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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning)
Although the art of rhetoric is central to the practice of politics it also plays an important role in civic and private life. Using Aristotelian notions of ethos, pathos and logos, this collection offers engaging discussions on everything from Prime Minister's Questions and Welsh devolution to political satire and the rhetoric of cultural racism.
George Bush's 1988 campaign pledge, "Read my lips: no new taxes," has become a mantra for those who distrust politicians and bureaucrats. The gulf between what political leaders say and do seems to be widening, and in democratic societies around the world, contributing to an atmosphere of cynicism and apathy among the citizenry. Understanding the characteristics and functions of speech in policy processes is a requirement for trying to overcome this problem; indeed, politicians and bureaucrats spend a good proportion of their time and resources discoursing, i.e., writing, speaking, and publishing. However, there has been scant analysis of political discourse; the aim of this book is to fill this analytical gap, by exploring political speech from a variety of perspectives, including normative, epistemological, and empirical. Incorporating insights from economics, political science, philosophy, and law, and evidence from the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Turkey, and the EU, the book addresses a wide variety of timely issues, including:. Fiscal discipline in speeches vs budget balance: Is an improvement (deterioration) of the budget balance preceded by a more (less) fiscally disciplined discourse? Revenues and spending forecasted in budget speeches vs realised budget outcomes: Is there a systematic bias? If so, how can we explain it? Electoral pledges vs actual realisations: Do governments follow up on their electoral pledges? Ideological stance in party publications vs spending and revenues of party governments: Do parties of the right and the left speak different languages? How can we validly classify a government as of the left or of the right? Is there a systematic difference between governments of the right and of the left in terms of their policy? Speeches by central bank officers vs monetary policy: Can changes in monetary policy be predicted by official speeches? The political business cycle: How can taking into consideration the speech-action relationship strengthen (or threaten) our knowledge about electoral and partisan cycles in public spending? Other questions explored include: Should policy makers always tell the truth and all the truth? What are the benefits and the costs of transparency? How can we resolve the apparent contradiction between the democratic demand for transparency and the efficiency requirement of secrecy in many policy areas (budget preparation, monetary policy, foreign policy, security, etc.)? Under which conditions is secrecy acceptable in a democratic society? To what extent may deception and lies lead to a breach of trust or to power abuse? What are the most efficient institutional mechanisms to prevent such abuse? Collectively, the authors present new insights for understanding political process and government activity, and suggest avenues for further research.
The Rhetoric of Religious Cults takes as its departure point the notion that 'cults' have a distinctive language and way of recruiting members. First outlining a rhetorical framework, which encompasses contemporary discourse analysis, the persuasive texts of three movements - Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and Children of God - are analysed in detail and their discourse compared with other kinds of recruitment literature. Cults' distinctive negative profile in society is not matched by a linguistic typology. Indeed, this negative profile seems to rest on the semantics and application of the term 'cult' itself.
The authors combine a theoretical reassessment of how we understand, study and analyze processes of identification with detailed case studies of the discourses of three-generation families living in split-border communities along the former Iron Curtain, talking about themselves and other social groups, about their way of life and their experiences past and present.
This volume pays homage to the historian of logic Angel d'Ors (1951-2012), by bringing together a set of studies that together illuminate the complex historical development of logic and semantics. Two main traditions, Aristotelian and terminist, are showcased to demonstrate the changes and confrontations that constitute this history, and a number of different authors and texts, from the Boethian reception of Aristotle to the post-medieval terminism, are discussed. Special topics dealt with include the medieval reception of ancient logic; technical tools for the medieval analysis of language; the medieval theory of consequence; the medieval practice of disputation and sophisms; and the post-medieval refinement of the terminist tools. Contributors are E.J. Ashworth, Allan Back, Maria Cerezo, Sten Ebbesen, Jose Miguel Gambra, C.H. Kneepkens, Kalvin Normore, Angel d'Ors, Paloma Perez-Ilzarbe, Stephen Read, Joke Spruyt, Luisa Valente, and Mikko Yrjoensuuri. These articles were also published in Vivarium, Volume 53, Nos. 2-4 (2015).
This volume focuses on spoken language and its production. It is part of a series which provides a forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas from diverse disciplines that share a mutual interest in discourse. A variety of approaches to the topic are represented: sociolinguistics; psycholinguistics; ethnomethodology and the study of language; educational psychology; and computational linguistics.
The Athabaskan language family is the largest group of Amerindian languages in North America, including languages such as Navajo and Apache. This volume is a collection of previously unpublished articles on Athabaskan syntax, semantics, and morphology, and will be of interest not only to those with a anthropological interest in Native American languages, but also to theoretical linguists concerned with issues discussed. The book will also be useful in that it directly confronts the problems facing languages like Navajo as they struggle to survive; the list of contributors thus brings together not only prominent linguists (including Navajos) but educators as well.
The goals of this volume are twofold: on a general level the volume explores whether evidence for teaching and learning can be found in mother-child interactions during the course of first language acquisition and whether these processes can be objectively described; on a sublevel, the volume investigates whether the denials of frequency and reinforcement effects found in the literature withstand closer scrutiny. The findings support a teaching/learning approach to first language acquisition and demonstrate some of the major principles involved in this process.
This collection of research has attempted to capture the essence and promise embodied in the concept of "identity" and built a bridge to the realm of second language studies. However, the reader will notice that we did not build just one link. This volume brings to light the diversity of research in identity and second language studies that are grounded the notions of community, instructors and students, language immersion and study abroad, pop culture and music, religion, code switching, and media. The chapters reflect the efforts of contributors from Canada, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States who performed their research in the countries just mentioned and in other regions around the world. Because of this, this volume truly offers an international perspective.
Far from being rhetorical ornaments, metaphors play a central role in public discourse, as they shape the structure of political categorisation and argumentation. Drawing on a very large bilingual corpus, this book, now in paperback, analyses the distribution of 'metaphor scenarios' in more than a decade of public discourse on European integration, elucidating differences in UK and German attitudes and argumentation. The corpus analysis leads to a refinement of cognitive metaphor theory by systematically relating conceptual, semantic and argumentation levels and incorporating the historical dimension of metaphor evolution. Finally, drawing on examples of metaphor negotiation and on a reassessment of Hobbes' concept of metaphor in Leviathan, the book highlights the ethical dimension of metaphor in politics.
The author integrates, expands, and deepens his previous publications about irregular (or "metalinguistic") negations. A total of ten distinct negatives-several previously unclassified-are analyzed. The logically irregular negations deny different implicatures of their root. All are partially non-compositional but completely conventional. The author argues that two of the irregular negative meanings are implicatures. The others are semantically rather than pragmatically ambiguous. Since their ambiguity is neither lexical nor structural, direct irregular negatives satisfy the standard definition of idioms as syntactically complex expressions whose meaning is non-compositional. Unlike stereotypical idioms, idiomatic negatives lack fixed syntactic forms and are highly compositional. The final chapter analyzes other "free form" idioms, including irregular interrogatives and comparatives, self-restricted verb phrases, numerical verb phrases, and transparent propositional attitude and speech act reports.
Today, gender and gender identity is at the forefront of discussion as the plight of women around the world and issues of gender equality and human rights have become an international concern for politicians, government agencies, social activists, and the general public. Discourse Analysis as a Tool for Understanding Gender Identity, Representation, and Equality provides a thorough analysis of what language use and linguistic expression can teach us about gender identity in addition to current discussions on topics related to women's rights and gender inequality. Focusing on issues related to women in developing countries, workplace inequalities, and social freedom, this publication is an essential reference source for researchers, graduate-level students, and theorists in the fields of sociology, women's studies, economics, and government.
OndrejMajer, Ahti-VeikkoPietarinen, andTeroTulenheimo 1 Games and logic in philosophy Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the unifying methodo- gies over what have been perceived as pretty disparate logical 'systems', or else merely an assortment of formal and mathematical 'approaches' to phi- sophical inquiry. This development has largely been fueled by an increasing dissatisfaction to what has earlier been taken to be a straightforward outcome of 'logical pluralism' or 'methodological diversity'. These phrases appear to re ect the everyday chaos of our academic pursuits rather than any genuine attempt to clarify the general principles underlying the miscellaneous ways in which logic appears to us. But the situation is changing. Unity among plurality is emerging in c- temporary studies in logical philosophy and neighbouring disciplines. This is a necessary follow-up to the intensive research into the intricacies of logical systems and methodologies performed over the recent years. The present book suggests one such peculiar but very unrestrained meth- ological perspective over the eld of logic and its applications in mathematics, language or computation: games. An allegory for opposition, cooperation and coordination, games are also concrete objects of formal study.
This book compares attitudes to empiricism in language study from mid-twentieth century philosophy of language and from present-day linguistics. It focuses on responses to the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle, particularly in the work of British philosopher J. L. Austin and the much less well-known work of Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess.
The high-pressured, fast-paced environment of television production leaves little time for producers to reflect on how the potentialities of texts and images will be interpreted outside of the immediate broadcast imperatives. This volume brings together the producers and analysts of television in a formal and productive way.
Popular, political and media discourses frame the issue of migration and shape how and when it enters the public and political consciousness. These discourses are of crucial importance as they influence both the general public's perception of migration and the policies which regulate both the act of migration itself and migrant residents. Public and Political Discourses of Migration brings together an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars, whose work interrogates the relationship between discourse and migration. Through the application of a variety of theoretical lenses drawn from the broad canon of discourse studies, each contribution unpicks the productive power of discourse in shaping the reality of migration, migration policy and migrant lives in the twenty-first century. The cases examined emerge, as do their authors, from a wide spectrum of national, political and cultural contexts. They are linked by their fundamental questioning of 'common sense' and ahistorical approaches to migration. They address the question of whose interests are served by prevailing discourses and the structures they underpin. Ultimately, they 'make strange' accepted 'truths' regarding migration in the twenty-first century.
Covering both theoretical and practical approaches, Writing the Research Paper guides students studying in English as a second or additional language through the skills necessary for success in university-level writing and research. The book begins with theoretical considerations, such as research, argumentation and critical thinking. It then offers a broad range of practical assistance covering all aspects of the writing process, including topic selection, argument, counter-argument, paragraph structure and cohesion. The book is accompanied by a companion website, writingtheresearchpaper.com. The website hosts many features, including chapter summaries, exercises, quizzes, PowerPoints, additional learning material, and technology assistance. The website also hosts numerous authentic examples of student papers at each of the critical stages of the writing process.
This book presents the essential background for understanding semantic theories of mood. Mood as a category is widely used in the description of languages and the formal analysis of their grammatical properties. It typically refers to the features of a sentence-individual morphemes or grammatical patterns-that reflect how the sentence contributes to the modal meaning of a larger phrase, or that indicate the type of fundamental pragmatic function that it has in conversation. In this volume, Paul Portner discusses the most significant semantic theories relating to the two main subtypes of mood: verbal mood, including the categories of indicative and subjunctive subordinate clauses, and sentence mood, encompassing declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. He evaluates those theories, compares them, and draws connections between seemingly disparate approaches, and he formalizes some of the literature's most important ideas in new ways in order to draw out their most significant insights. Ultimately, this work shows that there are crucial connections between verbal mood and sentence mood which point the way towards a more general understanding of how mood works and its relation to other topics in linguistics; it also outlines the type of semantic and pragmatic theory which will make it possible to explain these relations. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of semantics and pragmatics, philosophy, computer science, and psychology.
This text presents a new model of conversation based on time, in this case referring both to the rhythmic organization of conversation, the tempo, and to the "right time" or timing. These two notions of time correspond to two major systems governing conversation: the turn taking system and the rapport system. This model interweaves linguists' work on spoken discourse, sociologists' work on conversation analysis, and psychologists' work on non-verbal communication. This volume also explores the evolution of the interview as a genre which creates a particular context for conversation. Gatekeeping interviews in particular are explored because of their dual nature-to guide and monitor individuals in an institution or business. They are routine, but essential factors in determining the future of individuals within these organizations. Finally, the volume shows the importance of the listener in conversation. No previous theory of discourse or conversation incorporates the notion of rapport, yet speakers clearly depend on listeners' response as cues for shaping their utterances.
The challenge to improve second language acquisition efficiency has always been at the heart of education because a good command of a language provides new opportunities to manipulate information and apply acquired knowledge and skills to novel problems in new situations. Thus, there is a necessity for creating an alternative to either task-based or form-focused methods commonly employed in today's instruction. An Invariant-Based Approach to Second Language Acquisition: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential reference source that elaborates on traditional 2L concepts and terms and provides new practical tools and mechanisms for developing student communicative competencies. Featuring research on topics such as syllabus design, language interpretation, and speech types, this book is ideally designed for educators, administrators, researchers, and academicians.
This is the first collection to bring together well-known scholars
writing from feminist perspectives within critical discourse
analysis. The theoretical structure of CDA is illustrated with
empirical research in Eastern and Western Europe, New Zealand,
Asia, South America and the US, demonstrating the complex workings
of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining particular
gender(ed) orders. These studies deal with texts and talk in
domains ranging from parliamentary settings, news and advertising
media, the classroom, community literacy programs and the
workplace.
This ground-breaking work is a detailed account of an innovative and in-depth study of the attitudes of in excess of 500 Japanese learners towards a number of standard and non-standard as well as native and non-native varieties of English speech. The research conducted refines the investigation of learner attitudes by employing a range of pioneering techniques of attitude measurement. These methods are largely incorporated from the strong traditions that exist in the fields of social psychology and second language acquisition and utilize both direct and indirect techniques of attitude measurement. The author locates the findings in the context of the wealth of literature on native speaker evaluations of languages and language varieties. The study is unique in that the results provide clear evidence of both attitude change and high levels of linguistic awareness among the informants of social and geographical diversity within the English language. These findings are analyzed in detail in relation to the global spread of English as well as in terms of the pedagogical implications for the choice of linguistic model employed in English language classrooms both inside and outside Japan. The issues examined are of particular interest to educators, researchers and students in the fields of applied linguistics, TESOL, second language acquisition, social psychology of language and sociolinguistics. The pedagogical and language policy implications of the findings obtained make essential reading for those with a specific focus on the role of the English language and English language teaching, both in Japan and beyond.
This lucid and wide-ranging volume constitutes a self-contained introduction to the elements and key issues of the philosophy of language. In particular, it focuses on the philosophical foundations of semantics, including the main challenges to and prospects for a truth conditional semantics. Since the book is neither single-mindedly philosophical, nor single-mindedly technical, it is an accessible introduction to the philosophical foundations of semantics, and will provide the ideal basis for a first course in the philosophy of language and philosophical logic.
This book is all about ellipsis in natural language - the phenomena in which words and phrases go missing in the linguistic signal, but are nonethe less interpreted by the receiver, eg in the following sentence, the second instance of read is understood whether or not it is spoken Claire read a book and Heather [read] a magazine. Contemporary theoretical linguistics has described several forms of ellipsis in English, and different syntactic mechanisms have been proposed which account for their structures. Kirsten Gengel investigates pseudogapping, which, she proposes, is one variety of ellipsis. At the heart of her discussion lies the interaction between focus and deletion. Her analysis - which draws on new research in Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch, as well as data from Portuguese, French, and English - provides a novel approach to not only this particular form of ellipsis but to the derivation of ellipsis in general, and has the potential of unifying several elliptical phenomena in generative grammar. |
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