This book offers insights on the study of natural language as a complex adaptive system. It discusses a new way to tackle the problem of language modeling, and provides clues on how the close relation between natural language and some biological structures can be very fruitful for science. The book examines the theoretical framework and then applies its main principles to various areas of linguistics. It discusses applications in language contact, language change, diachronic linguistics, and the potential enhancement of classical approaches to historical linguistics by means of new methodologies used in physics, biology, and agent systems theory. It shows how studying language evolution and change using computational simulations enables to integrate social structures in the evolution of language, and how this can give rise to a new way to approach sociolinguistics. Finally, it explores applications for discourse analysis, semantics and cognition.

The eight-volume set systematically studies the phonetic and lexical system and evolution of the Chinese language in three phases. The history of the Chinese language is generally split into three phases: 1) Old Chinese, the form of the Chinese language spoken between the 18th century BC and the 3rd century AD, 2) Middle Chinese, between the 4th century AD to around the 12th century AD, and 3) Modern Chinese, since the 13th century, comprised of an 'early modern' phase before the early 20th century and the contemporary period since. The first three volumes examine the phonetical systems of the language in each period and distinct changes across time, covering the initials system, finals system and tone system. The subsequent 5 volumes focus on lexical development throughout the different phases. The author also analyses basic issues of Chinese language study, the standardization of a modern common language and the foreign influence on the lexicon, helping us to better understand the history and development of the Chinese language. Illustrated with abundant examples, this comprehensive groundwork on Chinese phonetical history will be a must read for scholars and students studying Chinese language, linguistics and especially Chinese phonetics and lexicon.

This book is a must read for anyone who is a procrastinator or who lives with someone who procrastinates. Especially interesting topics addressed include lying, sublimation, ego trips, excuses, mountains out of molehills, and hypocrisy. Anyone who denies being a procrastinator is a liar. From birth, we are all born with this inherent ability. It afflicts stock clerks as well as world leaders. Its most recommendable asset is convenience and accessibility.

A White Woman in a Red Man's World is a must read for all new teachers and for all teachers who plan to teach on an Indian reservation. Georgia Lucas is a master teacher who shares her actual classroom experiences along with enlightening glimpses into the everyday lives of her Indian students. This teacher's memoir spans over 20 years of living, combining anecdotes of her school, home, and social life, spiced with mysterious happenings on the Indian reservations. Upon reading this book, teachers everywhere will come to realize that they, too, have a story to tell. And students will learn to appreciate their teachers a little more as they realize what trials and struggles, as well as joy and satisfaction, are derived from teaching. Arrow Point Lessoneers Mrs. Lucas was a very innovative teacher. She kept us guessing how the next lesson would be presented, and we were usually pleasantly surprised. The lessons were always stimulating. She absolutely refused to allow our minds to wander. We were not allowed to accept defeat. After 17 years, I can still hear her voice urging me to realize my full potential and to work toward my goals. Thank you, Mrs. Lucas. Benetta

This book offers a cognitive-semantic insight into the roots of the human decisionmaking process, using the metaphor of CHOICE as CUBE. The areas of key interest are language, culture, and education as forms of social organization. This book addresses issues relevant to a number of fields, including social epistemology, cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, philosophy, culture and education studies, and will be of interest to readers in these and related disciplines.

This work is a scholarly study of Ahmadi Khani's Mem Z n, the most famous and the most important text of Kurdish classical literature. The study is totally original and is based on methodical in-depth textual analysis of the work with original translations. The author defines the work as an Aristotlean tragedy revealing its unique dramatic elements, scenes, events, structures and characters. It also delves deeper into the Sufist and philosophical levels of the text revealing the astonishing modernist nature and mode of the work as Zoroastrian Existentialism. Dr Mirawdeli offers a line-by-line translation and textual analysis of Khani's prologues in which he has presented his nationalist discourse offering an original interpretation that establishes Khani's ideas as a complete theory of Kurdish nationalism.

This edited volume gathers corpus-based studies on topics including English grammar and discourses on media and health, mainly from a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) perspective, in order to reveal the potential of SFL, which has been emphasized by Halliday. Various other perspectives, such as philosophy, statistics, genre studies, etc. are also included to promote SFL's potential interaction with other theories. Though they employ a diverse range of theoretical perspectives, all the chapters focus on exploring language in use with the corpus method. The studies collected here are all original, unpublished research articles that address significant questions, deepen readers' understanding of SFL, and promote its potential interaction with other theories. In addition, they demonstrate the great potential that SFL holds for solving language-related questions in a variety of discourses.

Specialised translation has received very little attention from academic researchers, but in fact accounts for the bulk of professional translation on a global scale and is taught in a growing number of university-level translation programmes. This book aims to provide three things. Firstly, it offers a description of what makes the approach to specialised translation distinctive from wider-ranging approaches to Translation Studies adopted by translation scholars and applied linguists. Secondly, unlike the traditional approach to specialised translation, this book explores a perspective on specialised translation that is much less focused on terminology and more on the function and reception of specialised (translated) texts. Finally, the author outlines a professionally-oriented hands-on approach to the teaching of specialised translation resulting from many years of teaching it to MA students. The book will be of interest to Translation Studies students and scholars, as well as professional translators who are interested in the theory on which their activity is based.

This book provides an overview of second language (L2) motivation research in a specific European context: Hungary, which has proved to offer an important laboratory for such research, as a number of major political changes over the past 30 years have created a changing background for L2 learning in an increasingly globalized world. The book provides an overview of theoretical research on L2 motivation, together with detailed information on large-scale L2 motivation studies in Hungary. Further, it presents a meta-analysis of the most important investigations, and qualitative data on teachers' views regarding success in L2 learning. In turn, the interdisciplinary nature of L2 motivation is taken into account and relevant antecedent constructs to L2 motivation are investigated. Lastly, the book outlines possible future directions for L2 motivation research.

Learning verb conjugations and dealing with irregular verbs in the Spanish language is a serious challenge for many English speakers. Dr. Juan M. Gonzlez, an assistant professor of Spanish at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado, and Dr. Dan Bishop have developed a unique visual framework within which students can more easily learn Spanish verb irregularities.

Gonzlez and Bishop present most verb irregularities as two easily manageable groups of ten simple spelling rules and ten common vowel variations. Conjugation diagrams and charts throughout the text enhance the learning process. Verb lists specify all commonly encountered verbs that exhibit vowel variations. Special attention is also placed on the nineteen truly irregular verbs that depart significantly from these rules.

Mastering Spanish Irregular Verbs is an excellent reference volume for Spanish teachers and students alike. The verb classification scheme, visual presentations, and comprehensive verb lists significantly help the reader along the road to Spanish fluency.

"Stunningly original and wonderfully realized, this book charts a clear path through the jungle of Spanish irregular verbs. Gonzlez and Bishop have pioneered an approach that transforms what many students find an impossible task into an intellectual pleasure. As I looked over the charts which provide the center of their approach, I found myself wondering why no one thought of this before."

-Craig Werner, PhD, Chair, Integrated Liberal Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This book is about the enjoyment and preservation of riddles. There are many more than i have presented here, but these are a few of my favorites which i feel are worth preserving.

This book provides a social interpretation of written South African translation history from the seventeenth century to the present, considering how trends involving various languages have reflected ideologies and unequal power relations and focusing attention on translation's often hidden social operation. Translation is investigated in relation to colonial mercantilism, scientific knowledge of extraction, Christian missionary conversion, Islamic education, various nationalisms, apartheid oppression and the anti-apartheid struggle, neoliberalism, exclusion and post-apartheid social transformation by employing Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. This book will be an essential resource for scholars, graduate students, and general readers who are interested in or work on the history and practice of translation and its cultural agents in the South African context.

This edited book brings together case studies from different contexts which all explore how a rapidly evolving digital landscape is impacting translation and intercultural communication. The chapters examine different facets of digitization, including how professional translators leverage digital tools and why, the types of digital data Translation Studies scholars can now observe, and how the Digital Humanities are impacting how we teach and theorize translation in an era of automation and artificial intelligence. The volume gives voice to research from across the professional and academic spectrum, with representation from Hong Kong, Canada, France, Algeria, South Korea, Japan, Brazil and the UK. This book will be of interest to professionals and academics working in the field of translation, as well as digital humanities and communications scholars.

The nature of religion is a topic that has endlessly fascinated thoughtful humans from the times of the ancient Greeks to the present. There are many theories of and about religion. Many of them are functional theories based on the psychological, sociological, anthropological, or pragmatic uses and usefulness of religion for individuals and for groups. The weakness of such explanations is that they rely on the circular argument that the uses of religion are its source.
"How Language Creates and Sustains Religion" explores a novel theory proposing that religion, in its twin aspects of spirituality and religiosity, originates and is sustained as a result of differences between human language or verbal thought processes and the innate neurological thought process that is a characteristic of all vertebrate animals. In a tour-de-force that combines some of the latest discoveries from neurology with knowledge from psychology, evolution and linguistics, the author explains the source and the nature of religion as it springs from the evolved brain of human beings.

This two-volume set presents a comprehensive syntactical picture of Singapore Mandarin and discusses the distinguishing characteristics of the Chinese language and especially Singapore Mandarin. As a variety of Mandarin Chinese, Singapore Mandarin is characterised by syntactic rules taking precedence over morphological rules. The first volume provides an overview of the grammar of Singapore Mandarin and argues that word order and functional words are specifically important in the study of Singapore Mandarin. It also explains the properties and functions of the nine grammatical components, including phrase types, word classes, sentences, subjects and predicates, predicates and objects, predicates and complements, attributes and adverbials, complex predicate phrases and prepositions and prepositional phrases. The second volume describes expressions of number, quantity, time and place and composite sentences, covering seven types of compound sentences, eight types of complex sentences and connective words with a focus on conjunctions. The concluding part of the study explores the characteristics of Singapore Mandarin grammar compared with Chinese Mandarin (Putonghua) and issues of language standardisation. With rich and authentic language examples, the book will serve as a must read for learners and teachers of Mandarin Chinese and linguistics scholars interested in global Chinese and especially Singapore Mandarin.

This book investigates community interpreting services as a market offering that satisfies the needs of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) members of the Australian community, with an additional chapter on the Turkish context. Bringing together the disciplines of interpreting studies and management, the author analyses a variety of challenges which still arise in various fields of interpreting and suggest possible solutions, as well as future directions for other global contexts where changing demographics mean that community-based interpreting is increasingly relevant. Based on interviews with various stakeholders including directors, interpreters, and trainers in the private sector or state-run institutions, the book's main focus is the real experiences of people working on the ground in community interpreting. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of translation, interpreting and migration studies, as well as interpreters and their trainers, and government policy-makers.

Written by leading experts in the field of TESOL, this book explores the literature on various topic areas and demonstrates how teachers can increase their levels of professionalism by acquiring some general and field-specific strategies. Being a teaching professional is not simply about having the right teaching qualifications and good academic standing, it involves a commitment to being innovative and transformative in the classroom and helping both students and colleagues achieve their goals. A dictionary definition of professionalism reads as follows: professionalism is the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person; and it defines a profession as a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation (Merriam-Webster, 2013). However, according to Bowman (2013), professionalism is less a matter of what professionals actually do and more a matter of who they are as human beings. Both of these views imply that professionalism encompasses a number of different attributes, and, together, these attributes identify and define a professional. The book is primarily intended for teachers at all levels and in all contexts who are interested in improving their professionalism and developing strategies that can take them to higher levels in the field of TESOL/ELT.