This volume offers a current reading of the Italian writer, Pirandello. The author examines the representation of gender relations in Pirandello's writing in the light of recent developments in textual analysis. She reassesses Pirandello's status as an innovative, avant-garde writer, arguing that whilst on the level of dramatic form he is certainly avant-garde, he is not so on the more covert level of gender relations. The author uses contemporary feminist theory to show how textual analysis can expose the covert reinforcement of patriarchal values. The study provides an illustration of a variety of methods which could be applied to texts other than those of Pirandello's.

The volume brings together the papers read at the international conference on Romance Objects organized by the Linguistics Department of the Roma Tre University. It is characterized by a striking uniformity of approach, which is functional, and of methodology. The various case studies regarding the object focus on the syntax/semantics and syntax/pragmatics interfaces. The common denominator of the ten enquiries is the identification of the object category, the DO in particular, in Romance languages; at the same time some of the contributors relate the specific topic to more general questions of linguistic typology. Some of the essays are based on the analysis of data from a corpus and present a diachronic picture of the evolution of the specific topic investigated. Thus this volume is addressed not only to scholars interested in the Romance languages but also all those who study the object category in a cross-linguistic perspective. Michela Cennamo: (In)transitivity and object marking: some current issues.

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.

What is the connection between what is said on TV and how it is said? Structured around four key features of the current broadcast landscape (storytelling, closeness, conflict and persuasion), "Television Discourse" examines the specific forms and structures of talk across media genres as varied as exploitative shows and political interviews.

"Metaphor Networks" focuses on the historical evolution of metaphor and proposes new theories on language change based on substantial empirical data. It explores how the metaphors of today are very often linked to images existing in the past and traces metaphor paths back to the Middle Ages and Antiquity. The findings reveal that regular patters of evolution emerge and the aims of the book are to find out what lies behind these patterns.

Since we need words with new meanings to discover what is true, it follows that without those words there could be no truth as we know it. Without just those words that we create there would be no knowledge for us. In that case knowledge is found embedded in the very words that we formulate. Interpretation and definition as rhetorical and logical modes are interactive in determining and precising meaning that transcends our repertoire of literal usage. "Language use" by abandoning old trails of usage and by refining usage gives us the opportunity and freedom to explore and discover what never has been thought about, used, or expressed before.

The area of research on printed word recognition has been one of the most active in the field of experimental psychology for well over a decade. However, notwithstanding the energetic research effort and despite the fact that there are many points of consensus, major controversies still exist.

This volume is particularly concerned with the putative relationship between language and reading. It explores the ways by which orthography, phonology, morphology and meaning are interrelated in the reading process. Included are theoretical discussions as well as reviews of experimental evidence by leading researchers in the area of experimental reading studies. The book takes as its primary issue the question of the degree to which basic processes in reading reflect the structural characteristics of language such as phonology and morphology. It discusses how those characteristics can shape a language's orthography and affect the process of reading from word recognition to comprehension.

Contributed by specialists, the broad-ranging mix of articles and papers not only gives a picture of current theory and data but a view of the directions in which this research area is vigorously moving.

This text offers an interdisciplinary account of reference and categorization within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Central issues are the distinction between lexical vagueness and polysemy as well as the creation of new meanings in English and German. Polysemy is resolved by a computational implementation in a machine-translation system.

The first book-length treatment of the most cross-linguistically widespread form of ellipsis: elliptical wh-questions, known as sluices. Drawing on data from thirty languages, Merchant shows that sluicing structures are crucial to answering the fundamental questions about the nature of ellipsis and its resolution. The author also carefully documents a number of original generalizations concerning form-identity effects and the complementizer system.

The generation of meaning is the most fundamental process of the mind. It underlies all major mental functions, such as intelligence, memory, perception, and communication. Not surprisingly, it has been one of the most difficult processes to understand and represent in a model of human cognition. Dr. Christine Hardy introduces two fundamental concepts to address the complexity and richness of meaning. First, she discusses Semantic Constellations, which constitute the basic transversal network organization of mental and neural processes. Second, she addresses a highly dynamic connective process that underlies conscious thought and constantly gives birth to novel emergents or meanings. Taken together, Hardy asserts, the mind's network architecture and connective dynamics allow for self-organization, generativity, and creativity. They can also account for some of the most interesting facets of mental processes, in particular, nonlinear shifts and "breakthroughs" such as intuition, insights, and shifts in states of consciousness. This connective dynamic does not just take place within the mind. Rather, it involves a continuously evolving person-environment interaction: meaning is injected into the environment, and then retrojected, somewhat modified, back into the psyche. This means that, simultaneously, we are both perceiving reality and subtly influencing the very reality we perceive: objects, events, and other individuals. The way in which we think and feel, both individually and collectively, interacts with the physical world and directly shapes the society in which we live. The very same connective dynamic, Hardy shows, is the foundation for those rare yet striking transpersonalexperiences known as synchronicity and psychic phenomena. We live in a world in which we interact with reality at a very fundamental level. Hardy's work is a major analysis for scholars and researchers in the cognitive sciences, psychology, and parapsychology.

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism in the era of Byzantine and Christian rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines to better understand the development of Christian literature in this era as an essential link in the history of Platonism as well as that of Christianity.

This book is intended to contribute to the clarification of the linguistic research area covered by the terms modal, evidential and epistemic. It sets out to demonstrate that on cross-linguistic grounds a hitherto overlooked epistemic meaning domain must be given due recognition in linguistic theory, on a par with domains such as time and number. The relevant domain is coherent, but at the same time complex in that it consists of two subdomains: one which comprises degree-of-certainty meanings, and one which comprises information-source meanings. The book offers three arguments for giving recognition to such a meaning domain. The first argument concerns the clustering of linguistic expressions with epistemic meaning into morphosyntactically delimited systems of elements. The second argument has to do with the variation pertaining to the coding of epistemic meanings, as highlighted in a semantic map of epistemic expressions. The third argument turns upon the scope properties of epistemic meanings and the morphosyntactic reflections of these properties. Finally, the book proposes a unified cognitive analysis of epistemic meaning in terms of which it attempts to account for the properties of the epistemic meaning domain as well as of individual epistemic meanings.

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.

Distinguished researchers from around the world examine the interplay between gender and metaphor in political language in Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, and Singapore. They draw on a wide variety of corpus data to determine to what extent metaphors used by women in political power differ with, or remain the same as that of men. They also examine what effect metaphor use has on women's power in the political arena. This wide-ranging collection of language-based studies will interest students and researchers in discourse analysis, political communication, gender studies, journalism, and media studies.

This book explores how grammatical structure is related to meaning. The meaning of a phrase clearly depends on its constituent words and how they are combined. But how does structure contribute to meaning in natural language? Does combining adjectives with nouns (as in 'brown dog') differ semantically from combining verbs with adverbs (as in 'barked loudly')? What is the significance of combining verbs with names and quantificational expressions (as in 'Fido chased every cat')? In addressing such questions, Paul Pietroski develops a novel conception of linguistic meaning according to which the semantic contribution of combining expressions is simple and uniform across constructions. Drawing on work at the heart of contemporary debates in linguistics and philosophy, the author argues that Donald Davidson's treatment of action sentences as event descriptions should be viewed as an instructive special case of a more general semantic theory. The unified theory covers a wide range of examples, including sentences that involve quantification, plurality, descriptions of complex causal processes, and verbs that take sentential complements. Professor Pietroski also provides fresh ways of thinking about much discussed semantic generalizations that seem to reflect innately determined aspects of human languages. Designed to be accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of elementary logic, Events and Semantic Architecture will interest a wide range of scholars in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science.

This study shows that women involved in National Socialism in the years 1924 - 1934 developed and shaped a recognizable discourse which communicated and reflected their position and status within the NS movement. The analysis is based on a variety of text-types produced by members of NS women's organisations, and includes official correspondence, circulars, reports, pamphlets, monographs and articles from NS women's journals. It draws upon several areas of linguistic theory, including feminist linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, and the salient features identified in the female discourse are placed within a sociolinguistic framework. While previous research into the language of the NS-system has largely ignored the possibility of a cohesive female discourse, the study supports the idea that this discourse was dynamic, and at times heterogeneous, whilst also displaying many self-defining and self-referential features. It is characterised by its ambiguities and apparent contradictions, which expresses separateness and difference, yet also solidarity with the NSDAP.

This book offers educational experiences, including reflections and the resulting essays, from the Roberta Kevelson Seminar on Law and Semiotics held during 2008 - 2011 at Penn State University's Dickinson School of Law. The texts address educational aspects of law that require attention and that also are issues in traditional jurisprudence and legal theory. The book introduces education in legal semiotics as it evolves in a legal curriculum. Specific semiotic concepts, such as "sign", "symbol" or "legal language," demonstrate how a lawyer's professionally important tasks of name-giving and meaning-giving are seldom completely understood by lawyers or laypeople. These concepts require analyses of considerable depth to understand the expressiveness of these legal names and meanings, and to understand how lawyers can "say the law," or urge such a saying correctly and effectively in the context of a natural language that is understandable to all of us. The book brings together the structure of the Seminar, its foundational philosophical problems, the specifics of legal history, and the semiotics of the legal system with specific themes such as gender, family law, and business law.

This thought-provoking book initiates a dialogue among scholars in rhetoric and hermeneutics in many areas of the humanities. Twenty leading thinkers explore the ways these two powerful disciplines inform each other and influence a wide variety of intellectual fields. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde organize pivotal topics in rhetoric and hermeneutics with originality and coherence, dividing their book into four sections: Locating the Disciplines; Inventions and Applications; Arguments and Narratives; and Civic Discourse and Critical Theory. Contributors to this volume include Hans-Georg Gadamer (one of whose pieces is here translated into English for the first time), Paul Ricoeur, Gerald L. Bruns, Charles Altieri, Richard E. Palmer, Calvin O. Schrag,.Victoria Kahn, Eugene Garver, Michael Leff, Nancy S. Streuver, Wendy Olmsted, David Tracy, Donald G. Marshall, Allen Scult, Rita Copeland, William Rehg, and Steven Mailloux. For readers across the humanities, the book demonstrates the usefulness of rhetorical and hermeneutic approaches in literary, philosophical, legal, religious, and political thinking. With its stimulating new perspectives on the revival and interrelation of both rhetoric and hermeneutics, this collection is sure to serve as a benchmark for years to come.

Inspired by Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose, Mick Short's classic introduction to stylistics, Language and Style represents the state-of-the-art in literary stylistics and encompasses the full breadth of current research in the discipline. Written by leading scholars in the field, chapters cover a variety of methodological and analytical approaches, from traditional qualitative analysis to more recent developments in cognitive and corpus stylistics. Addressing the three, key literary genres of poetry, drama and narrative, Language and Style is divided into carefully balanced sections. Based on original research, each chapter demonstrates a particular analytic technique and explains how this might be applied to a text from one of the literary genres. Framed by helpful introductory material covering the foundational principles of stylistics, the chapters act as practical exemplars of how to carry out stylistic analysis. Comprehensive and engaging, this invaluable resource is essential reading for anyone interested in stylistics.

This book offers new insights into how English speakers talk about their own and others' emotions. Using statistical evidence and corpus-linguistic methods, but also qualitative text analyses, the author examines how expressions that describe emotions are employed in a large corpus of conversational, newspaper, fictional and academic English.

The book presents a comprehensive study of Russian prepositions, with a focus on expressing spatial characteristics. It primarily deals with how metaphorical and metonymical transfers motivate the use of Russian prepositional phrases, explaining the collocations of prepositional phrases with verbs as a realisation of a conceptual metaphor or a metonymy. The author confronts a problem that is attracting growing attention within present-day linguistics: the semantics of prepositions and cases. The book seeks to clarify the conceptual motivations for the use of the combinations of Russian primary prepositional phrases, as well as to demonstrate how their spatial meanings are extended into non-spatial domains. This book incorporates an analysis of a large number of items, including 30 combinations of primary prepositions with cases. An original contribution, the book is of interest to teachers and students studying Slavic languages, and to cognitive linguists.

`Peterson is an authority of a philosophical and linguistic industry that began in the 1960s with Vendler's work on nominalization. Natural languages distinguish syntactically and semantically between various sorts of what might be called `gerundive entities' - events, processes, states of affairs, propositions, facts, ... all referred to by sentence nominals of various kinds. Philosophers have worried for millennia over the ontology of such things or `things', but until twenty years ago they ignored all the useful linguistic evidence. Vendler not only began to straighten out the distinctions, but pursued more specific and more interesting questions such as that of what entities the causality relation relates (events? facts?). And that of the objects of knowledge and belief. But Vendler's work was only a start and Peterson has continued the task from then until now, both philosophically and linguistically. Fact Proposition Event constitutes the state of the art regarding gerundive entities, defended in meticulous detail. Peterson's ontology features just facts, proposition, and events, carefully distinguished from each other. Among his more specific achievements are: a nice treatment of the linguist's distinction between `factive' and nonfactive constructions; a detailed theory of the subjects and objects of causation, which impinges nicely on action theory; an interesting argument that fact, proposition, events are innate ideas in humans; a theory of complex events (with implications for law and philosophy of law); and an overall picture of syntax and semantics of causal sentences and action sentences. Though Peterson does not pursue them here, there are clear and significant implications for the philosophy of science, in particular for our understanding of scientific causation, causal explanation and law likeness.' Professor William Lycan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill