Complementing and extending scholarship in three areas - terrorism; the media, mediated representations, and propaganda in contemporary culture; and the political and diplomatic environment post-9/11 - this book articulates the role of human communication in the «war of ideas. Drawing on contemporary research from a variety of disciplines, this book offers analyses and recommendations for people to make use of informed, inspired, and ethical communication to counter ideological support for terrorism and to promote more effective public diplomacy. This is the first book to apply human communication concepts and theories - and to offer potential solutions - to the communication problems encountered by nations, communities, and individuals, and in doing so moves beyond critiques of failed U.S. communication campaigns and strategies in the «war on terror.

As the first title in the new series, "New Directions in Communication Disorders Research: Integrative Approaches," this volume discusses a unique phenomenon in cognitive science--single-word reading--which is an essential element in successful reading competence. Single-word reading is an interdisciplinary area of research that incorporates phonological, orthographic, graphemic, and semantic information in the representations suitable for the task demands of reading. Editors Elena L. Grigorenko and Adam J. Naples have organized a collection of essays written by an outstanding group of scholars in order to systematically sample research on this important topic, as well as to describe the research within different experimental paradigms.
"Single-Word Reading "provides an introduction to unfamiliar areas of research, and is an inspiration for future study. The introductory chapter sets up a contextual stage for connections between spoken and written word processing, the stage-based nature of their development, and the role of education. Succeeding chapters address visual word processing; the role of morphology in word recognition; the role of lexical representation; the biological bases of single-word reading and related processes; and more.
Reading researchers will take interest in this substantial book, as will professionals and practitioners linked to the teaching of reading in the departments of school psychology, special education, communication disorders, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, and reading.

This book is about the borrowing of inflectional morphemes in language contact settings. This phenomenon has at all times seemed to be the most poorly documented aspect of linguistic borrowing. Contact-induced morphological change is not rare in word formation, but exceptional in inflection. This study presents a deductive catalogue of factors conditioning the probability of transfer of inflectional morphology from one language to another and adduces empirical data drawn from Australian languages, Anatolian Greek, the Balkans, Maltese, Welsh, and Arabic. By reference to the most advanced theories of morphology, a thorough analysis of the case studies is provided as well as a definition of inflectional borrowing according to which inflectional borrowing must be distinguished from mere quotation of foreign forms and is acknowledged only when inflectional morphemes are attached to native words of the receiving language.

Die Tryin' traces the cultural connections between videogames, masculinity, and digital culture. It fuses feminist, psychoanalytic, Marxist, and poststructuralist theory to analyze the social imaginary that is produced by -- and produces -- a particular form of masculinity: boyhood. The author asserts that digital culture is a culturally and historically situated series of practices, products, and performances, all coalescing to produce a real and imagined masculinity that exists in perpetual adolescence, and is reflective of larger masculine edifices at work in politics and culture. Thus, videogames form the central object of study as consumer technologies of control and anxiety as well as possibility and subversion. Moving away from current games research, the book favors a game-specific approach that unites visual culture, cultural studies, and performance studies, instead of a sociological/structural inspection of the form.

We -- the users turned creators and distributors of content -- are TIME's Person of the Year 2006, and AdAge's Advertising Agency of the Year 2007. We form a new Generation C. We have MySpace, YouTube, and OurMedia; we run social software, and drive the development of Web 2.0. But beyond the hype, what's really going on? In this groundbreaking exploration of our developing participatory online culture, Axel Bruns establishes the core principles which drive the rise of collaborative content creation in environments, from open source through blogs and Wikipedia to Second Life. This book shows that what's emerging here is no longer just a new form of content production, but a new process for the continuous creation and extension of knowledge and art by collaborative communities: produsage. The implications of the gradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very core of our culture, economy, society, and democracy.

This book provides research-based insights that deepen and broaden current understandings of the nature of reading. Informed by psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic views of reading-as-meaning-construction, the studies build on principles of "scientific realism"--an approach to inquiry that incorporates and values a wide variety of methods of observation to find the most inclusive, ecologically valid description of the reading processes as it is observed in a variety of contexts from a wide range of perspectives.
Focusing on how facts are discovered, developed, and used in the construction of knowledge about reading--a data-driven and theory-driven construction that results from observing the reading process with a variety of tools, methods, disciplines, and conceptual frameworks--scientific realism goes beyond rationalism and experimentation to include studies of events and experiences, but still satisfies even the most narrow definitions of what state andnational lawmakers refer to as "reliable and replicable research on reading." Each study in this volume breaks ground for a new line of reading research underpinned by the theory of reading based in scientific realism.
"Scientific Realism in Studies of Reading" is directed to reading researchers, teacher educators, reading specialists, special educators, graduate students, and related education professionals in the disciplines of applied psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, and is appropriate as a text for advanced courses in these areas.

This book deals with the notion of reformulation and more specifically with a group of lexico-grammatical units which help codify and signal the activity of reformulation in English. While discourse markers in English have been described in detail, the area of reformulation is a relatively unexplored area in comparison with languages such as French or Spanish. In this respect, this book has been conceived as a contribution to the field of Discourse Markers and in particular to the markers that help display the function of reformulation in English. First of all, a definition of the notion of reformulation is provided as a necessary precondition for the elaboration of a taxonomy of English reformulators. These are grouped into different classes and sub-classes on the basis of the type of reformulation effected. Thus, four main types are identified: Expansion, Modification, Reassessment and Compression. After an inductive and interpretive analysis of examples taken from the British National Corpus (BNC), the syntactic and distributional properties of these units, as well as their environments of use are described and discussed.

This is the first book devoted to the phoronym, a largely overlooked grammatical category that includes measures such as «cup in «a cup of tea, classifiers such as «head in «ten head of cattle, and other types, all of which occur in the pseudopartitive construction. Both measures and noun classification (the defining feature of classifiers) are thought to occur in all languages, so the phoronym is a linguistic universal. This book is the first to combine the two major theoretical approaches to the topic and includes the first detailed studies of group classifiers and repeaters, as well as the first study of classifiers in Finnish and Russian. It also covers class nouns and their components - which are connected grammatically and semantically to both classifiers and gender - and discusses possible connections of classifiers with sublinguistic cognition. The analysis focuses on Mandarin Chinese, English, Japanese, and Thai, but Finnish, Hungarian, Tibetan, Uzbek, and other languages are also discussed.

This book systematically examines how learning to read occurs in diverse languages, and in so doing, explores how literacy is learned in a second language by learners who have achieved at least basic reading skills in their first language. As a consequence of rapid globalization, such learners are a large and growing segment of the school population worldwide, and an increasing number of schools are challenged by learners from a wide variety of languages, and with distinct prior literacy experiences. To succeed academically these learners must develop second-language literacy skills, yet little is known about the ways in which they learn to read in their first languages, and even less about how the specific nature and level of their first-language literacy affects second-language reading development.

This volume provides detailed descriptions of five typologically diverse languages and their writing systems, and offers comparisons of learning-to-read experiences in these languages. Specifically, it addresses the requisite competencies in learning to read in each of the languages, how language and writing system properties affect the way children learn to read, and the extent and ways in which literacy learning experience in one language can play a role in subsequent reading development in another. Both common and distinct aspects of literacy learning experiences across languages are identified, thus establishing a basis for determining which skills are available for transfer in second-language reading development.

Learning to Read Across Languages is intended for researchers and advanced students in the areas of second-language learning, psycholinguistics, literacy, bilingualism, and cross-linguistic issues in language processing.

This book describes three of the main problems that the word-formation process known as conversion presents, namely those related to its definition, its delimitation, and its directionality. The latter constitutes, however, the main focus of the study, which is based on a corpus of over seven hundred lexical units and, more specifically, on 231 actual noun-verb conversion pairs. Considering that directionality is intrinsic to conversion, the main question is whether it is always possible to establish the direction of conversion or whether it is possible to do so only in some cases. Moreover, the study reveals what 'type' of directionality is involved, that is, whether the process is unidirectional, bidirectional or multi-directional. In order to answer these questions, both diachronic (etymology and dates of first records) and synchronic criteria (semantic dependence, restriction of usage, semantic range, semantic pattern, phonetic shape, morphologic type, stress, and the principle of relative markedness) are analysed and assessed.

This book explores the intercultural problems related to the widespread use of English in written and oral communication by native and non-native speakers in institutional and business settings. Each chapter looks at a different set of issues emerging from the confrontation of cultures across national, institutional and organizational discourse communities, taking an intercultural or cross-cultural approach. The focus is on workplace settings, both in institutional and business contexts (e.g. politics, public services, media, international corporate communication, advertising, business negotiations, etc.). The theme is all the more interesting today not only in consideration of the sheer magnitude of this phenomenon and its capillary spread, but above all on account of the pervasive penetration of English into professional and workplace contexts as a communication language also for local/internal communication. The complexity of intercultural communication as an object of research is reflected in the variety of the topics explored, the range of settings investigated, and the diversity of methodological approaches taken.

It’s not easy for teachers to hold the attention of today’s junior high students! They’re easily distracted and lose interest quickly. Here’s a reading curriculum designed to challenge them to think. Written by an experienced reading teacher and workshop leader, it features 45 high-interest lessons on topics like jeans (The Never-Fading Popularity of Levi’s® Jeans) and Buying Your First Car. You’ll find 15 story lessons and activities, all printed in a big 8-1/4" x 11" spiral-bound format for easy photocopying. Each story includes a brief overview of the story’s topic…a word list to introduce unfamiliar words…recommended books, videos, CDs, records, and cassettes related to the subject…crafts, projects, role-playing, games, and other activities that tie into the story…reproducible comprehension questions…and extension activities such as plays, projects, and other activities to allow students to experience the subject beyond the story. This comprehension program poses literal, fact-based questions as well as interpretive questions that ask students to draw logical conclusions based on what they’ve read. It’s flexible enough to be used effectively with poor readers, average readers, upper level readers, and special needs students in the classroom.

Voice and Mirroring in L2 Pronunciation Instruction presents an approach to teaching pronunciation which aims for learners to internalize the “voices� (complexes of linguistic and non-linguistic features that embody particular speakers’ emotion, social stance, and group identification) of proficient speakers of the second language (L2). Beginning with a review of “bottom-up� and “top-down� approaches to second language acquisition (SLA) research and pronunciation teaching, the authors present previously published and new findings in interlanguage phonology and variationist approaches to SLA showing the powerful impact of sociolinguistic context on L2 pronunciation. On the basis of this review, the authors argue that a top-down approach which begins with social context is preferable in both the research and teaching of L2 pronunciation. They highlight the Mirroring Project as one such approach that includes the social factors impacting L2 pronunciation, such as interlocutor, empathy, and nonverbal elements. With accompanying instructional activities that have been used in a variety of teaching and learning settings in the U.S., the authors demonstrate how this project can help language learners modify their L2 pronunciation patterns and improve their intelligibility as they internalize and channel the voices of speakers they have selected as models. The audience for the volume includes language teachers, particularly those desiring to use top-down pedagogical approaches like the Mirroring Project to improve learners’ intelligibility, and academic researchers interested in studying the way adults can acquire second language phonology by holistically adopting and channeling the voices of speakers they admire. The book is also of potential interest to language teacher educators, curriculum developers, and textbook writers.

This book presents a number of different perspectives on the central theme of 'evidence' and its interpretation in the study of specialist languages and their various uses. The principal topics include text corpora, citation patterns, some challenging dichotomies, terminology and knowledge management, and specialist translation. Each topic is presented in one of five parts, each with its own introduction. The volume includes contributions from established and new researchers in the field, as well as well-known scholars from other disciplines who bring a fresh eye to LSP studies. The book presents selected papers from LSP2003, the 14th European Symposium on Language for Special Purposes held at the University of Surrey, Guildford, in co-operation with the AILA Scientific Commission on Language for Special Purposes.

Bad Girls examines representational practices of film and television stories beginning with post-Vietnam cinema and ending with post-feminisms and contemporary public disputes over women in the military. The book explores a diverse range of popular media texts, from the Alien saga to Ally McBeal and Sex and the City, from The Net and VR5 to Sportsnight and G.I.Jane. The research is framed as a study of intergenerational tensions in portrayals of women and public institutions - in careers, governmental service, and interactions with technology. Using iconic texts and their contexts as a primary focus, this book offers a rhetorical and cultural history of the tensions between remembering and forgetting in representations of the American feminist movement between 1979 and 2005. Looking forward, the book sets an agenda for discussion of gender issues over the next twenty-five years and articulates with authority the manner in which "transgression" itself has become a site of struggle.

Arising from a colloquium held in Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, in March 2004, this volume offers fresh insights into Swiss culture and literature from an Irish perspective. It brings together articles by writers and scholars from various academic fields including cultural studies, linguistics and literature. The book is a reflection of the multifaceted interests of Irish academics in Switzerland as a cultural space in the heart of Europe. Ireland as a vantage point, situated at the western margin of the European continent, offers new perspectives from which differences as well as surprising parallels between the two cultures become visible and from which Switzerland appears in a different light. The volume critically addresses questions of identity in Swiss literature and culture and discusses them from various angles - by analysing the representation of minority cultures in Swiss literary and media discourse, by reading Swiss literature in an intercultural context, but also through accounts of Irish visitors in Switzerland and Swiss writers travelling to or living in Ireland.

This study explores the field of ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom learning within a formal learning institution. Influenced by the sociocultural theory in SLA (Second Language Acquisition), the book sheds light on the question that has been boggling the minds of language practitioners and researchers: Why is ESL classroom talk the way it is? Based on a case study of a school in an ESL community, it argues persuasively that classroom talk may be linked in important ways to an operative sociocultural structure of ESL pedagogy over and above the classroom at the institutional level. The book examines issues which have here-to-fore been avoided by writers and researchers in current SLA writings and classroom studies. It confronts complex and complicated contextual and research methodological issues to make visible what has up to now been that elusive « structure behind the oral practices in language classrooms. Research methods are drawn from language education and several disciplines within linguistics and the social sciences. Emerging from a multidisciplinary methodological framework are a number of surprising revelations about the meanings and functions of ESL classroom talk.

When people are checking in to flights, making reports to their company manager, composing music, delivering papers for exams in schools, or examining patients in hospitals, they all deal with documents and processes of documentation. In earlier times, documentation took place primarily in libraries and archives. While the latter are still important document institutions, documents today play a far more essential role in social life in many different domains and cultures. In this book, which celebrates the ten year anniversary of documentation studies in Tromso, experts from many different disciplines, professional domains as well as cultures around the world present their way of dealing with documents, demonstrating many potential directions for the emerging broad field of documentation studies.

This book explores multiparty, multicultural interaction at international business meetings. It investigates discourse at an Italian company's meetings of its international distributors, conducted mainly in English and attended by participants from different countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Data come from audio recordings of the meetings, normally lasting two to three days, and are supplemented by the author's observations of the meetings. The study uses a series of approaches to analyze selected linguistic and interactional features, presenting an in-depth analysis and discussion of data extracts that draws on both qualitative and quantitative approaches. It highlights the way the main company speaker and some of the multilingual participants use discursive strategies to build common ground, to construct a cooperative business relationship or to negotiate or avert conflict. The study questions the role of cultural differences in approaching multicultural, multilingual meetings and argues that organizational roles, the business context and individual differences must also be considered.

This volume explores the complex relations between normsand exemplars of genres from business and technical communication. Contributors compare a variety of types of norm with textual practices in a variety of ways. The genres examined are typical of the range of audiences and media of workplace and business communication: product withdrawal notices, press releases, job ads, oral presentations, sales letters and tenders, chairman's reports, and technical reports. They are compared with norms set by teachers, by unimaginative practice, by more or less self-appointed experts, or by practioners who may not share the national or professional culture of their colleagues. However accurate these may be they never do justice to the complexity of 'reality'. The contributors to this volume use a wide variety of methods in their attempt to capture this reality. Many analyse texts, but all combine this procedure with at least one other approach and often more: questionnaires, experiments assessing the effect of manipulated texts, analysis of practitioner comments, and use of natural sources of practitioner judgements like award for good practice.

This volume brings together a selection of contributions presented at the 15th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, held at the University of Bergamo (Italy) from 29 August to 2 September 2005. The conference title, « New Trends in Specialized Discourse, reflects the emphasis given to recent orientations in research, coming from established as well as new authors in the field. As suggested by the title of this volume, the analysis of specialized discourse calls for a specialized discourse analysis. When applied linguists deal with vocational discourses, they are faced with a double challenge: on the one hand, an understanding of textualisations often alien to the general language; on the other hand, the use of analytical tools designed specifically for their investigation. The studies presented in this volume position themselves somewhere along this continuum, focusing alternatively on converging/diverging features of texts and discourses.

This book is one of the first systematic studies to describe the linguistic repertoire and the communicative strategies adopted by Ghanaian immigrants in Italy. The linguistic repertoire of the Ghanaian community in Bergamo (Northern Italy) is described with a special focus on the different codes composing it. The author analyzes the role that each code plays in expressing the community members' ethnic and linguistic identity, and the speakers' attitudes towards each code. She draws on the results of qualitative analysis - adopting both a macro-sociolinguistic and a micro-socio-linguistic perspective - of a database of face-to-face interactions and of formal interviews involving a selected group of Ghanaian immigrants.