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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning)
This volume presents the results of the largest ever language attitude/motivation survey in second language studies. The research team gathered data from over 13,000 Hungarian language learners on three successive occasions: in 1993, 1999 and 2004. The examined period covers a particularly prominent time in Hungary's history, the transition from a closed, Communist society to a western-style democracy that became a member of the European Union in 2004. Thus, the book provides an 'attitudinal/motivational flow-chart' describing how significant sociopolitical changes affect the language disposition of a nation. The investigation focused on the appraisal of five target languages - English, German, French, Italian and Russian - and this multi-language design made it also possible to observe the changing status of the different languages in relation to each other over the examined 12-year period. Thus, the authors were in an ideal position to investigate the ongoing impact of language globalisation in a context where for various political/historical reasons certain transformation processes took place with unusual intensity and speed. The result is a unique blueprint of how and why language globalisation takes place in an actual language learning environment.
This book opposes the position that meanings can be explained by way of intralinguistic relations, as in structural linguistics and its successors, and rejects definitional descriptions of meaning as well as naturalistic accounts. The idea that we are able to live by strings of mere signifiers is shown to rest on a misconception. Ruthrof also attempts an explanation of why arguments grounded in a post-Saussurean view of language, as for instance certain feminist theories, find it so difficult to show how precisely the body can be reclaimed as an integral part of linguistic signs. In reinstating the body in language, Ruthrof draws on Peirce, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Derrida, cognitive linguistics and rhetoric, as well as on the writings of Helen Keller.
Language, Sex and Social Structure offers a cutting edge, empirically driven approach to critical discourse analysis, challenging the text and language-based bias that most applications of CDA adopt. Drawing upon rich conversational data collected during a year-long ethnographic study of a community of practice (a university-based sports team), it introduces a method for uncovering nuanced correlations between homophobic attitudes and the concepts and social structures that sustain these attitudes. Situated within seminal work in discourse theory, practice theory, relevance theory and sociolinguistics, it presents a fresh perspective on recent debates in the field of language and sexuality. The book provides a thorough critique of CDA together with a new methodology for critically analysing discourse, one which enables more sophisticated and contextualised analyses of ethnographic data than current models allow. Through a rigorous and insightful application of this methodology, it exposes subtle variations on discourses of sexuality in a community and offers new perspectives on the emancipatory potential of CDA.
Drawing on some 3,000 published interviews with contemporary authors, Authors on Writing: Metaphors and Intellectual Labor reveals new ways of conceiving of writing as intellectual labor. Authors' metaphorical stories about composing highlight not interior worlds but socially situated cultures of composing and apparatuses of authorship. Through an original method of interpreting metaphorical stories, Tomlinson argues that writing is both an individual activity and a collective practice, a solitary activity that depends upon rich, sustained, and complex social networks, institutions, and beliefs. This new book draws upon interviews with writers including: Seamus Heaney, Roald Dahl, Samuel Beckett, Bret Easton Ellis, John Fowles, Allen Ginsburg, Alice Walker and Gore Vidal.
Research results over the past decades have consistently
demonstrated that a key reason why many second language learners
fail--while some learners do better with less effort--lies in
various learner attributes such as personality traits, motivation,
or language aptitude. In psychology, these attributes have
traditionally been called "individual differences." The scope of
individual learner differences is broad--ranging from creativity to
learner styles and anxiety--yet there is no current, comprehensive,
and unified volume that provides an overview of the considerable
amount of research conducted on various language learner
differences, until now.
Imperative clauses are recognized as one of the major clause types alongside those known as declarative and interrogative. Nevertheless, they are still an enigma in the study of meaning, which relies largely on either the concept of truth conditions or the concept of information growth-neither of which are easily applied to imperatives. This book puts forward a fresh perspective. It analyzes imperatives in terms of modalized propositions, and identifies an additional, presuppositional, meaning component that makes an assertive interpretation inappropriate. The author shows how these two elements can help explain the varied effects imperatives have, depending on their usage context. Imperatives have been viewed as elusive components of language because they have a range of functions that makes them difficult to unify theoretically. This fresh view of the semantics-pragmatics interface allows for a uniform semantic analysis while accounting for the pragmatic versatility of imperatives. "
This book investigates how digital youth engage in computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the era of social media. Particularly focused on their uses of emoji, their motivations, attitudes and interpretations of emoji use, Emoji Speak provides the first book-level discussion looking at youth-to-youth Social Network Service (SNS) communication and emoji use. Where previous research on SNS communication has tended to focus on the English language, in this book Jieun Kiaer explores SNS as a global phenomenon. Presenting the results of empirical investigation through large-scale surveys, SNS corpora, and interviews with a wide pool of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and British youth participants, Kiaer compares SNS communication across languages to provide insight in understanding youth language and their emojing behaviours. Arguing that the future of our modern languages lies within the multi-modal and multi-lingual linguistic behaviours found in SNS, Emoji Speak suggests that emoji use among young people is leading to the emergence of a new, 'social' grammar.
This study presents an overview of the management of language in Singapore. It focuses on the use of language as a resource and as a means of furthering national cohesion. The relative positions of the two major languages, Chinese and English, are traced from colonial times to this century, with reference to education, literature, and the emergence of distinctive local speech varieties. Major government interventions in the form of the Speak Mandarin Campaign and the Speak Good English Movement are discussed against a background of ongoing changes to the education system. A major theme is the influence of Lee Kuan Yew on language policy. Another is the need to strike a balance between the concerns of the different speech communities, and the significance of this balance for the future.
This is the first study of the use of figures of speech other than metaphor in scientific texts. Fahnestock breaks new ground in the rhetorical study of scientific argument by demonstrating how figures of speech other than metaphor have been used to accomplish key conceptual moves in scientific texts. Examples, both verbal and visual, range across disciplines and centuries to reaffirm the positive value of these once widely-taught devices. Her work will be of substantial interest to scholars of rhetoric, linguistics, cognitive science, and the study of science.
Asking Questions examines a central phenomenon of language -- the
use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable
literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic
of "questions," and the speech act of questioning, no one has tried
to put the syntax and semantics together with the speech acts over
the full range of phenomena we pretheoretically think of as asking
questions. Robert Fiengo not only does this, but also takes up some
more foundational issues in the theory of language.
Academic vocabulary is in fashion, as witnessed by the increasing number of books published on the topic. In the first part of this book , Magali Paquot scrutinizes the concept of 'academic vocabulary' and proposes a corpus-driven procedure based on the criteria of keyness, range and evenness of distribution to select academic words that could be part of a common-core academic vocabulary syllabus. In the second part, the author offers a thorough analysis of academic vocabulary in the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) and describes the factors that account for learners' difficulties in academic writing. She then focuses on the role of corpora, and more particularly, learner corpora, in EAP material design. It is the first monograph in which Granger's (1996) Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis is used to compare 10 ICLE learner sub-corpora, in order to distinguish between linguistic features that are shared by learners from a wide range of mother tongue backgrounds and unique features that may be transfer-related.
The volume provides the first systematic comparative approach to the history of forms of address in Portuguese and Spanish, in their European and American varieties. Both languages share a common history-e.g., the personal union of Philipp II of Spain and Philipp I of Portugal; the parallel colonization of the Americas by Portugal and Spain; the long-term transformation from a feudal to a democratic system-in which crucial moments in the diachrony of address took place. To give one example, empirical data show that the puzzling late spread of Sp. usted 'you (formal, polite)' and Pt. voce 'you' across America can be explained for both languages by the role of the political and military colonial administration. To explore these new insights, the volume relies on an innovative methodology, as it links traditional downstream diachrony with upstream diachronic reconstruction based on synchronic variation. Including theoretical reflections as well as fine-grained empirical studies, it brings together the most relevant authors in the field.
This book addresses one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and mind, the Poverty of the Stimulus. Presented by Chomsky in 1968, the argument holds that children do not receive enough evidence to infer the existence of core aspects of language, such as the dependence of linguistic rules on hierarchical phrase structure. The argument strikes against empiricist accounts of language acquisition and supports the conclusion that knowledge of some aspects of grammar must be innate. In the first part of Rich Grammars from Poor Inputs, contributors consider the general issues around the POS argument, review the empirical data, and offer new and plausible explanations. This is followed by a discussion of the the processes of language acquisition, and observed 'gaps' between adult and child grammar, concentrating on the late spontaneous acquisition by children of some key syntactic principles, basically, though not exclusively, between the ages of 5 to 9. Part 3 widens the horizon beyond language acquisition in the narrow sense, examining the natural development of reading and writing and of the child's growing sensitivity for the fine arts.
This book discusses major milestones in Rohit Jivanlal Parikh's scholarly work. Highlighting the transition in Parikh's interest from formal languages to natural languages, and how he approached Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, it traces the academic trajectory of a brilliant scholar whose work opened up various new avenues in research. This volume is part of Springer's book series Outstanding Contributions to Logic, and honours Rohit Parikh and his works in many ways. Parikh is a leader in the realm of ideas, offering concepts and definitions that enrich the field and lead to new research directions. Parikh has contributed to a variety of areas in logic, computer science and game theory. In mathematical logic his contributions have been in recursive function theory, proof theory and non-standard analysis; in computer science, in the areas of modal, temporal and dynamic logics of programs and semantics of programs, as well as logics of knowledge; in artificial intelligence in the area of belief revision; and in game theory in the formal analysis of social procedures, with a strong undercurrent of philosophy running through all his work.This is not a collection of articles limited to one theme, or even directly connected to specific works by Parikh, but instead all papers are inspired and influenced by Parikh in some way, adding structures to and enriching "Parikh-land". The book presents a brochure-like overview of Parikh-land before providing an "introductory video" on the sights and sounds that you experience when reading the book.
This volume provides concise, authoritative accounts of the approaches and methodologies of modern lexicography and of the aims and qualities of its end products. Leading scholars and professional lexicographers, from all over the world and representing all the main traditions and perspectives, assess the state of the art in every aspect of research and practice. The book is divided into four parts, reflecting the main types of lexicography. Part I looks at synchronic dictionaries - those for the general public, monolingual dictionaries for second-language learners, and bilingual dictionaries. Part II and III are devoted to the distinctive methodologies and concerns of the historical dictionaries and specialist dictionaries respectively, while chapters in Part IV examine specific topics such as description and prescription; the representation of pronunciation; and the practicalities of dictionary production. The book ends with a chronology of the major events in the history of lexicography. It will be a valuable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in the field.
This text examines the importance of politeness in pragmatic expression and communication, making a significant contribution to the debate over whether the universal politeness theory is applicable globally regardless of cultural differences.
What can language tell us about society? Looking at a range of genres, from political speeches to internet chat, this book shows how qualitative methods are used to analyse discourses throughout the social sciences. The practical problems of designing and conducting discourse-based research are solved in this key resource for all social scientists.
Genre theory in the past few years has contributed immensely to our understanding of the way discourse is used in academic, professional and institutional contexts. However, its development has been constrained by the nature and design of its applications, which have invariably focused on language teaching and learning, or communication training and consultation. This has led to the use of simplified and idealised genres. In contrast to this, the real world of discourse is complex, dynamic and unpredictable. This tension between the real world of written discourse and its representation in applied genre-based literature is the main theme of this book. The book addresses this theme from the perspectives of four rather different worlds: the world of reality, the world of private intentions, the world of analysis and the world of applications. Using examples from a range of situations including advertising, business, academia, economics, law, book introductions, reports, media and fundraising, Bhatia uses discourse analysis to move genre theory away from educational contexts and into the real world. Introduction * Overview: Perspectives on Discourse * The World of Reality * The World of Private Intentions * The World of Analysis * The World of Applications * References
English in Europe is not one but many, and substantial differences in the way people from different countries communicate using it may cause misunderstandings. This book shows that, through research into the pragmatic behaviour of non-native speakers of English from across Europe, it is possible to uncover the core-the shared strategies. This common pragmatic linguistic behaviour is proposed as the basis for a reference guide for those who wish to successfully communicate in English in Europe. The study reported on in this book is based on the analysis of the speech act of apologizing as realized by 466 respondents from 8 European countries, all proficient users of English involved in teacher-training programmes. The results Provide a basis for practical teaching and in-class research.
English is a global language which has spread historically through imperialism and more recently through communication networks throughout the world. In each location in which English is spoken it absorbs some of the idiosyncracies of the language native to that region, and one of the most fascinating areas of research for World Englishes is the African context. This research monograph examines English as it is spoken by the Xhosa people in South Africa, and is based primarily on an extensive spoken corpus of Xhosa English. Vivian de Klerk presents a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the historical development of this variety of English, and of English in South Africa more generally. The book outlines how the corpus of spoken Xhosa English was designed and compiled, and discusses the criteria relating to informants, the use of spoken rather than written data, and the codes and transcription conventions. The syntactic and pragmatic features of Xhosa English as demonstrated by the corpus are described in detail, and two chapters focus on the use of the discourse markers 'actually' and 'well'. The second section of this book examines the implications of the corpus findings.Vivian de Klerk looks at the implications of the use of this variety of English in educational, legal, social, cultural and everyday contexts. The final chapter of the book speculates as to the future of this fascinating variety of English in a globalised world. This cutting-edge study will be of interest to researchers in world Englishes, language variation and corpus linguistics.
"Corpus Linguistics and The Study of Literature" provides a theoretical introduction to corpus stylistics and also demonstrates its application by presenting corpus stylistic analyses of literary texts and corpora. The first part of the book addresses theoretical issues such as the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in corpus linguistic analyses, criteria for the evaluation of results from corpus linguistic analyses and also discusses units of meaning in language. The second part of the book takes this theory and applies it to "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen and to two corpora consisting of: Austen's six novels; and texts that are contemporary with Austen. The analyses demonstrate the impact of various features of text on literary meanings and how corpus tools can extract new critical angles. This book will be a key read for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates working in corpus linguistics and in stylistics on linguistics and language studies courses. The editorial board includes: Paul Baker (Lancaster), Frantisek Cermak (Prague), Susan Conrad (Portland), Geoffrey Leech (Lancaster), Dominique Maingueneau (Paris XII), Christian Mair (Freiburg), Alan Partington (Bologna), Elena Tognini-Bonelli (Siena and TWC), Ruth Wodak (Lancaster), and Feng Zhiwei (Beijing). "The Corpus and Discourse" series consists of two strands. The first, "Research in Corpus and Discourse", features innovative contributions to various aspects of corpus linguistics and a wide range of applications, from language technology via the teaching of a second language to a history of mentalities. The second strand, "Studies in Corpus and Discourse", is comprised of key texts bridging the gap between social studies and linguistics. Although equally academically rigorous, this strand will be aimed at a wider audience of academics and postgraduate students working in both disciplines.
Theodore Roosevelt began explicitly using public address as what he termed a "bully pulpit" during his presidency. Public address provided him the opportunity to talk to the people-and thereby put pressure on reluctant public figures to effect policy. In doing so, Roosevelt significantly enlarged the rhetorical impact of the presidency. After Roosevelt, presidents have used this "bully pulpit" to different degrees, but the idea of speaking directly to the people on a regular basis--as well as to Congress--has inarguably affected the presidency and the nation's politics. The Bully Pulpit contains words of every president from Theodore Roosevelt onward. The opening chapter introduces readers to various ways of studying presidential rhetoric. Selections include inaugural addresses, foreign policy pronouncements, State of the Union addresses, political campaign and convention speeches, farewell addresses and eulogies, press conferences, and written texts and tweets. The book includes famous speeches as well as relatively unknown gems, such as Wilson speaking on woman's suffrage, Harding on civil rights, and Truman rallying the 1948 Democratic National Convention. Brief biographical sketches, head notes, and discussion questions provide readers with background, context, and opportunities for reflection. The Bully Pulpit is the ideal anthology for courses in presidential rhetoric, American public address, and political communication. It also serves as a valuable supplementary text for courses in political science.
This new study reconciles cognitive metaphor theory with Critical
Discourse Analysis to offer a fresh approach to the study of
metaphor. In applying this framework to a substantial corpus of
texts from business magazines, the author shows how metaphors of
war, sports and evolutionary struggle are used to construct
business as a masculinized social domain. In view of the subtle but
pervasive socio-cognitive impact of these metaphors, the study
raises the question of possible alternatives and the scope for
change in business media discourse.
In a stimulating and novel approach, this book explains why
metaphors are persuasive, suggesting that they are ideologically
effective because they are cognitively plausible "and" evoke an
emotional response. "Critical Metaphor Analysis" is then developed
in a series of corpus-based studies in which analysis of
collocations provides insight into the cognitive motivation and
expressive connotation of metaphor. By unifying traditional and
cognitive semantic with pragmatic approaches, the reader becomes
aware of the importance of metaphor in persuasive language. |
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