![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning)
No two writing situations are exactly the same and skilled writers,
like skilled painters, must develop the know-how to represent the
objects of their writing as part of a flexible art. This special
art of writing lies hidden between grammar--the well-formedness of
sentences--and genre--the capacity of texts to perform culturally
holistic communicative functions (e.g., the memo, the strategic
report, the letter to the editor). Concealed between grammar and
genre, this less visible art of writing is what Kaufer and Butler
call "representational composition." Texts within this hidden art
are best viewed not primarily as grammatical units or as genre
functions, but as bearers of design elements stimulating imagistic,
narrative, and information-rich worlds, and as an invitation to
readers to explore and interact with them.
Recent studies of vocal development in infants have shed new light
on old questions of how the speech capacity is founded and how it
may have evolved in the human species. Vocalizations in the very
first months of life appear to provide previously unrecognized
clues to the earliest steps in the process by which language came
to exist and the processes by which communicative disorders arise.
Like the journal TOPOl, the TOPOl Library is based on the assumption that philosophy is a lively, provocative, delightful activity, which constantly challenges our inherited habits, painstakingly elaborates on how things could be different, in other stories, in counterfactual situations, in alternative possible worlds. Whatever its ideology, whether with the intent of uncovering a truer structure of reality or of shooting our anxiety, of exposing myths or of following them through, the outcome of philosophical activity is always the destabilizing, unsettling generation of doubts, of objections, of criticisms. It follows that this activity is intrinsically a dialogue, that philosophy is first and foremost philosophical discussion, that it requires bringing out conflicting points of view, paying careful, sympathetic attention to their structure, and using this dialectic to articulate one's approach, to make it richer, more thoughtful, more open to variation and play. And it follows that the spirit which one brings to this activity must be one of tolerance, of always suspecting one's own blindness and consequently looking with unbiased eye in every comer, without fearing to pass a (fallible) judgment on what is there but also without failing to show interest and respect.
This book takes a fresh look at the relationship between aspect, tense and mood in Early Vedic, the language of the "Rigveda." Although numerous studies have examined the functional range of individual verbal categories in this language, this work is the first attempt to approach this problem from an overall, systemic perspective. With insights from formal semantics and linguistic typology, the author demonstrates that aspect represents a grammatically relevant semantic dimension on a par with tense in the Early Vedic verbal system, thereby indicating that the language has preserved an aspectual opposition similar to the one found in Homeric Greek. Apart from these general findings, the book provides a theoretical framework designed for exploring inflectional semantics in dead languages.
Bringing together leading and emerging scholars in Systemic Functional Linguistics, this book explores the contributions made to SFL theory by James Robert Martin. A leading light in the field for 40 years, this book reviews, explores and develops the theoretical agendas set out in his momentous body of work. Focussed around the four themes of systemic functional theory, linguistic typology, educational linguistics and (positive) discourse analysis, chapters debate and develop the key concepts of Martin's work. Engaging with cutting edge theoretical debates in areas such as discourse-semantics, register and genre and affiliation, Discourses of Hope and Reconciliation examines Martin's lasting impact on the field, developing his momentous contributions to point the way to exciting future research directions in SFL.
This is a book about comparison in linguistics in general, rather
than "contrastive analysis" as a distinct branch of linguistics. It
addresses the question "Does the analytical apparatus used by
linguists allow comparisons to be made across languages?" Four
major domains are considered in turn: derivational morphology,
syntax, semantics & pragmatics, and discourse. Contributions
cover a broad spectrum of linguistic disciplines, ranging from
contrastive linguistics and linguistic typology to translation
studies and historical linguistics.
Anaphora is the study of referential relationships in language.
Given the great flowering of the study of this topic in the last
decade, it is time for a book that reports on the major results of
recent research and sets the stage for further inquiry.
The authors represented in "Anaphora: A Reference Guide" are
among the world's leading researchers on anaphora and are ideally
suited to meet this goal. Their work draws on theoretical
principles and methodologies in linguistics, cognitive psychology,
and philosophy, as well as the integrated, broad perspective of
cognitive science. These stimulating reports of cutting-edge research will be useful to both undergraduate and graduate students and will find a large audience among professional researchers of anaphora and scholars who want to catch up on what is new and exciting in the area.
This book focuses on the relationship between syntax and meaning. Terje Lohndal's core claim is that it is possible to create a transparent mapping from syntax to logical form such that each syntactic Spell-Out domain directly corresponds to a conjunct at logical form. The argument focuses on two domains of grammar - phrase structure and argument structure - and brings together two independently established but seemingly unconnected hypotheses: that verbs do not require arguments, and that specifiers are not required by the grammar. Following the introduction, the second chapter looks in detail at the separation of the verb from its thematic arguments, and presents data from argument structure, reciprocals, and adjectival passives, while the third examines the claim that specifiers do not play a role as the target of various grammatical operations. Chapter 4 then brings these arguments together and proposes a syntax that maps transparently onto logical forms where all thematic arguments are severed from the verb. Moreover, the broader consequences of this approach are outlined in terms of Spell-Out, movement, linearization, thematic uniqueness, and agreement. The book closes with an examination of the relationship between grammatical and conceptual meaning, and a detailed discussion of the nature of compositionality.
The linguistic study of Chinese, with its rich morphological, syntactic and prosodic/tonal structures, its complex writing system, and its diverse socio-historical background, is already a long-established and vast research area. With contributions from internationally renowned experts in the field, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of the central issues in Chinese linguistics. Chapters are divided into four thematic areas: writing systems and the neuro-cognitive processing of Chinese, morpho-lexical structures, phonetic and phonological characteristics, and issues in syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. By following a context-driven approach, it shows how theoretical issues in Chinese linguistics can be resolved with empirical evidence and argumentation, and provides a range of different perspectives. Its dialectical design sets a state-of-the-art benchmark for research in a wide range of interdisciplinary and cross-lingual studies involving the Chinese language. It is an essential resource for students and researchers wishing to explore the fascinating field of Chinese linguistics.
Subtitling serves two purposes: to translate the dialogue of foreign language films for secondary audiences (interlingual) and to transform the soundtrack of television programmes into written captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers (intralingual). While both practices have strong linguistic roots, often being compared to text translation and editing, this book reveals the complex influences arising from the audiovisual environment. Far from being simply a matter of linguistic equivalence, the authors show how the effectiveness of subtitles is crucially dependent upon the hidden semiotic relations between text and image; relations which affect the meaning of the visual-linguistic message and the way in which that message is ultimately received. Focusing primarily on intralingual subtitling, The Semiotics of Subtitling adopts a holistic approach, combining linguistic theory with empirical eye-movement analysis in order to explore the full depth of the medium and the reading behaviour of viewers.
Recent archaeological discoveries, coupled with long-lost but now available epigraphical evidence, and a more expansive view of literary sources, provide new and dramatic evidence of the emergence of rhetoric in ancient Greece. Many of these artifacts, gathered through onsite fieldwork in Greece, are analyzed in this revised and expanded edition of GREEK RHETORIC BEFORE ARISTOTLE. This new evidence, along with recent developments in research methods and analysis, reveal clearly that long before Aristotle's Rhetoric, long before rhetoric was even stabilized into formal systems of study in Classical Athens, nascent, pre-disciplinary "rhetorics" were emerging throughout Greece. These newly acquired resources and research procedures demonstrate that oral and literate rhetoric emerged not only because of intellectual developments and the refinement of technologies that facilitated communication but also because of social, political and cultural forces that nurtured rhetoric's growth and popularity throughout the Hellenic world. GREEK RHETORIC BEFORE ARISTOTLE offers insights into the mentalities forming and driving expression, revealing, in turn, a great deal more about the relationship of thought and expression in Antiquity. A more expansive understanding of these pre-disciplinary manifestations of rhetoric, in all of their varied forms, enriches the history and the nature of classical rhetoric as a formalized discipline. - RICHARD LEO ENOS is Professor and holder of the Lillian Radford Chair of Rhetoric and Composition at Texas Christian University. His research concentration is in classical rhetoric with an emphasis in the relationship between oral and written discourse. He is past president of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric (1980-1981) and the Rhetoric Society of America (1990-1991). He received the RSA George E. Yoos Award Distinguished Service and was inducted as an RSA Fellow in 2006. He is the founding editor of ADVANCES IN THE HISTORY OF RHETORIC and the editor (with David E. Beard) of ADVANCES IN THE HISTORY OF RHETORIC: THE FIRST SIX YEARS (2007, Parlor Press). He is also the author of ROMAN RHETORIC: REVOLUTION AND THE GREEK INFLUENCE, Revised and Expanded Edition (2008, Parlor Press). - LAUER SERIES IN RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION, edited by Catherine Hobbs, Patricia Sullivan, Thomas Rickert, and Jennifer Bay.
Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, Suzanne Romaine's main
concern is to show how language and discourse play key roles in
understanding and communicating gender and culture. In addition to
linguistics--which provides the starting point and central focus of
the book--she draws on the fields of anthropology, biology,
communication, education, economics, history, literary criticism,
philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The text covers the "core"
areas in the study of language and gender, including how and where
gender is indexed in language, how men and women speak, how
children acquire gender differentiated language, and sexism in
language and language reform. Although most of the examples are
drawn primarily from English, other European languages and
non-European languages, such as Japanese are considered. The text
is written in an accessible way so that no prior knowledge of
linguistics is necessary to understand the chapters containing
linguistic analysis. Each chapter is followed by exercises and
discussion questions to facilitate the book's use as a classroom
text.
Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, Suzanne Romaine's main
concern is to show how language and discourse play key roles in
understanding and communicating gender and culture. In addition to
linguistics--which provides the starting point and central focus of
the book--she draws on the fields of anthropology, biology,
communication, education, economics, history, literary criticism,
philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The text covers the "core"
areas in the study of language and gender, including how and where
gender is indexed in language, how men and women speak, how
children acquire gender differentiated language, and sexism in
language and language reform. Although most of the examples are
drawn primarily from English, other European languages and
non-European languages, such as Japanese are considered. The text
is written in an accessible way so that no prior knowledge of
linguistics is necessary to understand the chapters containing
linguistic analysis. Each chapter is followed by exercises and
discussion questions to facilitate the book's use as a classroom
text.
"Validation in Language Assessment" contributes to the variety of
validation approaches and analytical and interpretive techniques
only recently adopted by language assessment researchers. Featuring
selected papers from the 17th Language Testing Research Colloquium,
the volume presents diverse approaches with an international
perspective on validation in language assessment.
The purpose of this workbook is to provide students with practice
in analyzing second language data. For the student of second
language learning, "hands-on" experience with actual data is
essential in understanding the processes involved in learning a
second language. Working through exemplars of the kinds of
interlanguages that learners do and do not create brings about a
clearer understanding of the principles underlying these
interlanguages, as well as the universal principles of language
learning (those that are independent of particular languages and
interlanguages).
Teun Van Dijk is one of the most influential and significant scholars Critical Discourse analysis. This collection brings together his most important writing, with a substantial introduction, positioning the essays for the undergraduate market within the context of his own work and within broader developments in CDA. Teun Van Dijk's work is already widely studied at undergraduate level, and this new collection will make his work more accessible and easily available to the undergraduate student. It will also include suggestions for further study.
Ever since the notion of explanatory adequacy was promoted by
Chomsky in his 1965 Aspects, linguists and psycholinguists have
been in pursuit of a psychologically valid theory of grammar. To be
explanatorily adequate, a theory of grammar can not only describe
the general characteristics of a language but can also account for
the underlying psychological processes of acquiring and processing
that language. To be considered psychologically valid, a grammar
must be learnable by ordinary children (the problem of acquisition)
and must generate sentences that are parsable by ordinary people
(the problem of processing). Ultimately, the fields of language
acquisition and processing are concerned with the same goal: to
build a theory that accounts for grammar as it is acquired by
children; accessed in comprehension and production of speech; and
represented within the human mind. Unfortunately, these two fields
developed independently and have rarely been well-informed about
each other's concerns. Both have experienced past difficulties as a
result.
This book offers a unique perspective on meaning in language, broadening the scope of existing understanding of meaning by introducing a comprehensive and cohesive account of meaning that draws on a wide range of linguistic approaches. The volume seeks to build up a complete picture of what meaning is, different types of meaning, and different ways of structuring the same meaning across myriad forms and varieties of language across such domains, such as everyday speech, advertising, humour, and academic writing. Supported by data from psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research, the book combines different approaches from scholarship in semantics, including formalist, structuralist, cognitive, functionalist, and semiotics to demonstrate the ways in which meaning is expressed in words but also in word order and intonation. The book argues for a revised conceptualisation of meaning toward presenting a new perspective on semantics and its wider study in language and linguistic research. This book will appeal to scholars interested in meaning in language in such fields as linguistics, semantics, and semiotics. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
This work describes the way in which conversations between drug users vary and change according to context and circumstances in ways that suggest that there is no single "truth" about the state we call "addicted". The central thesis of the book is that the explanations that drug users give for their drug use make sense not so much as a source of facts, but as primarily functional statements shaped by a climate of moral and legal censure. Consequently, the signficance of drug conversations lies not in their literal semantics but in the purposes such conversation serve. The argument raises a number of fundamental issues about the performative rather than the informative nature of language, about the nature of the "scientific facts" concerning drug use, and about the very nature of science itself. Starting with a general overview of the problems arising from a mechanistic and deterministic view, the book identifies a need for a new approach to the understanding of verbal behaviour. Secondly, it gives an account of a new form of analysis, based on over 500 conversations carried out with drug users in Scotland and the north of England. In a final data section, evidence is presented link
This volume is intended for students who desire a practical
introduction to the use of language in daily and professional life.
It may be used either as part of a course or as an aid to
independent study. Readers will find that concepts relating to
language and discourse are highlighted in the text, explained
clearly, illuminated through examples and practice exercises, and
defined in the "Glossary/Index" at the back of the book.
This book is the first to summarize the voluminous literature on
the development of cognitive, codification, language, and
expressive/affective (CCCE) skills "from a clinical standpoint."
Emphasizing the need to ground services in research and theory, the
author constructs three basic clinical models--a conceptual model
for understanding, a descriptive model for formal assessment, and a
facilitative model for intervention. These models have major
implications for the work of all those who deal with CCCE problems
in a professional capacity.
Continuing the tradition of this series, which has become a
standard reference work in language acquisition, Volume 4 contains
chapters on three additional languages/language groups--Finnish,
Greek, and Korean. The chapters are selective, critical reviews
rather than exhaustive summaries of the course of development of
each language. Authors approach the language in question as a case
study in a potential crosslinguistic typology of acquisitional
problems, considering those data which contribute to issues of
general theoretical concern in developmental psycholinguistics and
linguistic theory. Each chapter, therefore, provides the following:
|
You may like...
Renegades - Born In The USA
Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen
Hardcover
(1)
Advanced Research and Trends in New…
Francisco Vicente Cipolla-Ficarra
Hardcover
R6,277
Discovery Miles 62 770
Human Choice and Computers - Issues of…
Klaus Brunnstein, Jacques Berleur
Hardcover
R2,837
Discovery Miles 28 370
Fabulously 40 And Beyond - Women Coming…
Margie Orford, Karin Schimke
Paperback
Catholic and Mormon - A Theological…
Stephen H. Webb, Alonzo L Gaskill
Hardcover
R1,111
Discovery Miles 11 110
|