This book shows ways of augmenting the capabilities of Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems by means of cognitive-mode language processing. The authors employ eye-tracking technology to record and analyze shallow cognitive information in the form of gaze patterns of readers/annotators who perform language processing tasks. The insights gained from such measures are subsequently translated into systems that help us (1) assess the actual cognitive load in text annotation, with resulting increase in human text-annotation efficiency, and (2) extract cognitive features that, when added to traditional features, can improve the accuracy of text classifiers. In sum, the authors' work successfully demonstrates that cognitive information gleaned from human eye-movement data can benefit modern NLP. Currently available Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems are weak AI systems: they seek to capture the functionality of human language processing, without worrying about how this processing is realized in human beings' hardware. In other words, these systems are oblivious to the actual cognitive processes involved in human language processing. This ignorance, however, is NOT bliss! The accuracy figures of all non-toy NLP systems saturate beyond a certain point, making it abundantly clear that "something different should be done."

This work gives a thorough revision of history through a psychological approach to verbal interaction between listeners and speakers. This book offers a large amount of information on the psychology of language and on psycholinguistics, and focuses on a new direction for a psychology of verbal communication. Empirical research includes media interviews, public speeches, and dramatic performances.

Jean-Louis Dessalles explores the co-evolutionary paths of biology, culture, and the great human edifice of language, linking the evolution of the language to the general evolutionary history of humankind. He provides searchingly original answers to such fundamental paradoxes as to whether we acquired our greatest gift in order to talk or so as to be able to think, and as to why human beings should, as experience constantly confirms, contribute information for the well-being of others at their own expense and for no apparent gain: which if this is one of language's main functions appears to make its possession, in Darwinian terms, a disadvantage. Dr Dessalles looks for solutions in the early history of human species and considers the degree to which language evolved as a means of choosing profitable coalition partners and maximizing individual success within a competitive social environment. The author opens with a discussion of the differences between animal and human communication and the biological foundations of language. He looks at the physiological preconditions for language evolution and the early evolution of meaning and communication. He then embarks on an important and original account of the natural history of conversation. Here he considers the roles of language in supporting social cohesion and information exchange. This challenging and original account will appeal to all those interested in the origins of language and the evolution of human behaviour.

This study provides a definition and a typology of swearing and compares its manifestations in English and 24 other languages. In addition the study traces the history of swearing from its first known appearance in Ancient Egypt to the present day.

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.

The book is the first of its kind to establish Cognitive Linguistics as a research paradigm within the field of world Englishes. The authors survey the main tenets of both areas of linguistic enquiry and suggest that the theoretical and methodological apparatus developed both within Cognitive Linguistics generally and within its novel sub-discipline Cognitive Sociolinguistics can overcome certain limitations inherent in traditional approaches to cultural variation in language. They present a case study of the linguistic realization of the cultural model of community in African English as an exemplar for the investigation of cultural models in other varieties of English. Corpus-linguistic methods are combined with conceptual metaphor analysis and blending theory to elucidate a vast network of conceptualizations salient to speakers of African English. The findings, based on computer corpora and a range of additional sources, are discussed against the background of work in anthropology, religious studies, and political science. The book also reflects on the role of English in intercultural communication and concludes with a comparison of Cognitive Linguistics and pragmatic functionalism, placing the former in the wider framework of a hermeneutic philosophy that stresses dialogic understanding.

- Topic has had a huge surge of interest since 2000 due to the greatly increased incidence of social communication disorders - Covers theory and evidence-based practice, making it a rounded and solid resource for students and professionals

Traditional semantic description of Ancient Greek prepositions has struggled to synthesize the varied and seemingly arbitrary uses into something other than a disparate, sometimes overlapping list of senses. The Cognitive Linguistic approach of prototype theory holds that the meanings of a preposition are better explained as a semantic network of related senses that radially extend from a primary, spatial sense. These radial extensions arise from contextual factors that affect the metaphorical representation of the spatial scene that is profiled. Building upon the Cognitive Linguistic descriptions of Bortone (2009) and Luraghi (2009), linguists, biblical scholars, and Greek lexicographers apply these developments to offer more in-depth descriptions of select postclassical Greek prepositions and consider the exegetical and lexicographical implications of these findings. This volume will be of interest to those studying or researching the Greek of the New Testament seeking more linguistically-informed description of prepositional semantics, particularly with a focus on the exegetical implications of choice among seemingly similar prepositions in Greek and the challenges of potentially mismatched translation into English.

A WORKBOOK to Help You Learn the Essentials of Biblical Hebrew So You Can Study the Old Testament More Deeply Hebrew for the Rest of Us Workbook by Lee M Fields is a companion workbook to Hebrew for the Rest of Us, Second Edition that includes essential exercises for improving facility with understanding the Hebrew text for deeper Bible study. Strategic questions and exercises are provided for each of the twenty-one chapters in the accompanying textbook. The exercises are designed for self-learners as well as teacher-led classes (both in-person and online) with easily gradable formats. Examples for each exercise are given to guide students in how to complete the exercises. Examples are drawn from both narrative and poetic passages. Numerous review exercises are provided. Hebrew for the Rest of Us, Second Edition by Lee M. Fields is a guide for English-only readers to understand the language of the Old Testament in order to deepen their approach and understanding of Scripture. Fields highlights essential Hebrew grammar by drawing on parallels to English grammar and then moves the reader toward developing necessary skills and knowledge of the language so as to utilize the great number of Bible study materials available. Readers using the Hebrew for the Rest of Us Workbook in conjunction with Hebrew for the Rest of Us, Second Edition will learn: Why translations differ How to do careful Hebrew word studies How to engage in the basics of Hebrew exegesis How to read more advanced Old Testament commentaries with greater understanding The Hebrew for the Rest Us Workbook will enhance your learning experience with exercises to help you practice and reinforce the concepts you are learning in Hebrew for the Rest of Us, Second Edition.

This volume covers the language situation in Hong Kong, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka explaining the linguistic diversity, the historical and political contexts and the current language situation, including language-in-education planning, the role of the media, the role of religion and the roles of non-indigenous languages. Two of the authors are indigenous to the situations described while the other has undertaken extensive field work and consulting there. The three monographs contained in this volume draw together the literature on each of the polities to present an overview of the research available about each of them, while providing new research-based information. The purpose of the volume is to provide an up-to-date overview of the language situation in each polity based on a series of key questions in the hope that this might facilitate the development of a richer theory to guide language policy and planning in other polities where similar issues may arise. This book was published as special issues of Current Issues in Language Planning.

This book proposes, examines and unpacks the notion of unequal Englishes as a way to understand English today. Unlike many studies on the pluralization of English, the volume assumes that inequalities and Englishes are inextricably linked and must be understood and theorized together.

Recent studies in psycho linguistics have ranged through a variety of languages. In this trend, which has no precedent, studies in language processing have followed studies in language acquisition and theoretical linguistics in considering language universals in a broader scope than only in English. Since the beginning of the century, studies in language acquisition have produced a vast body of data from a number of Indoeuropean languages, and the emphasis on the universal has preceded the emphasis on the particular (see (Slobin 1985) for a review). Nowadays, the research in the field advances by means of a continuous linking between the cross-linguistic uniformities and the individual language influences on development. The level of language universals is continuously refined as the data from a number of languages contribute to the elaboration of a more distinctive picture of the language of children. The first cross-linguistic studies in theoretical linguistics appeared at the end of the seventies. Within the Chomskian paradigm, the reference to the Romance languages caused a shift from a rule-based toward a principle-based formalism (Chomsky 1981, 1995); within alternative theories, the reduced prominence of the pure phrase structure component in favor of the lexicon and/or the functional relations (see, e.g., Lexical Functional Grammar (Bresnan 1982), Relational Grammar (Perlmutter 1983)) sought empirical support in languages exhibiting deep structural differences with respect to English (e.g. Bantu, Malayalam, Romance and Slavic languages Warlpiri). The M. De Vincenzi and V. Lombardo (eds.), Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Language Processing, 1-19.

Focusing on the sociolinguistic history of Germanic languages, the current volume challenges the traditional teleological approach of language historiography. The 30 contributions present alternative histories of ten a ~biga (TM) as well as a ~smalla (TM) Germanic languages and varieties in the last 300 years. Topics covered in this book include language variation and change and the politics of language contact and choice, seen against the background of standardization processes of written and oral text genres and from the viewpoint of larger sections of the population.

This informative book examines several aspects of the syntax of imperative clauses in English and in a variety of other Germanic languages in the context of the challenge that apparent optional movement poses for the Minimalist Program. At a more general level, the book engages in current debate on one of the key issues in syntactic theory - the motivation for displacement operations in natural language.

This book takes a fresh look at phonology in a range of real-world contexts that go beyond traditional concerns and challenge existing assumptions and practices. It brings together research and theory from first and second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, evolutionary linguistics, contact linguistics, clinical linguistics, cognitive psychology, literacy, and language teaching to suggest new directions for the field.

When originally published in 1873 one of the aims was to protest against an idea that the Japanese language was very imperfect, and therefore it should be exterminated! The second was to give a general idea of the Japanese language as it is spoken.

The contributions to this volume reflect the state of the art in the renewed discussion on the origin of language. Some of the most important specialists in the field - life scientists and linguists - primarily examine two aspects of the question: the origin of the language faculty and the evolution of the first language. At stake is the relation between nature and culture and between universality and historical particularity as well as cognition, communication, and the very essence of language.

Are there common specific patterns in the Tense-Mood-Aspect systems of creoles? Do creoles constitute a structural type of language? This in-depth synchronic description of the Tense-Mood-Aspect system of contemporary Hawai'i Creole English is a language-internal analysis based on extensive firsthand data, both written and spoken. The language variety has been used as a basis for major linguistic hypotheses - a strength of this book is the use of a language-independent typological framework, placing the system in a cross-linguistic perspective.

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.

This book systematically investigates what follows about meaning in language if current views on the limited, or even redundant, role of linguistic semantics are taken to their radical conclusion. Focusing on conditionals, the book defends a wholly pragmatic, wholly inferential account of meaning - one which foregrounds a reasoning subject's individual state of mind. The topics discussed in the book include conceptual content, internalism and externalism, the semantics-pragmatics distinction, meaning holism and explicit versus implicit communication. These topics and the author's analysis of conditionals will allow the reader to engage with some traditional and current research in linguistics, philosophy and psychology.