreting process.

This book explores the placement of human beings, a "betweenness" that elicits the fact that human communication is the mediation between one's intellectual, moral, and political experience. Aaron K. Kerr explores the relationship between nature and culture, exposing the obscurities caused by technology and economic dogmatism. A renewal of the mediatory role of human communication is juxtaposed to the immediacy of digital consumption. The author reveals that to redress ecological distress, there must be an equal awareness, sense of place, and regional responsibility for built environments which value nature. By situating philosophy and communication within the scientific consensus of the anthropocene, the author clearly indicates the necessary mediations between fact and value, science and religion, local and global, nature and culture. Scholars of philosophy, rhetoric, environmental ethics, and global bioethics will find this book of particular interest.

As cognitive scientists continue to probe into the nature of the human mind, it is increasingly clear that research into cognition cannot be dissociated from the context in which our mental activity occurs. The papers collected in this book testify to the growing interest in adopting a broad characterisation of what counts as relevant context. The vices of seeking essences behind complex phenomena should not go unnoticed, the primary, and possibly the most crucial, downside of this approach being a reductionist treatment of the human mind. With this book, the authors want to show that humans are not merely brains, minds, speakers, learners, readers, etc., but, first and foremost, complex beings who communicate within and beyond the contexts of their own cultures.