Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language examines the differences between 'standard' and 'nonstandard' varieties of several different languages. Not only are some of the best-known languages of Europe represented here, but also some that have been less well-researched in the past. The chapters address the syntax of Dutch, English, French, Finnish, Galician, German and Spanish. For these languages, and many others, it is the standard varieties on which the most extensive syntactic research has been carried out, with the result that very little is known about the syntax of their dialects or the spoken colloquial varieties. The editors of this volume seek to redress the balance by taking a cross-linguistic perspective on the historical development of the standardised varieties. This allows them to identify some common characteristics of spoken language. It also helps the reader to understand the kinds of filtering processes that are involved in standardization, which result in the syntax of spoken colloquial language being different from the syntax of the standard varieties. Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Linguistics, particularly those taking courses in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics. The focus on a variety of languages also makes this text suitable for students studying courses which cover the linguistic aspects of European languages.

A range of electronic corpora has become increasingly accessible via the WWW and CD-ROM. This development coincided with improvements in the standards governing the collecting, encoding and archiving of such data. Less attention, however, has been paid to making other types of digital data available. This is especially true of that which one might describe as 'unconventional', namely, dialects, child language and bilingual databases. This book is a first step toward developing similar standards for enriching and preserving these neglected resources.

Language use is a principal means by which we distinguish ourselves and our group from others. In the modern age, language use often divides ethnic groups and nations: Germans are Germans because they speak German; French citizens must accept that Standard French is a central part of their national identity. Sociologists of language consider this equation of personal language use and national identity to be a product of the nationalism which developed in Europe from the eighteenth century on. Authority and Identity: A Sociolinguistic History of Europe before the Modern Age is the first attempt to take the theoretical and methodological insights of macrosociolinguistics and apply them to the history of Europe before 1500. It analyses the recurrent tensions felt since writing technology first began to be used in Europe some 3,500 years ago between centrifugal and centripetal forces, demonstrating how similar linguistic ecologies can produce different kinds of linguistic authority and identity in individuals and groups due to differing sociolinguistic conditions.

This volume provides an up-to-date and evaluative review of theoretical and empirical stances on emotion and its close interaction with language and cognition in monolingual and bilingual individuals. Importantly, it presents a novel methodological approach that takes into account contextual information and hence goes beyond the reductionist approach to affective language that has dominated contemporary research. Owing to this pragmatic approach, the book presents brand new findings in the field of bilingualism and affect and offers the first neurocognitive interpretation of findings reported in clinical and introspective studies in bilingualism. This not only represents an invaluable contribution to the literature, but may also constitute a breakthrough in the investigation of the worldwide phenomenon of bilingualism. Beginning with a thorough review of the history and current state of affective research and its relation to language, spanning philosophical, psychological, neuroscientific, and linguistic perspectives, the volume then proceeds to explore affect manifestation using neuropragmatic methods in monolingual and bilingual individuals. In doing so, it brings together findings from clinical and introspective studies in bilingualism with cognitive, psychophysiological and neuroimaging paradigms. By combining conceptual understanding and methodological expertise from many disciplines, this volume provides a comprehensive picture of the dynamic interactions between contextual and affective information in the language domain. Thus, Affect-Language Interactions in Native and Non-Native English Speakers: A Neuropragmatic Perspective fosters a pragmatic approach to research on affective language processing in monolingual and bilingual population, one that builds bridges across disciplines and sparks important new questions in the cognitive neuroscience of bi- and multilingualism.

This book provides both young and senior scientists with a comparative view of current theoretical models of text production. Models are clearly situated in their historical context, scrutinized in their further evolution with a fine-grained observation of differences between models. Very complete and informative to read, this book will be useful to people working in teaching of writing or studying this specific human activity.

In recent scholarship, the connection between Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic is studied in a more systematic way. The idea of studying these two varieties in one theoretical frame is quite new, and was initiated at the conferences of the International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic (AIMA). At these conferences, the members of AIMA discuss the latest insights into the definition, terminology, and research methods of Middle and Mixed Arabic. Results of various discussions in this field are to be found in the present book, which contains articles describing and analysing the linguistic features of Muslim, Jewish and Christian Arabic texts (folklore, religious and linguistic literature) as well as the matters of mixed language and diglossia. Contributors include: Berend Jan Dikken, Lutz Edzard, Jacques Grand Henry, Bruno Halflants, Benjamin Hary, Rachel Hasson Kenat, Johannes den Heijer, Amr Helmy Ibrahim, Paolo La Spisa, J r me Lentin, Gunvor Mejdell, Arie Schippers, Yosef Tobi, Kees de Vreugd, Manfred Woidich, and Otto Zwartjes.

Most analyses of interpersonal communication ignore the relationship between communication and culture. When intercultural communication takes place, the interlocutors may have very different conceptions of what is being discussed, since meaning in any culture results from lifelong learning within that culture. Such concepts as worldviews, cultural beliefs, and decision-making processes are unique to each culture, and affect each culture's interpretation of meaning. To illustrate problems with communication and culture, Dahl focuses on the cultures of Madagascar and the Western World. He suggests many ways in which the Malagasy's worldview and values are different from the Westerner's, and how these differences affect communication. A "meaning matrix" is included to assist in interpretations of everyday cases.

Spanish and Portuguese Across Time highlights the range possible for scholars trained in a department of linguistics and literature, and shows that these disciplines need not be mutually exclusive. It covers a diverse range of topics, which nevertheless retain a common focus, on the dynamic nature of languages and the social forces that shape them across time, place, and borders. Themes in Part I - Linguistics and Literature: Translation, Society, and Language Variation - include the literary representation of speech, social, and regional variation, and some history on linguistic devices used in the service of social criticism. The work here demonstrates how linguistic principles can offer productive angles to the study of literature, and that literary sources can serve as data for linguistic analysis. The papers in Part II - Language Change, Language Contact, and Language Users - continue the focus on the interface between language and social factors, with both historical and present-day data on speech and speakers' behavior.

Unmatched in the quality of its world-renowned contributors, this multidisciplinary "Companion "serves as both a course text and a reference book across the broad spectrum of issues of concern to cognitive science.

Cognitive science is one of the most exciting intellectual and scientific developments of the second half of the 20th century, integrating insights from psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, philosophy, and other disciplines in an attempt to understand human cognition. It is also a rapidly transforming domain of inquiry.

This C"ompanion" presents a deep and varied account of what one needs to know about cognitive science, what it has accomplished, and where it will be going at the start of the 21st century. Beginning with an introduction that maps the narrative history of cognitive science as a whole, the volume goes on to present sixty newly-commissioned essays that together provide an unparalleled survey of all the topical areas, major methods, and stances. There are explanatory overviews of key controversies, detailed discussions of the application of work in cognitive sciences to the real world, and anticipations of future developments.

"A Companion to Cognitive Science" can be seen as the ultimate resource guide to this fast-moving field of study.

How do people understand metaphorical language? How do metaphors affect the way people experience their social interactions? Do people always interpret metaphors? Does a metaphor necessarily have the same meaning to different people? Can a commonplace metaphor affect the way people think even if they don't interpret it? Why does it matter how people interpret metaphors? In this book, Ritchie proposes an original communication-based theory of metaphor that answers these and other questions about metaphors and metaphorical language.

This book analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. It offers perspectives from a number of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy. Languages are artefacts of culture, meaning they are created by people. They are often used for identity building and maintenance, but in Central and Eastern Europe they became the basis of nation building and national statehood maintenance. The recent split of the Serbo-Croatian language in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia amply illustrates the highly politicized role of languages in this region, which is also home to most of the world's Slavic-speakers. This volume presents and analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. The overview concludes with a reflection on the recent rise of Slavophone speech communities in Western Europe and Israel. The book brings together renowned international scholars who offer a variety of perspectives from a number of disciplines and sub-fields such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy, making this book of great interest to historians, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists interested in Central and Eastern Europe and Slavic Studies.

The 'correct' use of English has been the subject of vigorous debate in recent years. But what defines 'correctness' in our use of language? And how has this altered over time? In this authoritative survey of the history of the English language, the author examines how linguistic traditions have changed and developed over the centuries to produce the language that we are familiar with today.
Taking present-day usage as its starting point, the book uses a topic-based approach to explore the historical development of vocabulary, grammar, syntax, sounds and spellings, thus providing both a firm sense of the structure of the language and an outline of its history.

Migration is the talk of the town. On the whole, however, the current situation is seen as resulting from unique political upheavals. Such a-historical interpretations ignore the fact that migration is a fundamental phenomenon in human societies from the beginning and plays a crucial role in the cultural, economic, political and social developments and innovations. So far, however, most studies are limited to the last four centuries, largely ignoring the spectacular advances made in other disciplines which study the 'deep past', like anthropology, archaeology, population genetics and linguistics, and that reach back as far as 80.000 years ago. This is the first book that offers an overview of the state of the art in these disciplines and shows how historians and social scientists working in the recent past can profit from their insights.

Time-Bound Words argues that changes in English society and the English language are woven together, often in surprising ways, and investigates this claim by following eleven words from Chaucer's time to Shakespeare's. Middle English words like corage, estat, thrift , and virtu come to serve the logic of new social discourses by 1611. Language from Chaucer, Wyclif, More, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson and others is examined both as current and emerging usage, and as verbal play that accomplishes cultural work.

Greek is one of the few languages still known to us after three thousand years that are still spoken today. In this English translation of Francisco Rodriguez Adrados's "Historia de lengua griega," an overview is presented of the development of the Greek language at its different stages. Professor Adrados touches on a rich variety of topics, making "A History of the Greek Language" into a colourful collection of linguistic ideas.

While it is accepted that the pronunciation of English shows wide regional differences, there is a marked tendency to under-estimate the extent of the variation in grammar that exists within the British Isles today. In addressing this problem, Real English brings together the work of a number of experts on the subject to provide a pioneer volume in the field of the grammar of spoken English.

In The Survival of People and Languages: Schooners, Goats and Cassava in St. Barthelemy, French West Indies, Julianne Maher explains a rare linguistic anomaly, how a small homogeneous population of seventeenth century French settlers in the tiny island of St. Barth came to speak four separate languages. With a range of historical documents and eighteenth century eye-witness accounts, Maher reconstructs the island's social ecology that led to its fragmentation. The four speech varieties are closely examined and analyzed, using extensive native speaker interviews; with the impending demise of these languages such documentation is unique. Maher concludes that social factors such as poverty, economics, geography and small population size served to maintain linguistic barriers on the island for over two hundred fifty years.

This sociolinguistic series examines the relationships between language, society and social change. It takes a critical approach to the subject, aiming to challenge current orthodoxies and deal with familiar topics in new ways. This volume provides an insight into the language use of Afro-Caribbeans in London. It places emphasis on the linguistic background of the community and in particular on young people of the first and second British-born generations. In addition, it explores the use of different language varieties within families, and demonstrates how young bilingual users switch rapidly between English and Creole in the course of everyday conversation. Bringing together number of different approaches, this case study offers an account of adolescent bilingual behaviour, and examines the history and future potential of Black English within the British education system. Conversational data, often recorded by black adolescent themselves, is used.

This series of lectures provides an overview of the author's work on quantitative applications in cognitive linguistics by discussing a wide range of studies involving corpus-linguistic as well as experimental work. After a discussion of how corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and psycholinguistics relate to each other, the author discusses empirical and statistical studies of a wide variety of phenomena including morphophonology (morphological blends and alliteration effects), corpus-based cognitive semantics, frequency and association at the syntax-lexis interface. The book concludes with chapters exemplifying the role that bottom-up approaches can take, the role of statistical methods more generally, and the role of converging evidence from corpus and experimental data.The lectures for this book were given at The China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics in May 2013. In the e-book version all handouts have been made available at the back. All audio of the lectures as well as the handouts are available for free, in Open Access, here.

The book presents most recent investigations into foreign language teaching and learning discussed by prominent scholars in the field. A wide variety of topics ranges from theoretical approaches to foreign language instruction to a discussion of findings of empirical research in language learning and pedagogy. The theoretical part of the volume tackles issues which constitute the backbone to the understanding of the processes involved in language development, learning and teaching and thus contribute to applied research. The empirical articles in Parts Two and Three of the volume report on studies focusing on such important issues as various dimensions of awareness (language, cross-cultural competence or affectivity) and specific methodologies implemented in different educational settings (such as, for instance, dyslexic learners) or in teacher training programmes.