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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning) > General
In "Discursive Ideologies," C. H. Knoblauch argues that European rhetorical theory comprises several distinct and fundamentally opposed traditions of discourse. Writing accessibly for the upper division student, Knoblauch resists the conventional narrative of a unified Western rhetorical tradition. He identifies deep ideological and epistemological differences that exist among strands of Western thought and that are based in divergent "grounds of meaningfulness." These conflicts underlie and influence current discourse about vital public issues. Knoblauch considers six "stories" about the meaning of meaning in an attempt to answer the question, what encourages us to believe that language acts are meaningful? Six distinctive ideologies of Western rhetoric emerge: magical rhetoric, ontological rhetoric, objectivist rhetoric, expressivist rhetoric, sociological rhetoric, and deconstructive rhetoric. He explores the nature of language and the important role these rhetorics play in the discourses that matter most to people, such as religion, education, public policy, science, law, and history.
Conflict plays a crucial role in social interactions, and representations of conflict are an important aspect of language. Stories and narratives involving everything from war to playground disputes generate, sustain, mediate, and represent conflict at all levels of social organization. Still, despite the vast amount of research on conflict and narrative in a number of disciplines, no one has yet examined how these play off of each other; in fact, most studies treat narrative merely as a source of information about conflict rather then as a part of conflict's process. The contributors to this collection argue that language consists of socially and politically situated practices that are differentially distributed on the basis of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and other categories. Each of them, writing from the perspective of their own disciplines, challenges previous assumptions about narrative and social conflict as they interpret a range of disputes that emerge in a variety of settings. Taken in total, these essays substantially further our theoretical and methodological understanding of narrative and conflict and how they intersect.
The purpose clause is a common fonn of adverbial modification in English. The bracketed phrases below are purpose clauses, and they look and sound unremarkable. We hear and see these things all the time. John came [to play with the children] [to play with] I brought John along Insofar as purpose clauses appear to be adverbial, they frequently occupy a relatively low place on the scale of important things for syntactic theory to address itself to. In this book I assume the theoretical framework that has come to be known as 'Government-Binding' theory (GB), initiated in Chomsky (1981). The general fonn of the analyis of purpose clauses in GB dates roughly from Chomsky (1977). where several kinds of constructions akin to purpose clauses are identified. Within GB. this analysis is so widely accepted that it deserves to be considered the standard theory. This book, then. is about a few syntactically peripheral ell~ments that have enjoyed a relatively long-lived. virtually universally accepted. theoretical treatment What is perhaps an obvious question arises in this context. Why write a GB book about purpose clauses? This book. I hope, will supply an interesting answer. Simply put. purpose clause:;, and related constructions, have various properties that are not accounted for in the standard theory. In this book I propose an alternative analysis of purpose clauses, an analysis from which. I think. more of their properties follow more naturally.
This volume contains papers which reflect current discussions in the study of speech actions. The collection was inspired by the papers presented at Meaning, Context and Cognition, the first international conference integrating cognitive linguistics and pragmatics initiated by the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics of the University of Lodz (Poland) in 2011 and held annually. The necessarily heterogeneous field of research into speech actions is approached by the contributors from various perspectives and with focus on different types of data. The papers have been grouped into four sections which subsequently emphasise theoretical linguistics issues, lexical pragmatics, speech act-theoretic problems, and cognitive processes.
This important new study examines in detail a semantic-pragmatic pattern surrounding the basic verb 'acquire' in nearly 30 Southeast Asian languages, concentrating on Lao, Vietnamese, Khmer, Kmhmu, Hmong, and varieties of Chinese. The book makes a significant contribution to empirical work on semantic and grammatical change in a linguistic area, as well as representing theoretical advances in cognitive semantics. Gricean pragmatics, semantic change, grammaticalization, language contact, and areal linguistics. The book also examines how changes in the speech of individuals actually become changes in large-scale public convention, 'language contact' is reconsidered, and traditional distinctions such as that between 'internal' and 'external' linguistic mechanisms are challenged. This groundbreaking new book is for specialists in Southeast Asian linguistics as well as scholars of descriptive semantics and pragmatics, grammaticalisation, linguistic change and evolution, areal linguistics and language contact, history and linguistic anthropology.
Few concepts in Discourse Studies are so versatile and intricate and have been so frequently contested as interpersonality. This construct offers ample terrain for new research, since it can be viewed using a range of diverse theoretical frameworks, employing a variety of analytical tools and social perspectives. Studies on the relationship between writer/reader and speaker/audience in the legal field are still scarce, dispersed, and limited to a narrow range of genres and a restricted notion of interpersonality, since they are most often confined to modality and the Gricean cooperative principles. This volume is meant to help bridge this gap. Its chapters show the realisation and distribution of interpersonal features in specific legal genres. The aim is to achieve an expansion of the concept of interpersonality, which besides modality, Grice's maxims and other traditionally interpersonal features, might comprise or relate to ideational and textual issues like narrative disclosure, typography, rhetorical variation, or Plain English, among others.
The book brings together a rich variety of perspectives on abstracts as an academic genre. Drawing on genre analysis and corpus linguistics, the studies collected here combine attention to generic structure with emphasis on language variation and change, thus offering a multi-perspective view on a genre that is becoming one of the most important in present-day research communication. The chapters are organized into three sections, each one offering distinct but sometimes combined perspectives on the exploration of this academic genre. The first section looks at variation across cultures through studies comparing English with Spanish, Italian and German, while also including considerations on variation across genders or the native/non-native divide. The second section centres on variation across disciplines and includes a wide range of studies exploring disciplinary identities and communities, as well as different degrees of centrality in the disciplinary community. The third and final section explores language and genre change by looking at how authorial voice and metadiscourse have changed over the past few decades under the influence of different media and different stakeholders.
This book develops a unified account of expressions involving the notions of "part" and "whole " in which principles of the individuation of part structures play a central role. Moltmann presents a range of new empirical generalizations with data from English and a variety of other languages involving plurals, mass nouns, adnominal and adverbial modifiers such as as a whole, together, and alone, nominal and adverbial quanitfiers ranging over parts, and expressions of completion such as completely and partly. She develops a new theory of part structures which differs from traditional mereological theories in that the notion of an integrated whole plays a central role and in that the part structure of an entity is allowed to vary across different situations, perspectives, and dimensions.
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.
Functional Grammar is a linguistic theory in which language is regarded intrinsically as a vehicle of communicative interaction. As such it has a strongly pragmatic orientation, and this book presents the results of some of the most recent research into pragmatics within the Functional Grammar framework. A good deal of attention is paid, in particular, to the treatment of discourse-level phenomena. manifestations.
Philosophers and linguists have come together for this volume to provide a glimpse of current thinking about language in a semiotic mode and of the analyses that result from applying the theory of signs of the American philosopher-scientist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) to subjects that Peirce himself did not explore in any depth. Contributors include Victor Friedman, Laura Janda, Tony Jappy, Dines Johansen, Dan Nesher, Joao Queiroz, Joelle Rethore, Michael Shapiro, and Nils Thelin.
This data-oriented study aims at providing an onomasiological account of the historical synonyms of the term fallen woman from Old English up to Early Modern English. It focuses on linguistic mechanisms which are at work in the formation of euphemisms and dysphemisms semantically linked to the conceptual category Fallen Woman. Additionally, the book highlights the historical and cultural variations in the approach to sex relations in different parts of the world and in different epochs. The cognitive methodological apparatus is the core of the analytical part of the work. The results of the axiologically oriented analysis point to the prevailing tendency of female-specific lexical items to undergo the process of pejoration with the passage of time.
A selection of papers presented at the conference Expert Systems, Culture and Semiotics, held in Groningen, the Netherlands, December 1990. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part is about signs and representations, the second about reasoning and search, and the third about communicat
This book collects 13 papers that explore Wittgenstein's philosophy throughout the different stages of his career. The author writes from the viewpoint of critical rationalism. The tone of his analysis is friendly and appreciative yet critical. Of these papers, seven are on the background to the philosophy of Wittgenstein. Five papers examine different aspects of it: one on the philosophy of young Wittgenstein, one on his transitional period, and the final three on the philosophy of mature Wittgenstein, chiefly his Philosophical Investigations. The last of these papers, which serves as the concluding chapter, concerns the analytical school of philosophy that grew chiefly under its influence. Wittgenstein's posthumous Philosophical Investigations ignores formal languages while retaining the view of metaphysics as meaningless -- declaring that all languages are metaphysics-free. It was very popular in the middle of the twentieth century. Now it is passe. Wittgenstein had hoped to dissolve all philosophical disputes, yet he generated a new kind of dispute. His claim to have improved the philosophy of life is awkward just because he prevented philosophical discussion from the ability to achieve that: he cut the branch on which he was sitting. This, according to the author, is the most serious critique of Wittgenstein.
This is a methodical study of the material and mental limits and possibilities of transferring information and media traits among dissimilar media. Ellestroem proposes a model for pinpointing the most vital conceptual entities and stages in intermedial transfers involving different media types such as speech, writing, music, films, and websites.
This book presents a theory of long humorous texts based on a revision and an upgrade of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH), a decade after its first proposal. The theory is informed by current research in psycholinguistics and cognitive science. It is predicated on the fact that there are humorous mechanisms in long texts that have no counterpart in jokes. The book includes a number of case studies, among them Oscar Wilde's Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Allais' story Han Rybeck. A ground-breaking discussion of the quantitative distribution of humor in select texts is presented.
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.
For the first time in English, Glyn Williams draws together current debates in linguistics and social theory, and provides the first study in English of the principles and theories of French discourse analysis.
A kinship term is defined as a lexical item which is used to name a person who is connected by certain blood relations with other persons or a group of persons. Kinship term systems were first studied scientifically in the latter half of the 19th century by the American anthropological school, whose scholars researched the culture of inhabitants of the North American continent, often drawing on linguistic data from many Indian tribes. This book presents an analysis of structural and semantic peculiarities of kinship terms in forty languages belonging to ten families. It suggests general typological classification of kinship terms and semantic classification of reciprocal kinship terms. A number of typological generalizations - universals - of a probabilistic nature are formulated regarding the structure and semantics of kinship terms.
Die Bibliotheca Teubneriana, gegrundet 1849, ist die weltweit alteste, traditionsreichste und umfangreichste Editionsreihe griechischer und lateinischer Literatur von der Antike bis zur Neuzeit. Pro Jahr erscheinen 4-5 neue Editionen. Samtliche Ausgaben werden durch eine lateinische oder englische Praefatio erganzt. Die wissenschaftliche Betreuung der Reihe obliegt einem Team anerkannter Philologen: Gian Biagio Conte (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) Marcus Deufert (Universitat Leipzig) James Diggle (University of Cambridge) Donald J. Mastronarde (University of California, Berkeley) Franco Montanari (Universita di Genova) Heinz-Gunther Nesselrath (Georg-August-Universitat Goettingen) Oliver Primavesi (Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen) Michael D. Reeve (University of Cambridge) Richard J. Tarrant (Harvard University) Vergriffene Titel werden als Print-on-Demand-Nachdrucke wieder verfugbar gemacht. Zudem werden alle Neuerscheinungen der Bibliotheca Teubneriana parallel zur gedruckten Ausgabe auch als eBook angeboten. Die alteren Bande werden sukzessive ebenfalls als eBook bereitgestellt. Falls Sie einen vergriffenen Titel bestellen moechten, der noch nicht als Print-on-Demand angeboten wird, schreiben Sie uns an: [email protected] Samtliche in der Bibliotheca Teubneriana erschienenen Editionen lateinischer Texte sind in der Datenbank BTL Online elektronisch verfugbar.
In this innovative collection, an international group of scholars come together to discuss literary metaphors and cognitive metaphor theory. The volume's goals are three-fold. The first aim of the book is to present some recent approaches to metaphor which have no immediate connection with cognitive metaphor theory and have developed independently of it. While the cognitive approach has become the leading paradigm in the English speaking world, elsewhere (in Europe) rhetorical, semantic, and logical models have remained in use and continue to be elaborated. These models have so far had little international exposure. Their inclusion in this study is meant to provide a balance to the cognitive paradigm and to open up a possible discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of cognitive metaphor theory for the analysis of literary texts. The second aim of the collection is to illustrate a range of successful applications of the new cognitive models to literary texts. And, the third aim of the study is to provide an assessment of cognitive metaphor theory from a literary point of view.
Eloise Jelinek was a leading authority on syntactic and semantic theory, information structure, and several Native American languages (including Lummi, Yaqui, and Navajo). She was one of the very first generative linguists who brought the theoretical implications of the properties of typologically unusual and understudied languages to the forefront of mainstream generative thinking. Jelinek originated the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis - the idea that many languages restrict realization of their arguments to pronouns. In other work, Jelinek investigated a broad range of morphological, syntactic and semantic phenomena in understudied and endangered languages. Besides the theoretical value of that work, it was instrumental in providing sophisticated semantic and syntactic documentation for such languages, where description is typically limited to the basic morphophonology and morphosyntax, as well as texts, that form the core of most descriptive work. Thirteen of her most important papers, together with a fourteenth essay previously unpublished, are here collected, each preceded by a short introduction that provides context for the work and evidence of its subsequent influence.
Digital Literary Studies presents a broad and varied picture of the promise and potential of methods and approaches that are crucially dependent upon the digital nature of the literary texts it studies and the texts and collections of texts with which they are compared. It focuses on style, diction, characterization, and interpretation of single works and across larger groups of texts, using both huge natural language corpora and smaller, more specialized collections of texts created for specific tasks, and applies statistical techniques used in the narrower confines of authorship attribution to broader stylistic questions. It addresses important issues in each of the three major literary genres, and intentionally applies different techniques and concepts to poetry, prose, and drama. It aims to present a provocative and suggestive sample intended to encourage the application of these and other methods to literary studies. Hoover, Culpeper, and O'Halloran push the methods, techniques, and concepts in new directions, apply them to new groups of texts or to new questions, modify their nature or method of application, and combine them in innovative ways.
This book is concerned with the meaning and use of two kinds of declarative sentences: 1) It's raining? 2) It's raining. The difference between (1) and (2) is intonational: (1) has a final rise--indicated by the question mark--while (2) ends with a fall. Christine Gunlogson's central claim is that the meaning and use of both kinds of sentences must be understood in terms of the meaning of their defining formal elements, namely declarative sentence type and rising versus falling intonation. Gunlogson supports that claim through an investigation of the use of declaratives as questions. On one hand, Gunlogson demonstrates that rising and falling declaratives share an aspect of conventional meaning attributable to their declarative form, distinguishing them both from the corresponding polar interrogative (Is it raining?) and constraining their use as questions. On the other hand, since (1) and (2) constitute a minimal pair, differing only in intonation, systematic differences in character and function between them--in particular, the relative "naturalness" of (1) as a question compared to (2) --must be located in the contrast between the fall and the rise. To account for these two sets of differences, Gunlogson gives a compositional account of rising and falling declaratives under which declarative form expresses commitment to the propositional content of the declarative. Rising versus falling intonation on declaratives is responsible for attribution of the commitment to the Addressee versus the Speaker, respectively. The result is an inherent contextual "bias" associated with declaratives, which constitutes the crucial point of difference with interrogatives. The compositional analysis is implemented in the framework of context update semantics (Heim 1982 and others), using an articulated version of the Common Ground (Stalnaker 1978) that distinguishes the commitments of the individual discourse participants. Restrictions on the use of declaratives as questions, as well as differences between rising and falling declaratives as questions, are shown to follow from this account. Gunlogson argues that neither rising nor falling declaratives are inherently questioning--rather, the questioning function of declaratives arises through the interaction of sentence type, intonation, and context.
Introducing English Semantics, Second Edition is a practical introduction to understanding how meanings are expressed in the English language. Presenting the basic principles of the discipline of semantics, this newly revised edition explores the knowledge of language that speakers have which enables them to communicate - to express observations, opinions, intentions and the products of their imagination. The text emphasises pragmatic investigation with numerous illustrative examples of concepts and ample exercises to help students develop and improve their linguistic analysis skills. Introducing English Semantics: Discusses the nature of human language and how linguists categorise and examine it. Covers meanings expressed in English words, prefixes, suffixes and sentences. Examines such relations as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, ambiguity, implication, factivity, aspect, and modality Draws comparisons between English and other languages Illustrates the importance of 'tone of voice' and 'body language' in face-to-face exchanges and the role of context in any communication Contains a wealth of exercises and a glossary to clearly define all terminology This new edition includes expanded and updated textual exercises and a greater focus on compounds and other kinds of composite lexemes. Written in a clear and accessible style, Introducing English Semantics is an essential text for any student taking an introductory course in semantics. |
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