This book provides an up-to-date account of blind children's developing communicative abilities with particular emphasis on social cognition and language acquisition from infancy to early school age. It purports to foster dialogue between those interested in the study of typically developing children and those interested in the development of children who are blind and to provide insights and new explanations of why the development of blind children may differ from that of sighted children. The book also aims to identify and examine current theoretical issues which are likely to be at the centre of developments in the fields of child language and developmental psychology.
Language Development and Social Interaction in Blind Children is also a timely book. The study of blind children's development constitutes a unique opportunity to study the effect of vision on development, and more specifically on the development of language and certain aspects of social cognition. Current interest in the development of "theory of mind" and perspective taking in language learning, make the case of blind children crucial to our understanding of certain aspects of psychological functioning. The book explores these issues, challenges some widely-held beliefs about the development of communication in blind children, and provides a cohesive picture of our knowledge to date.

Related link: Free Email Alerting
Related link: Essays Series

Researching Creativity in Second Language Acquisition explains the links between creativity and second language learning and how to propel the research of creativity as an individual difference in second language acquisition forward at multiple levels. It features an array of sample research questions and methods for student and professional researchers, ranging from simple projects that can be executed from start to finish in 15 weeks all the way to multi-year project guidelines for more advanced scholars with additional time and resources. It also features in-class and out-of-class activity suggestions that will reinforce concepts in fun and creative ways. Using this book as a guide will save researchers time and effort in designing and executing their next projects as well as save instructors time in class planning. This book will be an invaluable resource to students and researchers of SLA, applied linguistics, TESOL, and psychology.

A reconsideration of the semantics of a lexical category prepositions that has recently witnessed a plethora of investigations. The volume approaches the issue first from a more general perspective, namely the extent to which insights into the meaning of prepositions give clues to the semantic struc

This volume edited by Eddo Rigotti with the collaboration of Sara Cigada assembles papers presented at an international conference held at the University of Lugano in April 1997. From a variety of perspectives the papers address the question of meaning in argumentation, a phenomenon that has come to be regarded as belonging to the domain of rhetoric. Special attention is given to the connections between rhetoric, argumentation and reason as brought to light by the analysis of written and oral texts.

Primatology, Ethics and Trauma offers an analytical re-examination of the research conducted into the linguistic abilities of the Oklahoma chimpanzees, uncovering the historical reality of the research. It has been 50 years since the first language experiments on chimpanzees. Robert Ingersoll was one of the researchers from 1975 to 1983. He is well known for being one of the main carers and best friend of the chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky, but there were other chimpanzees in the University of Oklahoma's Institute for Primate Studies, including Washoe, Moja, Kelly, Booee, and Onan, who were taught sign language in the quest to discover whether language is learned or innate in humans. Antonina Anna Scarna's expertise in language acquisition and neuroscience offers a vehicle for critical evaluation of those studies. Ingersoll and Scarna investigate how this research failed to address the emotional needs of the animals. Research into trauma has made scientific advances since those studies. It is time to consider the research from a different perspective, examining the neglect and cruelty that was inflicted on those animals in the name of psychological science. This book re-examines those cases, addressing directly the suffering and traumatic experiences endured by the captive chimpanzees, in particular the female chimpanzee, Washoe, and her resultant inability to be a competent mother. The book discusses the unethical nature of the studies in the context of recent research on trauma and offers a specific and direct psychological message, proposing to finally close the door on the language side of these chimpanzee studies. This book is a novel and groundbreaking account. It will be of interest to lay readers and academics alike. Those working as research, experimental, and clinical psychologists will find this book of interest, as will psychotherapists, linguists, anthropologists, historians of science and primatologists, as well as those involved in primate sanctuary and conservation.

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 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.

This book is a groundbreaking study of etiquette in the nineteenth century when the success of etiquette books reached unprecedented heights in Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. It positions etiquette as a fully-fledged theoretical concept within the fields of politeness studies and historical pragmatics. After tracing the origin of etiquette back to Spanish court protocol, the analysis takes a novel approach to key aspects of etiquette: its highly coercive and intricate scripts; the liminal rituals of social gatekeeping; the fear for blunders; the obsession with precedence. Interrogating the complex relationship between historical etiquette and adjacent notions of politeness, conduct, morality, convention, and ritual, the study prompts questions on gender stereotyping and class privilege surrounding the present-day etiquette revival. Through adopting a unique comparative approach and a corpus-based methodology this study seeks to revitalise our understandings of etiquette. This book will be of interest to scholars of historical linguistics and pragmatics, as well as those in neighbouring fields such as literary criticism, gender studies and family life, domestic and urban spaces.

Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.

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.

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.
The author reviews scholarly treatments of gender, and then uses her own data material from the corpora of spoken and written English usage. Special features include an examination of contemporary media sources such as newspapers, advertising, and television; a discussion of women's speculative fiction; a study of gender and advertising, with special attention paid to the role played by language in these domains; and a review of French feminist thought, particularly as it relates to the issue of language reform.

"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).
The goal in this workbook is to present data organized in such a way that by working through pedagogically presented data-sets, students are led to a discovery and understanding of theoretical and/or methodological issues. In addition, they acquire the ability to interpret data and to begin to draw conclusions from them. The authors intend that students should go from the data to a conclusion that includes a 3-part statement:
*what else you should want to know about these data;
*why this, specifically, and not something else; and
*how one can empirically research what you want to find out.
This sequence of questions forces students to constantly keep in mind the important question of falsification: What kind of data would it take to falsify the particular conclusions the students come to?
As with the earlier edition of this workbook (Sorace, Gass, & Selinker), two audiocassettes provide language samples for use in the exercises. These cassettes and the teacher's manual are offered free of charge on adoption of the workbook for classroom use; a three-part set (workbook/manual/tapes) is also available.

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.
The author reviews scholarly treatments of gender, and then uses her own data material from the corpora of spoken and written English usage. Special features include an examination of contemporary media sources such as newspapers, advertising, and television; a discussion of women's speculative fiction; a study of gender and advertising, with special attention paid to the role played by language in these domains; and a review of French feminist thought, particularly as it relates to the issue of language reform.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics provides a comprehensive overview of this important and dynamic area of study and research. Language is indispensable to initiating, justifying, legitimatising and coordinating action as well as negotiating conflict and, as such, is intrinsically linked to the area of politics. With 45 chapters written by leading scholars from around the world, this Handbook covers the following key areas: Overviews of the most influential theoretical approaches, including Bourdieu, Foucault, Habermas and Marx; Methodological approaches to language and politics, covering - among others - content analysis, conversation analysis, multimodal analysis and narrative analysis; Genres of political action from speech-making and policy to national anthems and billboards; Cutting-edge case studies about hot-topic socio-political phenomena, such as ageing, social class, gendered politics and populism. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics is a vibrant survey of this key field and is essential reading for advanced students and researchers studying language and politics.

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 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.

This ground-breaking, provocative book presents an overview of research at the disciplinary intersection of psychoanalysis and linguistics. Understanding that linguistic activity, to a great extent, takes place in unconscious cognition, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio systematically demonstrates how fundamental psychoanalytic mechanisms-such as displacement, condensation, overdetermination, and repetition-have been absent in the history of linguistic inquiry, and explains how these mechanisms can illuminate the understanding of the grammatical structure, evolution, acquisition, and processing of language. Re-examining popular misunderstandings of psychoanalysis along the way, Bonfiglio further proposes a new theoretical configuration of language and expertly sets the future agenda on this subject with new conceptual paradigms for research and teaching. This will be an invaluable, fascinating resource for advanced students and scholars of theoretical and applied linguistics, the cognitive-behavioral sciences, metaphor studies, humor studies and play theory, anthropology, and beyond.

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

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.
Recently, new models have been developed with full consideration to cross-linguistic diversity. Gone are many of the basic assumptions of conventional models, and in their place a variety of innovative and more flexible assumptions have emerged. However, in their attempt to address cross-linguistic issues, these processing models have yet to fully address the developmental challenge: How can a child without a stable grammar process language and still manage to acquire new grammar?
This book attempts to develop a model of language processing that addresses both cross-linguistic and developmental challenges. It proposes to link the setting of a basic configurational parameter during language acquisition to the different organization of processing strategies in left- and right-branching languages. Based primarily on Mazuka's doctoral dissertation, this volume incorporates various responses to the original proposal as well as the author's responses to the comments.