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Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning)
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.
The book analyzes and evaluates what major linguistic models say on the interaction of lexicon and syntax in language performance. To check the plausibility of the assumptions, they are compared with what psycholinguists have found out. Moreover, reformulations, situations of speech need, and the use of 'lexical stretches' are analysed for what they can contribute to the discussion, and for one of the main issues also experimental evidence is produced.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives Licence and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. This book demonstrates the central role played by the stylistic features of online news in constructing meaning and shaping cultural representations of people and places - in particular, France and Muslims/Islam. Taking the 2016 violent attack in Nice, France as a case study, Ashley Riggs analyses online news coverage of the attack from the UK, Spain, and Switzerland, three distinct linguistic and cultural spaces. An innovative mixed-methods approach, including content analysis and elements of translation criticism and comparative stylistics, is used to analyse this corpus, revealing the frequency and influence of stylistic devices found in online news and exploring how they help to shape reader interpretations. Drawing conclusions about journalistic practices by place and interrogating the notions of 'European identity' and 'European journalism', Stylistic Deceptions in Online News reveals how stylistic features may vary according to both political leanings and national and regional contexts, and the influence these features have upon readers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The purpose of this book is to explore the overlapping area of study that discourse linguists and cognitive linguists are interested in. In doing so, the volume contributes to bridging the gap between these two large groups of linguists who share an interest in discourse processing but approach the area from very different perspectives and frames of reference. The starting point of this volume is text and discourse. The book includes an overview section and a number of carefully selected contributions which highlight central issues in the study of text and discourse attempting to give them cognitive explanations. In responding to the current interest in the area of discourse and cognition, the volume has adopted a wide scope which allows its individual chapters to focus on textual and situational contexts as well as the context of culture and society at large. The volume also provides its readership with a useful selection of methods used in the studies which form the basis of its chapters. The contributions, all by established linguists with highest qualifications, present new findings which have important theoretical implications. They offer unique and fresh analyses of central discourse phenomena in cognitive light and revealing discussions of the avenues opened to us at this stage of the development of the study of discourse and cognition. This accessible research volume will be essential reading for scholars and advanced students of linguistics and languages.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Spaces of Communication offers a concise introduction to semiopragmatics and condenses the intellectual trajectory of one of the foundational figures of film studies into a relatively short and accessible volume. It testifies to the author's deep and rich intellectual engagement with a vast array of objects ranging from the classics of the cinephile canon to television news programs, home movies and mobile phone films.
This collection of essays by the Linguistic Politeness Research Group represents the results of over a decade of the group's research, discussions, seminars and conferences on the subject of linguistic politeness. The volume brings together cutting edge essays reflecting the range of discursive approaches to the analysis of politeness and impoliteness.
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.
Ongoing interest in the turmoil of the 1960s clearly demonstrates how these social conflicts continue to affect contemporary politics. In The Bad Sixties: Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements, Kristen Hoerl focuses on fictionalized portrayals of 1960s activism in popular television and film. Hoerl shows how Hollywood has perpetuated politics deploring the detrimental consequences of the 1960s on traditional American values. During the decade, people collectively raised fundamental questions about the limits of democracy under capitalism. But Hollywood has proved dismissive, if not adversarial, to the role of dissent in fostering progressive social change. Film and television are salient resources of shared understanding for audiences born after the 1960s because movies and television programs are the most accessible visual medium for observing the decade's social movements. Hoerl indicates that a variety of television programs, such as Family Ties, The Wonder Years, and Law and Order, along with Hollywood films, including Forrest Gump, have reinforced images of the ""bad sixties."" These stories portray a period in which urban riots, antiwar protests, sexual experimentation, drug abuse, and feminism led to national division and moral decay. According to Hoerl, these messages supply distorted civics lessons about what we should value and how we might legitimately participate in our democracy. These warped messages contribute to ""selective amnesia,"" a term that stresses how popular media renders radical ideas and political projects null or nonexistent. Selective amnesia removes the spectacular events and figures that define the late-1960s from their motives and context, flattening their meaning into reductive stereotypes. Despite popular television and film, Hoerl explains, memory of 1960s activism still offers a potent resource for imagining how we can strive collectively to achieve social justice and equality.
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.
This volume brings together cutting-edge research on the semantic properties of derived words and the processes by which these words are derived. To this day, many of these processes remain under-researched and the nature of meaning in derivational morphology remains ill-understood. All eight articles have an empirical focus and rely on carefully collected sets of data. At the same time, the contributions represent a broad variety of approaches. Several contributions deal with specific problems of the pairing of form and meaning, such as the rivalry between nominalizing suffixes or the semantic categories encoded by conversion pairs. Other articles tackle the more general question of how meaning is organized, e.g. whether there is evidence for the paradigmatic organization of derived words or the reality of the inflection-derivation dichotomy. The contributions feature innovative methodologies, such as representing lexical meaning as word distribution or predicting semantic properties by means of analogical algorithms. This volume offers new and highly interesting insights into how complex words mean, and offers directions for future research in an oft-neglected field.
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.
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.
Theta Theory explores the lexicon as an interface in the strict sense, as facilitating the flow of information between cognition and the computational system of language. It argues for the traditional concept of a listed lexicon, where semantic roles are encoded as features of verbs, and against event decomposition. Part one of the book discusses the link between cognition and the lexicon. Mainstream theories of lexical semantics are critically reviewed. Furthermore, this part provides an extensive description of the relevant data in German, including agentivity, causation, psychological predicates, and different types of diathesis alternations. Part two is devoted to the link between the lexicon and syntax. It develops a parallel model of grammatical derivation, which allows the formulation of robust generalizations over thematic role assignment, but at the same time acknowledges the relevance of other components, in particular morpho-phonology and narrow syntax. The theory is applied to a wide range of German constructions including modal infinitives, the present and gerundive participle, the past/passive/adjectival participle, verbal particles, auxiliary selection, and unaccusatives/reflexives. The book is of interest for students and scholars of lexical semantics, for descriptive German linguistics, and for linguists concerned with the development of the Minimalist Program. |
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