In this elegantly written and theoretically sophisticated work, Rukmini Bhaya Nair asks why human beings across the world are such compulsive and inventive storytellers. Extending current research in cognitive science and narratology, she argues that we seem to have a genetic drive to fabricate as a way of gaining the competitive advantages such fictions give us. She suggests that stories are a means of fusing causal and logical explanations of 'real' events with emotional recognition, so that the lessons taught to us as children, and then throughout our lives via stories, lay the cornerstones of our most crucial beliefs. Nair's conclusion is that our stories really do make us up, just as much as we make up our stories.

This groundbreaking collection showcases Jenny Cheshire's influential work in bringing greater attention to quantitative analysis of socio-grammatical variation and builds upon her contributions with new lines of inquiry pushing sociolinguistic research forward. Featuring contributions from leading experts in the field, the volume is structured in six parts with a particular focus on syntactic, morpho-syntactic, and discourse-pragmatic variation and change, each section turning a lens on a different aspect of socio-grammatical variation. The first sections of the volume focus on the role of structure, its relevance for sociolinguistic production and perception and the impact of social structure on formal structure. Two sections look at the interface of variationist research with other aspects of linguistic research, including generative syntax and discourse-pragmatic features. The final sections consider the importance of integrating broader external factors in socio-grammatical variation, exploring the impact of interactional pressures in the sociolinguistic environment and the role of multi-ethnic contact varieties. Taken together, this volume demonstrates the critical role of socio-grammatical variation in our understanding of language change as a holistic process.

In Pragmatics, the study of meaning derived from context, Jean Stilwell Peccei offers a practical introduction to this core area of linguistics. Pragmatics: encourages the reader to look at different levels of meaning within sentences provides a basic understanding of key pragmatic concepts introduces two highly influential approaches to pragmatics: the Co-Operative Principle and Speech Act Theory encourages the reader to apply basic analytical tools to real data, eg. advertising language and children's conversations provides a range of activities, discussion questions, an answer key and further reading.

In this collection of his essays on Homer, some new and some appearing for the first time in English, the distinguished scholar Pietro Pucci examines the linguistic and rhetorical features of the poet's works. Arguing that there can be no purely historical interpretation, given that the parameters of interpretation are themselves historically determined, Pucci focuses instead on two features of Homer's rhetoric: repetition of expression (formulae) and its effects on meaning, and the issue of intertextuality.

Pedagogies of Public Memory explores opportunities for writing and rhetorical education at museums, archives, and memorials. Readers will follow students working and writing at well-known sites of international interest (e.g., the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum), at local sites (e.g., vernacular memorials in and around Muncie, Indiana and the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania), and in digital spaces (e.g., Florida State University's Postcard Archive and The Women's Archive Project at the University of Nebraska Omaha). From composing and delivering museum tours, to designing online memorials that challenge traditional practices of public grief, to producing and publishing a magazine containing the photographs and stories of individuals who lived through historic moments in the Freedom Struggle, to expanding and creating new public archives - the pedagogical projects described in this volume create richly textured learning opportunities for students at all levels - from first-year writers to graduate students. The students and faculty whose work is represented in this volume undertake to reposition the past in the present and to imagine possible new futures for themselves and their communities. By exploring the production of public memory, this volume raises important new questions about the intersection of rhetoric and remembrance.

First published in 1988, this book is concerned with the definite and indefinite articles in English. It provides an integrated pragmatic-semantic theory of definite and indefinite reference, on the basis of which, many co-occurance restrictions between articles and non-modifiers are explained. At the general theoretical level, this book looks at the role of semantics in the prediction of all and only the grammatical sentences of a language. A generalisation is proposed uniting semantic oppositions underlying ungrammaticality with syntactic oppositions between conditions of application on transformational generative rules. A procedure is suggested for distinguishing semantic from syntactic causes of ungrammaticality. At a more particular level, the book explores the nature of reference. It examines an important selection of subjects such as the contrast between definiteness and indefiniteness, the relationship between definite and demonstrative reference, and the relationship between pragmatic and logical aspects of determining meaning.

First published in 1979, this book develops a grammatically orientated semantics (as opposed to a semantically orientated grammar) of mood and condition in English. It seeks to establish correspondences between areas of semantic organisation ('planes') and surface grammar, without reverting to an intermediate notion of deep grammar. The chapters explore topics including the differences between 'literal meaning' and 'significance', speech roles, and constructions of condition and reason in terms of the four panes discussed earlier in the volume.

This volume presents innovative research on the multimodal dimension of discourse specific to academic settings, with a particular focus on the interaction between the verbal and non-verbal in constructing meaning. Contributions by experienced and emerging researchers provide in-depth analyses in both research and teaching contexts, and consider the ways in which multimodal strategies can be leveraged to enhance the effectiveness of academic communication. Contributors employ both quantitative and qualitative analytical methods, and make use of state-of-the-art software for analyzing multimodal features of discourse. The chapters in the first part of the volume focus on the multimodal features of two key research genres: conference presentations and plenary addresses. In the second part, contributors explore the role of multimodality in the classroom through analyses of both instructors' and students' speech, as well as the use of multimodal materials for more effective learning. The research presented in this volume is particularly relevant within the context of globalized higher education, where participants represent a wide range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Multimodal Analysis in Academic Settings contributes to an emerging field of research with importance to an increasing number of academics and practitioners worldwide.

Variations in speech melody (intonation) can be used to express different meanings (e.g. question vs. statement, friendliness). Yet, intonational information is hardly used in presentday linguistic models. When intonational information is used, it is mostly based on introspection rather than on empirical investigation; almost exclusively, a one-to-one relation between accent types and semantic function is assumed. This book focuses on an empirical investigation of thematic contrast in German. Thematic contrast has received considerable attention in semantics because sentences with contrastive themes can be used to imply propositions of various kinds without saying them explicitly. In this book, first an acoustic comparison between sentences produced in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts is described. Intonational realisation is quantified in terms of the height and position of tonal targets. The perceptual reality of different productions and the relevance of different accoustic cues are tested by means of rating experiments. Finally, the data are prosodically annotated by a group of linguists to explore the validity and explanatory power of different accent categories for contrastive and non-contrastive themes in German.

The book presents the first comprehensive description of avialinguistics. The author analyses this new interdisciplinary branch of applied linguistics that recognises the role of language for aviation purposes. She provides an integrated approach to Aeronautical English and proffers insights into aviation discourse, discussing its current linguistic errors and providing suggestions for aviation English communication improvement. The author tests theoretical considerations against illustrative real-life examples so as to facilitate an interpretation of regular pilot-controller communications.

This textbook is the first comprehensive guide to Latin verse composition to be published in over one hundred years. It combines a detailed analysis of the Roman poets' metrical practices with a series of graduated exercises designed to train the student in the composition of original Latin verse. Beginning with the dactylic hexameter and working through elegiac, lyric and dramatic meters, the exercises in this volume accomplish more than simply teaching the basic rules of prosody and versification. They also help cultivate an ear for rhythm, build vocabulary, sharpen grammatical skills and develop attentiveness to the nuances of poetic style and diction. A Guide to Latin Meter and Verse Composition therefore represents an invaluable resource for students and teachers at all levels, not only for verse composition but also for a fuller understanding and appreciation of the metrical artistry of Latin poetry.

Most people have to communicate with colleagues every day and persuade them to understand their opinions or to accept their views. This handbook is intended for anyone who is interested in such goal-oriented language. It extracts 300 persuasive tactics from research findings in communication, linguistics, pragmatics and related fields, and presents them in a clear, concise and consistent manner. Such tactics as analogy, argument presentation, humour and metaphor are included. Each tactic is presented on a separate page with an analysis of its persuasive value. Two indexes - one by persuasive need and the other by tactic - allow readers full flexibility to use the handbook in their own way. This work should be of interest in courses which deal with the management of interaction, pragmatics, discourse analysis and communications.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The idea for this volume took root during a recent annual convention of the American Psychological Association. The contributors share a common vision of research in their particular area and have had an opportunity to debate and clarify their ideas. Taken as a whole, the fifteen chapters provide an exciting perspective of the field and form a basic set of readings for courses on individual and group decision making in a variety of disciplines. The coverage from basic laboratory research to complex applied group decision processes should challenge researchers and students to pursue the field of decision making as enthusiastic scientists and practitioners.

The broad aim of this lively and engaging book is to examine relationships between the linguistic patterns, the stylistic functions, and the social and cultural contexts of humour. The material used in illustration is of corresponding breadth: schoolyard jokes, graffiti, aphorisms, advertisements, arguments, anecdotes, puns, parodies, passages of comic fiction, all come under Dr Nash's scrutiny.

This book provides a detailed exploration of negation and negative polarity phenomena and their implications for linguistic theory. Including new, specially commissioned work from some of the leading European, American, and Japanese scholars, Negation and Polarity covers all of the main approaches to this subjectDSsyntactic, pragmatic, semantic, and cognitiveDSin a variety of language contexts.

Visual metaphors in a number of Mahayana sutras construct a discourse in which visual perception serves as a model for knowledge and enlightenment. In the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) and other Mahayana literature, immediate access to reality is symbolized by vision and set in opposition to language and conceptual thinking, which are construed as obscuring reality. In addition to its philosophical manifestations, the tension between vision and language also functioned as a strategy of legitimation in the struggle of the early heterodox Mahayana movement for authority and legitimacy. This emphasis on vision also served as a resource for the abundant mythical imagery in Mahayana sutras, imagery that is ritualized in Vajrayana visualization practices. McMahan brings a wide range of literature to bear on this issue, Including a rare analysis of the lavish imagery of the Gandavyuha Sutra in its Indian context. He concludes with a discussion of Indian approaches to visuality in the light of some recent discussions of "ocularcentrism" in the west, inviting scholars to expand the current discussion of vision and its roles in constructing epistemic systems and cultural practices beyond its exclusively European and American focus.

This book explores the gap that has developed between two sides in linguistics: the formal tradition and the functional tradition. It discusses fundamental issues such as tense, aspect and action by examining and comparing insights from the two traditions with a view to determining whether there are any possibilities of future bride-building between the two approaches. This study focuses on comparing the actual output of different linguistic approaches and examines their 'usefulness'. A major aim is, therefore, to evaluate and identify the most useful approach.

Evidentiality and Modality in European Languages focuses on discourse-pragmatic studies on the domains of evidentiality and epistemic modality, and also includes studies on deontic modality. The book presents ground-breaking research on the functions and the discourse-pragmatic variation of evidential expressions and modals in diverse discourses and genres, applying corpus-based methodologies. It offers unique features regarding content, usage and methodology, and comparative studies. The comparative viewpoint is addressed in contributions which provide a usage-based cross-linguistic account of the expression of evidentiality and modality in various European languages (English, French, Italian, Romanian and Spanish). The contributions are representative of the work on evidentiality and modality in European languages carried out in a substantial number of countries, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden.

This book, by one of Italy's most important and original contemporary philosophers, represents a broad, general, and ambitious undertaking--nothing less than an attempt to rethink the nature of poetic language and to rearticulate relationships among theology, poetry, and philosophy in a tradition of literature initiated by Dante.
The author presents "literature" as a set of formal or linguistic genres that discuss or develop theological issues at a certain distance from the discourse of theology. This distance begins to appear in Virgil and Ovid, but it becomes decisive in Dante and in his decision to write in the vernacular. His vernacular Italian reaches back through classical allusion to the Latin that was in his day the language of theology, but it does so with a difference. It is no accident that in the "Commedia" Virgil is Dante's guide.
The book opens with a discussion of just how Dante's poem is a "comedy," and it concludes with a discussion of the "ends of poetry" in a variety of senses: enjambment at the ends of lines, the concluding lines of poems, and the end of poetry as a mode of writing this sort of literature. Of course, to have poetry "end" does not mean that people stop writing it, but that literature passes into a period in which it is concerned with its own ending, with its own bounds and limits, historical and otherwise.
Though most of the essays make specific reference to various authors of the Italian literary tradition (including Dante, Polifilo, Pascoli, Delfini, and Caproni), they transcend the confines of Italian literature and engage several other literary and philosophical authors (Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Boethius, the Provencal poets, Mallarme, and Holderlin, among others).

Realms of Meaning presents an accessible introduction to semantics. It provides an understanding of the way meaning works in natural languages, against a background of how we communicate with language. Avoiding theoretical terminology and linguistic theories it concentrates instead on the analysis of meaning, and looks in depth at such subjects as opposites and negatives, modal verbs, prepositions and word meanings. Examples are chosen mainly from English to provide material for the wider discussion of the principles of the subject, but European, East Asian and other languages also provide illuminating examples.

Since the modern founding of the theory of signs by the American philosopher-scientist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), the field of semiotics has become increasingly prominent as a method of interdisciplinary research and study, bridging the humanities, the fine arts, and the natural and social sciences. It is also truly international, with faculty representation at many universities, research institutes, and scholarly societies throughout the world. These two volumes reflect the continuing appeal of Peirce's sign theory bringing together as they do a great variety of authors from all over the world whose aim is to set the stage for a productive collaboration among linguists and cognitive scientists.

This innovative work provides the first comprehensive account of general extenders ("or something", "and stuff", "or whatever"). Combining insights from linguistics, cognitive psychology, and interactional sociolinguistics, the author demonstrates that these small phrases are not simply vague expressions, but have a powerful role in making interpersonal communication work. The audience for this book includes linguists, scholars of English, teachers of English as a first and a second language, sociolinguists, psycholinguists, and communications researchers.