This monograph investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse in two parts. The theme of the first part is narrative progression. It begins with a case study of the adverb 'now' and its interaction with the meaning of tense. The case study motivates an ontological distinction between events, states and times and proposes that 'now' seeks a prominent state that holds throughout the time described by the tense. Building on prior research, prominence is shown to be influenced by principles of discourse coherence and two coherence principles, NARRATION and RESULT, are given a formally explicit characterization. The key innovation is a new method for testing the definitional adequacy of NARRATION and RESULT, namely by an abductive argument. This contribution opens a new way of thinking about how eventive and stative descriptions contribute to the perceived narrative progression in a discourse. The theme of the second part of the monograph is the semantics and pragmatics of tense. A key innovation is that the present and past tenses are treated as scalar alternatives, a view that is motivated by adopting a particular hypothesis concerning stative predication. The proposed analysis accounts for tense in both matrix clauses and in complements of propositional attitudes, where the notorious double access reading arises. This reading is explored as part of a corpus study that provides a glimpse of how tense semantics interacts with Gricean principles and at-issueness. Several cross-linguistic predictions of the analysis are considered, including their consequences for the Sequence of Tense phenomenon and the Upper Limit Constraint. Finally, a hypothesis is provided about how tense meanings compose with temporal adverbs and verb phrases. Two influential analysis of viewpoint aspect are then compared in light of the hypothesis. The monograph is directed at graduate students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics and philosophy of language. The analysis of narrative discourse that is developed in the monograph synthesizes and builds on prior collaborative research with Corien Bary, Valentine Hacquard, Thomas Roberts, Roger Schwarzschild, Una Stojnic, Karoly Varasdi and Aaron White. Daniel Altshuler is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College and an Adjunct Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

This book provides an overview of current theories of and methods for analysing spoken discourse. It includes discussions of both the more traditional approaches of pragmatics, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and critical discourse analysis, and more recently developed approaches such as multimodal discourse analysis and critical sociolinguistics. Rather than treating these perspectives as mutually exclusive, the book introduces a framework based on principles from mediated discourse analysis in which different approaches to spoken discourse are seen as complementing and informing one another. In this framework, spoken discourse is seen as mediated through a complex collection of technological, semiotic and cultural tools which enable and constrain people's ability to engage in different kinds of social actions, enact different kinds of social identities and form different kinds of social relationships. A major focus of the volume is on the way technological tools like telephones, broadcast media, digital technologies are changing the way people communicate with spoken language. The book is suitable for use as a textbook in advanced courses in discourse analysis and language in social interaction, and will also be of interest to scholars in a variety of fields including linguistics, sociology, media studies and anthropology.

The concept of 'populism' is currently used by scholars, the media and political actors to refer to multiple and disparate manifestations and phenomena from across both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. As a result, it defies neat definition, as scholarship on the topic has shown over the last 50 years. In this book, Sebastian Moreno Barreneche approaches populism from a semiotic perspective and argues that it constitutes a specific social discourse grounded on a distinctive narrative structure that is brought to life by political actors that are labelled 'populist'. Conceiving of populism as a mode of semiotic production that is based on a conception of the social space as divided into two groups, 'the People' and 'the Other', this book uses semiotic theory to make sense of this political phenomenon. Exploring how the categories of 'the People' and 'the Other' are discursively constructed by populist political actors through the use of semiotic resources, the ways in which meaning emerges through the oppositions between imagined collective actors is explained. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and South America, The Social Semiotics of Populism presents a systematic semiotic approach to this multifaceted political concept and bridges semiotic theory and populism studies in an original manner.

Sequential images are as natural at conveying narratives as verbal language, and have appeared throughout human history, from cave paintings and tapestries right through to modern comics. Contemporary research on this visual language of sequential images has been scattered across several fields: linguistics, psychology, anthropology, art education, comics studies, and others. Only recently has this disparate research begun to be incorporated into a coherent understanding. In The Visual Narrative Reader, Neil Cohn collects chapters that cross these disciplinary divides from many of the foremost international researchers who explore fundamental questions about visual narratives. How does the style of images impact their understanding? How are metaphors and complex meanings conveyed by images? How is meaning understood across sequential images? How do children produce and comprehend sequential images? Are visual narratives beneficial for education and literacy? Do visual narrative systems differ across cultures and historical time periods? This book provides a foundation of research for readers to engage in these fundamental questions and explore the most vital thinking about visual narrative. It collects important papers and introduces review chapters summarizing the literature on specific approaches to understanding visual narratives. The result is a comprehensive "reader" that can be used as a coursebook, a researcher resource and a broad overview of fascinating topics suitable for anyone interested in the growing field of the visual language of comics and visual narratives.

Video-recordings of families and groups of friends watching the FIFA men's football World Cup in their homes allow access to the empirical rather than the imagined or inscribed audiences of a major television event. Qualitative analyses reveal how natural audiences behave in the reception situation appropriating live televised football through talk. Gerhardt shows how the mainly English television viewers use an array of linguistic and embodied resources to turn watching football into a meaningful activity in their groups. Cohesive devices and sequentiality link the fans' talk-in-interaction to the televised text (commentary and pictures). Gaze behaviour, pointing, and even jumping up and down are used as resources for a variety of functions like the construction of an identity as football fan.

This book investigates the phenomenon of control structures, configurations in which the subject of the embedded clause is missing and is construed as coreferential with the subject of the embedding clause (e.g. John wanted to leave). It draws on data from English, Mandarin Chinese, and Modern Greek to investigate the relationship that control bears both to restructuring - the phenomenon whereby some apparently biclausal structures behave as though they constitute just one clause - and to the meanings of the embedding predicates that participate in these structures. Thomas Grano argues that restructuring is cross-linguistically pervasive and that, by virtue of its co-occurrence with some control predicates but not others, it serves as evidence for a basic division within the class of complement control structures. This division is connected to how the semantics of the control predicate interacts with general principles of clausal architecture and of the syntax-semantics interface. His findings have general implications both for clausal structure and for the relationship between form and meaning in natural language.

Trends in E-Tools and Resources for Translators and Interpreters offers a collection of contributions from key players in the field of translation and interpreting that accurately outline some of the most cutting-edge technologies in this field that are available or under development at the moment in both professional and academic contexts. Particularly, this volume provides a wide picture of the state of the art, looking not only at the world of technology for translators but also at the hitherto overlooked world of technology for interpreters. This volume is accessible and comprehensive enough to be of benefit to different categories of readers: scholars, professionals and trainees. Contributors are: Pierrette Bouillon, Gloria Corpas Pastor, Hernani Costa, Isabel Duran-Munoz, Claudio Fantinuoli, Johanna Gerlach, Joanna Gough, Asheesh Gulati, Veronique Hoste, Amelie Josselin, David Lewis, Lieve Macken, John Moran, Aurelie Picton, Emmanuel Planas, Eric Poirier, Victoria Porro, Celia Rico Perez, Christian Saam, Pilar Sanchez-Gijon, Miriam Seghiri Dominguez, Violeta Seretan, Arda Tezcan, Olga Torres, and Anna Zaretskaya.

Humans naturally acquire languages that connect meanings with pronunciations. Paul M. Pietroski presents an account of these distinctive languages as generative procedures that respect substantive constraints. Children acquire meaningful lexical items that can be combined, in certain ways, to form meaningful complex expressions. This raises questions about what meanings are, how they can be combined, and what kinds of meanings lexical items can have. According to Pietroski, meanings are neither concepts nor extensions, and sentences do not have truth conditions. He argues that meanings are composable instructions for how to access and assemble concepts of a special sort. More specifically, phrasal meanings are instructions for how to build monadic concepts (a.k.a. mental predicates) that are massively conjunctive, while lexical meanings are instructions for how to fetch concepts that are monadic or dyadic. This allows for polysemy, since a lexical item can be linked to an address that is shared by a family of fetchable concepts. But the posited combinatorial operations are limited and limiting. They impose severe restrictions on which concepts can be fetched for purposes of semantic composition. Correspondingly, Pietroski argues that in lexicalization, available representations are often used to introduce concepts that can be combined via the relevant operations.

This volume presents a synthesis of cognitive linguistic theory and research on first and second language acquistion, language processing, individual differences in linguistic knowledge, and on the role of multi-word chunks and low-level schemas in language production and comprehension. It highlights the tension between "linguists' grammars", which are strongly influenced by principles such as economy and elegance, and "speakers' grammars", which are often messy, less than fully general, and sometimes inconsistent, and argues that cognitive linguistics is an empirical science which combines study of real usage events and experiments which rigorously test specific hypotheses.

Effective language learning depends on effective instruction. In order to investigate whether or not this is taking place, teachers' classroom pedagogical practices, both in-service and pre-service, are frequently monitored by means of observation and feedback. However, research indicates that although this process has potential value for teacher learning and development, there are also a number of attendant problems and it is therefore important that practitioners share their experience with others in the field in order to expand the existing knowledge base. This volume investigates participant experiences, looking beyond the materials used and examining the way in which language teachers are evaluated and supported throughout their careers. Particular attention is given to the practices and frameworks involved, outlining key approaches and discussing tools for investigation and collaboration. The book highlights the importance of the use of talk to foster reflection and teacher learning, the value of learning from experienced others and the importance of giving voice to all those involved in the process of development and evaluation.

This book presents a new theory of the relationship between vagueness, context-sensitivity, gradability, and scale structure in natural language. Heather Burnett argues that it is possible to distinguish between particular subclasses of adjectival predicates-relative adjectives like tall, total adjectives like dry, partial adjectives like wet, and non-scalar adjectives like hexagonal-on the basis of how their criteria of application vary depending on the context; how they display the characteristic properties of vague language; and what the properties of their associated orders are. It has been known for a long time that there exist empirical connections between context-sensitivity, vagueness, and scale structure; however, a formal system that expresses these connections had yet to be developed. This volume sets out a new logical system, called DelTCS, that brings together insights from the Delineation Semantics framework and from the Tolerant, Classical, Strict non-classical framework, to arrive at a full theory of gradability and scale structure in the adjectival domain. The analysis is further extended to examine vagueness and gradability associated with particular classes of determiner phrases, showing that the correspondences that exist between the major adjectival scale structure classes and subclasses of determiner phrases can also be captured within the DelTCS system.

The world's linguistic map has changed in recent years due to the vast disappearance of indigenous languages. Many factors affect the alteration of languages in various areas of the world including governmental policies, education, and colonization. As indigenous languages continue to be affected by modern influences, there is a need for research on the current state of native linguistics that remain across the globe. Indigenous Language Acquisition, Maintenance, and Loss and Current Language Policies is a collection of innovative research on the diverse policies, influences, and frameworks of indigenous languages in various regions of the world. It discusses the maintenance, attrition, or loss of the indigenous languages; language status in the society; language policies; and the grammatical characteristics of the indigenous language that people maintained and spoke. This book is ideally designed for anthropologists, language professionals, linguists, cultural researchers, geographers, educators, government officials, policymakers, academicians, and students.

Investigating the efforts of the Kichwa of Tena, Ecuador to reverse language shift to Spanish, this book examines the ways in which indigenous language can be revitalized and how creative bilingual forms of discourse can reshape the identities and futures of local populations. Based on deep ethnographic fieldwork among urban, periurban, and rural indigenous Kichwa communities, Michael Wroblewski explores adaptations to culture contact, language revitalization, and political mobilization through discourse. Expanding the ethnographic picture of native Amazonians and their traditional discourse practices, this book focuses attention on Kichwas' diverse engagements with rural and urban ways of living, local and global ways of speaking, and indigenous and dominant intellectual traditions. Wroblewski reveals the composite nature of indigenous words and worlds through conversational interviews, oral history narratives, political speechmaking, and urban performance media, showing how discourse is a critical focal point for studying cultural adaptation. Highlighting how Kichwas assert autonomy through creative forms of self-representation, Remaking Kichwa moves the study of indigenous language into the globalized era and offers innovative reconsiderations of indigeneity, discourse, and identity.

This book offers an in-depth account of the meaning of grammatical elements representing evidentiality in connection to modality, focusing on theoretical/formal perspectives by eminent pioneers in the field and on recently discovered phenomena in Korean evidential markers by native scholars in particular. Evidentiality became a hot topic in semantics and pragmatics, trying to see what kind of evidential justification is provided by evidentials to support or be related to the 'at-issue' prejacent propositions. This book aims to provide a deeper understanding of such evidentiality in discourse contexts in a broad range of languages such as American Indian, Korean and Japanese, Turkish and African languages over the world. In addition, an introduction to the concept of evidentiality and theoretical perspectives and recent issues is also provided.

Marking the 50th anniversary of one among this philosopher’s most distinguished pieces, Blumenberg’s Rhetoric proffers a decidedly diversified interaction with the essai polyvalently entitled ‘Anthropological Approach to the Topicality (or Currency, Relevance, even actualitas) of Rhetoric’ ("Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik"), first published in 1971. Following Blumenberg’s lead, the contributors consider and tackle their topics rhetorically—treating (inter alia) the variegated discourses of Phenomenology and Truthcraft, of Intellectual History and Anthropology, as well as the interplay of methods, from a plurality of viewpoints. The diachronically extensive, disciplinarily diverse essays of this publication—notably in the current lingua franca—will facilitate, and are to conduce to, further scholarship with respect to Blumenberg and the art of rhetoric. With contributions by Sonja Feger, Simon Godart, Joachim Küpper, DS Mayfield, Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Daniel Rudy Hiller, Katrin Trüstedt, Alexander Waszynski, Friedrich Weber-Steinhaus, Nicola Zambon.

A comprehensive and methodologically sophisticated history of Arabic lexicography, this book fills a serious gap in modern scholarship. Besides meticulously examining the factors that led to the emergence of lexicographical writing as of the second/eighth century, the work comprises detailed discussions of the aims, range, and approaches of the most important writings and writers of lexica specialized in specific topics and multi thematic thesauri, and the lexica arranged according to roots. The organisation of the book and the lists of works cited in the various genres make it easy for the reader to find his way through an enormous amount of material. From a broader perspective, the book highlights the relationship between Arabic lexicography and other areas of linguistic study, grammar in particular, and the centrality of Qur'an and poetry to lexicographical writing.

A Conversational Analysis of Acholi elucidates various interaction strategies for the Nilotic language Acholi. Based on detailed examples, Maren Rusch links the structural organization of Acholi conversations to cultural features such as politeness, language socialization and narrations. Despite common claims of universality regarding the structuring of human languages by previous authors, the study shows that some Acholi strategies differ from other languages. The verbal and non-verbal practices displayed give an in-depth insight into speakers' cognitive participation during interaction. On the basis of in-situ research in Uganda, including the collection of rich audio- and video-material, this volume provides an innovative approach to language documentation and description and constitutes a thorough conversation analytic study of an African language.

This beautifully illustrated guide delves deep into the meaning and significance of different tattoo symbols, exploring the rich cultural history around the world of this widespread form of body art. Tattoos are everywhere: one in three of us has at least one. Body art is one of the most popular ways of expressing our identity and beliefs. But whether we're aware of it or not when we choose a design to be permanently inked on our skin, a complex language of meanings lies behind the visuals we choose. A lotus flower, koi carp swimming upstream or a dragon rising towards the sun: in the language of tattoos these are all symbols of strength and overcoming adversity. This book uncovers the meanings behind tattoo symbols, delving into the history of the most popular motifs that recur in many different tattoo styles, including tribal, traditional, Japanese and realistic. Over 130 symbols are grouped according to their meanings, whether it's good luck, freedom, wisdom, power, spirituality or love. Each symbol is illustrated with stunning, specially drawn visuals by acclaimed artist and tattooist Oliver Munden, and accompanied by an explanation by tattoo expert Nick Schonberger which delves into its history, significance and application in tattooing. Both a visual delight and a fascinating insight into the rich cultural heritage of tattooing, this is the perfect book for anyone wanting to learn more about tattoo symbolism, in need of inspiration for their next tattoo, or who just loves tattoo art.

What is legal language and where is it found? What does a forensic linguist do? How can linguistic skills help legal professionals? We are constantly surrounded by legal language, but sometimes it is almost impossible to understand. Providing extracts from real-life legal cases, this highly usable and accessible textbook brims with helpful examples and activities that will help you to navigate this area. Language and Law: * introduces useful linguistic concepts and tools * outlines the methods linguists employ to analyse legal language and language in legal situations * includes topics on such as: written legal language; threats, warnings and speech act theory; courtroom interactions and the work linguists do to help solve crimes; physical and 'spoken' signs; and the creativity of legal language

This book offers both a naturalistic and critical theory of signs, minds, and meaning-in-the-world. It provides a reconstructive rather than deconstructive theory of the individual, one which both analytically separates and theoretically synthesizes a range of faculties that are often confused and conflated: agency (understood as a causal capacity), subjectivity (understood as a representational capacity), selfhood (understood as a reflexive capacity), and personhood (understood as a sociopolitical capacity attendant on being an agent, subject, or self). It argues that these facilities are best understood from a semiotic stance that supersedes the usual intentional stance. And, in so doing, it offers a pragmatism-grounded approach to meaning and mediation that is general enough to account for processes that are as embodied and embedded as they are articulated and enminded. In particular, while this theory is focused on human-specific modes of meaning, it also offers a general theory of meaning, such that the agents, subjects and selves in question need not always, or even usually, map onto persons. And while this theory foregrounds agents, persons, subjects and selves, it does this by theorizing processes that often remain in the background of such (often erroneously) individuated figures: ontologies (akin to culture, but generalized across agentive collectivities), interaction (not only between people, but also between people and things, and anything outside or in-between), and infrastructure (akin to context, but generalized to include mediation at any degree of remove).