The volume brings together a selection of invited articles and papers presented at the 4th International CILC Conference held in Jaen, Spain, in March 2012. The chapters describe English using a range of corpora and other resources. There are two parts, one dealing with diachronic research and the other with synchronic research. Both parts investigate several aspects of the English language from various perspectives and illustrate the use of corpora in current research. The structure of the volume allows for the same linguistic aspect to be discussed both from the diachronic and the synchronic point of view. The chapters are also useful examples of corpus use as well as of use of other resources as corpus, specifically dictionaries. They investigate a broad array of issues, mainly using corpora of English as a native language, with a focus on corpus tools and corpus description.

The origins of this volume lie in the international conference Cognitive Linguistics in the Year 2012, convened by the Polish Cognitive Linguistics Association. The proceedings of the conference revolved around three major thematic areas: metaphorical and metonymic underpinnings of meaning in language and beyond, prototypical and gradual phenomena pertaining to linguistic categorization across the lexicogrammatical continuum, and the need for advancing theoretical tools. These recurring themes are reflected in the three-part structure of this volume, with contributions from nearly two dozen researchers exploring a broad array of linguistic as well as non-linguistic data.

Originally published in 1973, this book is an account of how the child learns the sound system of his native language, or how he learns to speak. A theory of the acquisition of phonology is derived from a detailed and rigorous analysis of the developing speech of a young child observed over a period of two years. The details of this analysis are elaborated in depth in chapters two and three and the major results of the study are given in chapter four. The final chapter is devoted to the implications of language acquisition for linguistic theory in general and generative phonology in particular. In addition to the obvious relevance of this work to general linguists and psychologists working on language acquisition, it was of considerable importance to speech therapists and all those involved medically with the observation and treatment of infant speech, in that it provided a characterisation of normal development which could act as a yardstick by which to measure abnormal or pathological conditions.

How did the (old) Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) assess the Chinese proficiency of non-native speakers of Chinese? What inferences can be derived from HSK test taker scores, especially from Western test takers? How difficult is it to learn Chinese according to the HSK? Thirty years of research have been synthesized into an argument-based approach for validating the most widespread test for Chinese as a foreign language. In addition, the author has analyzed the scores of a sample of over 250 German test takers in order to investigate how many hours German natives needed on average to study for reaching a specific HSK level. This work also extensively discusses validation theory for psychological testing, and it demonstrates how to put an argument-based approach to validation into practice.

Die Kommunikation in der Touristik hat in der germanistischen Forschungslandschaft bislang vergleichsweise wenig Beachtung gefunden. Mit seinen insgesamt 18 oftmals kontrastiv ausgerichteten Beitragen aus der Germanistik, Anglistik und Romanistik moechte der mehrsprachig angelegte Band dazu beitragen, die hier entstandene Lucke zu schliessen. Mit verschiedenen Schwerpunktsetzungen werden in den Beitragen sprachliche Darstellungswelten und -weisen in der Tourismuskommunikation, Sprach- und Kulturtransfer sowie sprachdidaktische Herausforderungen behandelt. Der Band setzt es sich insbesondere zum Ziel, einen einfuhrenden UEberblick uber Themenschwerpunkte und aktuelle Forschungstendenzen zu vermitteln.

This book combines ideas about the architecture of grammar and language acquisition, processing, and change to explain why languages show regular patterns when there is so much irregularity in their use and so much complexity when there is such regularity in linguistic phenomena. Peter Culicover argues that the structure of language can be understood and explained in terms of two kinds of complexity: firstly that of the correspondence between form and meaning; secondly in the real-time processes involved in the construction of meanings in linguistic expressions. Mainstream syntactic theory has focused largely on regularities within and across languages, relegating to the periphery exceptional and idiosyncratic phenomena. But, the author argues, a languages irregular and unique features offer fundamental insights into the nature of language, how it changes, and how it is produced and understood. Peter Culicover's new book offers a pertinent and original contribution to key current debates in linguistic theory. It will interest scholars and advanced students of linguists of all theoretical persuasions.

Previous investigators have believed that there is a 'holophrastic period' during the normal course of language acquisition, i.e. a period in which a child uses a single-word utterance to express something similar to the meaning which adults convey through the use of a relation, such as Fillmore's case relations, which involve more than one word. Some investigators have even attributed to the holophrase the meaning conveyed by an entire adult sentence. Previous studies have also provided evidence that from the onset of the holophrastic period, at about the age of twelve months, until the appearance of combinatorial speech, at about the age of eighteen months, the use of holophrases undergoes considerable development. This research therefore has three major goals; To document the usage of holophrastic or relational single-word speech, to demonstrate continuity in three linguistic relations from the end of the holophrastic period into the beginnings of the combinatorial period and to provide some insight into the relationship between linguistic and cognitive abilities at the end of the holophrastic period, which, of course, coincides with the end of Piaget's sensory-motor period.

This book addresses the issue of task equivalence, which is of fundamental importance in the areas of language testing and task-based research, where task equivalence is a prerequisite. The main study examines the two 'seemingly-equivalent' picture-based spoken narrative tasks, using a multi-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies with MFRM analysis of the ratings, the analysis of linguistic performances by Japanese candidates and native speakers of English (NS), expert judgements of the task characteristics, and perceptions of the candidates and NS. The results reveal a complex picture with a number of variables involved in ensuring task equivalence, raising relevant issues regarding the theories of task complexity and the commonly-used linguistic variables for examining learner spoken language. This book has important implications for the possible measures that can be taken to avoid selecting non-equivalent tasks for research and teaching.

This book provides a systematic survey of the theory and methods of dictionary-making (including the linguistic background): what types of dictionary there are, how different kinds of information are dealt with when compiling dictionaries, how this information is presented to users, and how dictionaries are actually used. It refers throughout to both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, giving a full account of the writing of definitions as well as of the selection and presentation of equivalents. The treatment of other types of information provided in dictionaries such as pronunciation, inflection, constructions, collocations and idioms is described systematically in individual chapters. The book also discusses dictionary structure, illustrations, the collection and selection of material, the management of dictionary projects, law and ethics in lexicographic work, and dictionary criticism. As well as looking at print lexicography, the author discusses the role of the Web, electronic corpora, electronic dictionaries, and compilation software used in dictionary-making. This is an important and practical guide to contemporary lexicography, designed for lexicographers, language students and teachers, translators and academics.

As an issue of controversy, corrective or negative feedback has been a much debated and investigated topic in theory and research on second-language acquisition. This book contributes to the ongoing discussion by reporting on a classroom study which examined the effects of two corrective feedback types - recasts and clarification requests - on the acquisition of the French verb forms passe compose and imparfait. The study also looked at the role of individual differences in analytic ability, working memory and anxiety in predicting the learning gains. This research makes an original contribution by investigating the types of corrective feedback that have not previously been compared for French verb forms, by targeting high school learners, by eliciting both oral and written language production and by including tests of three factors of individual differences.

This book develops the concept of 'writtenness' (historically-formed stylistic and aesthetic values within writing) to highlight the demands, taken-for-granted ideals, institutional frictions, and changing circumstances of academic writing in English in the contemporary international university. Recognising the political importance of the role that English plays in an increasingly internationalized higher education network, Joan Turner pits writtenness against the contingency and instability of international English in real-life institutional contexts. In doing so, she brings out the theoretical significance of this, as writing becomes a motor of linguistic change and can no longer be seen simply as the repository of academic standards. Of particular interest to academics and postgraduates in TESOL, applied linguistics, rhetoric and composition, English as a Lingua Franca studies, and the sociolinguistics of writing, as well as to EAP practitioners, this book is among the first to theoretically consider the implications for the cultural homogeneity of the written word. It also offers a unique perspective on the role of writtenness within the broader historical context of leaving the era of print culture. As such, this book is highly recommended for students, researchers, and policy makers alike.

This volume explores the expression of the concepts count and mass in human language and probes the complex relation between seemingly incontrovertible aspects of meaning and their varied grammatical realizations across languages. In English, count nouns are those that can be counted and pluralized (two cats), whereas mass nouns cannot be, at least not without a change in meaning (#two rices). The chapters in this volume explore the question of the cognitive and linguistic universality and variability of the concepts count and mass from philosophical, semantic, and morpho-syntactic points of view, touching also on issues in acquisition and processing. The volume also significantly contributes to our cross-linguistic knowledge, as it includes chapters with a focus on Blackfoot, Cantonese, Dagaare, English, Halkomelem, Lithuanian, Malagasy, Mandarin, Ojibwe, and Persian, as well as discussion of several other languages including Armenian, Hungarian, and Korean. The overall consensus of this volume is that while the general concepts of count and mass are available to all humans, forms of grammaticalization involving number, classifiers, and determiners play a key role in their linguistic treatment, and indeed in whether these concepts are grammatically expressed at all. This variation may be reflect the fact that count/mass is just one possible realization of a deeper and broader concept, itself related to the categories of nominal and verbal aspect.

International language tests increasingly use group oral formats in both high- and low-stakes contexts. But how do test-takers with different characteristics interact in such formats? This book explores how test-takers with different extraversion and proficiency levels co-construct spoken interaction in groups. The impact of the two test-taker characteristics was examined across three task types and with two group sizes. Examination of group performances using both statistical and Conversation Analysis tools offered insights into how group conversation is co-constructed. By enhancing our understanding of the group oral test construct, the findings have useful implications for international language test development and enable appropriate choices regarding task type and group size.

Der Sammelband Fremdsprachen in der Perspektive lebenslangen Lernens bietet einen breit gefacherten Einblick in die Thematik der neuen Reihe Fremdsprachen lebenslang lernen. Es werden Themen wie die Faktoren Alter und Motivation, Hypothesen Sensibler Phasen, Autonomes Lernen, Mehrsprachigkeit, das Sprachenportfolio, die Verwendung von Chunks beim Spracherwerb und Deutsch als Zweitsprache im Kindes- und Erwachsenenalter aus der ubergreifenden Sicht lebenslangen Lernens behandelt. Neben empirischen und theoretischen Arbeiten werden auch Berichte aus der Praxis vorgestellt.

One of the most crucial areas of education - the development of oral language and the acquisition of literacy - is examined here with an effective combination of theory and practice. The sociocultural perspective is illustrated through descriptions of learning by populations usually neglected in treatments of literacy: American Sign Language Users, second-language speakers and minority students. The book covers a broad range of ages, ethnic backgrounds, locations, and literacy concerns from pre-school to law school. Although the populations and literacy issues are diverse, the book's unity is provided by a broadly shared theoretical framework. As such, Interactionist Approaches to Language and Literacy will be valuable to educators at every level and to researchers in applied linguistics, psychology, adult literacy programs, and English as a second language.

The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition brings together fifty leading international figures in the field to produce a state-of-the-art overview of Second Language Acquisition. The Handbook covers a wide range of topics related to Second Language Acquisition: language in context, linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic theories and perspectives, skill learning, individual differences, L2 learning settings, and language assessment. All chapters introduce the reader to the topic, outline the core issues, then explore the pedagogical application of research in the area and possible future development. The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition is an essential resource for all those studying and researching Second Language Acquisition.

The contributions in this volume shed light on lived multilingualism around the globe. A small, but still representative selection of the multitude of migrant experiences, all studies share the intertwining of geographical mobility and non-mainstream linguistic practices which serves as a resource of agency and promotes alternative multiple identities of the immigrant speakers. This volume is based on the two core tenets of sociolinguistic identity research. First, it accepts the idea that identities or sub-identities are in a sense pre-given and can be formulated through membership categories. Second, identities are viewed as being enacted and performed, thus constituting social realities. In the social construction of identity, national and linguistic boundaries dissolve. The originating countries of the participants (and/or their ancestors) in the studies of this volume include Argentina, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia, Russia, Morocco, the Phillipines, Korea, Kazakhstan, Suriname and India. The countries of immigration include Germany, the USA, Israel, France and the Netherlands.

Given the increasing use of English worldwide and in intercultural communication, there is a growing interest in attitudes towards non-native speaker accents in English. Research on attitudes towards non-native English accents is therefore important because of concerns about positive and negative discrimination between people who speak with different accents. This book reveals exactly what types of accent variations trigger positive and negative attitudes towards the speaker. The author argues that certain types of variation in the pronunciation of English can have a significant effect on how listeners identify an accent and explores how this variation affects the development of certain attitudes towards the speaker. Specific sounds that are difficult for many learners to acquire (e.g. the initial sounds in 'this' or 'June') are examined in terms of attitudes towards speakers' pronunciation, including an original comparison of two different kinds of non-native accents (German and Greek). The results of the study provide a basis for further research in second language acquisition and applied linguistics as well as practical information for language instructors at all levels of English education.

This is a study of how children acquire language and how this affects language change over generations. Written by an international team of experts, the volume proceeds from the basis that we can not only address the language faculty per se within the framework of evolutionary theory, but also the origins and subsequent development of languages themselves; languages evolve via cultural rather than biological transmission on a historical rather than genetic timescale. The book is distinctive in utilizing computational simulation and modelling to help ensure the theories constructed are complete and precise. Drawing on a wide range of examples, the book covers the why and how of specific syntactic universals; the nature of syntactic change; the language-learning mechanisms required to acquire an existing linguistic system accurately and to impose further structure on an emerging system; and the evolution of language(s) in relation to this learning mechanism.

Malaysian English: Language Contact and Change is a corpus-based study of contemporary Malaysian English. Based on linguistic features extracted from the Malaysian English Newspaper Corpus, this study demonstrates the diverse ways in which Malaysian English has changed as a result of contact with Malay and Chinese languages. The interactions between groups of speakers who are dominant in English and those who are dominant in Malay or Chinese have resulted in wide-ranging changes in Malaysian English. Multilingual individuals who juggle several languages in their daily communications have also shaped the structure of this variety. This volume suggests that variation and change in Malaysian English are the results of both the communal acquisition and the maintenance of English by a multilingual community.

Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction to the two major contrasting theoretical approaches: generativist and constructivist. For each debate, the predictions of the competing accounts are closely and even-handedly evaluated against the empirical data. The result is an evidence-based review of the central issues in language acquisition research that will constitute a valuable resource for students, teachers, course-builders and researchers alike.

This volume is the first to explore links between the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin's theoretical insights about language and practical concerns with second and foreign language learning and teaching. Situated within a strong conceptual framework and drawing from a rich empirical base, it reflects recent scholarship in applied linguistics that has begun to move away from formalist views of language as universal, autonomous linguistic systems, and toward an understanding of language as dynamic collections of cultural resources. According to Bakhtin, the study of language is concerned with the dialogue existing between linguistic elements and the uses to which they are put in response to the conditions of the moment. Such a view of language has significant implications for current understandings of second- and foreign-language learning. The contributors draw on some of Bakhtin's more significant concepts, such as dialogue, utterance, heteroglossia, voice, and addressivity to examine real world contexts of language learning. The chapters address a range of contexts including elementary- and university-level English as a second language and foreign language classrooms and adult learning situations outside the formal classroom. The text is arranged in two parts. Part I, "Contexts of Language Learning and Teaching," contains seven chapters that report on investigations into specific contexts of language learning and teaching. The chapters in Part II, "Implications for Theory and Practice," present broader discussions on second and foreign language learning using Bakhtin's ideas as a springboard for thinking. This is a groundbreaking volume for scholars in applied linguistics, language education, and language studies with an interest in second and foreign language learning; for teacher educators; and for teachers of languages from elementary to university levels. It is highly relevant as a text for graduate-level courses in applied linguistics and second- and foreign-language education.

Dictionaries tell stories of many kinds. The history of dictionaries, of how they were produced, published and used, has much to tell us about the language and the culture of the past. This monumental work of scholarship draws on published and archival material to survey a wide range of dictionaries of western European languages (including English, German, Latin and Greek) published between the early sixteenth and mid seventeenth centuries. John Considine establishes a new and powerful model for the social and intellectual history of lexicography by examining dictionaries both as imaginative texts and as scholarly instruments. He tells the stories of national and individual heritage and identity that were created through the making of dictionaries in the early modern period. Far from dry, factual collections of words, dictionaries are creative works, shaping as well as recording early modern culture and intellectual history.

This volume offers a timely snapshot of current theory and research in the field of psychology in foreign language learning. It makes a powerful case for a more prominent role for psychology in language learning theory and emphasizes the importance of an understanding of psychological factors for enhancing pedagogical practice. Featuring contributions from leading researchers from around the world, the chapters are designed to be accessible to both specialists and non-specialists. Each chapter focuses on a different psychological construct and provides an overview of current thinking in the area drawing on insights from educational psychology, as well as an example of current research carried out by the authors. The wide range of theoretical perspectives and research approaches are unified by a common concern for the practical realities facing teachers and learners, making this book essential reading for anyone with an interest in the psychology of learning a foreign language.

The anecdotal view of language acquisition is that children learn language with apparent ease, no instruction and in very little time, while adults find learning a new language to be cognitively challenging, labour intensive and time-consuming. In this book Herschensohn examines whether early childhood is a critical period for language acquisition after which individuals cannot learn a language as native speakers. She argues that a first language is largely susceptible to age constraints, showing major deficits past the age of twelve. Second language acquisition also shows age effects, but with a range of individual differences. The competence of expert adult learners, the unequal achievements of child learners of second languages, and the lack of consistent evidence for a maturational cut-off, all cast doubt on a critical period for second language acquisition.