Activity And Understanding: Structure Of Action And Orientated Linguistics


Book Description

Computer understanding of natural language (NL) is commonly considered as extracting “sense” from NL texts. This deprives the problem of determinity, since the notion of “sense” lacks a formal definition. However, with a man-to-computer NL dialogue involved in some working process, any address by humans is nothing but a task for the computer to fulfil. Then it is immaterial whether the computer understands the address text sense and even the very notion of “sense”. Only the address task is to be accomplished. This means not revealing morphologic, syntactic and other text structures, but only extracting data on the task. As a result, a new theory of NL dialogue understanding has been created, called “orientated linguistics”. This theory has been brought to life as several practical systems, which have demonstrated an extremely reliable and correct understanding of a quite free and easy NL, a tiny resource consumption and simple readjustment between various subject areas and, what is more, national languages.




The Action-oriented Approach


Book Description

This book presents the background to the current shift in language education towards action-oriented/action-based teaching, and provides a theorization of the Action-oriented Approach (AoA). It discusses the concepts and theories that paved the way for the AoA and explores their relevance for the way language education is conceived and implemented in the classroom. In the process, it revisits the concept of competence and discusses the dynamic notions of mediation and plurilingualism. The authors explain the way in which the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and its recent update, the CEFR Companion Volume, broaden the scope of language education, in particular in relation to the actional turn. The book provides scholars and practitioners with a research-informed description of the AoA, explains its implications for curriculum planning, teaching and assessment, and elaborates on its pedagogical implications.




The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning and Technology


Book Description

The exponential growth and development of modern technologies in all sectors has made it increasingly difficult for students, teachers and teacher educators to know which technologies to employ and how best to take advantage of them. The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning and Technology brings together experts in a number of key areas of development and change, and opens the field of language learning by exploring the pedagogical importance of technological innovation. The handbook is structured around six themes: historical and conceptual contexts core issues interactive and collaborative technologies for language learning corpora and data driven learning gaming and language learning purpose designed language learning resources. Led by fundamental concepts, theories and frameworks from language learning and teaching research rather than by specific technologies, this handbook is the essential reference for all students, teachers and researchers of Language Learning and TESOL. Those working in the areas of Applied Linguistics, Education and Media Studies will also find this a valuable book.




The Social Action-Oriented Approach in Language Teaching


Book Description

The action-oriented approach (renamed as the social action-oriented approach in this book) was first introduced by the Council of Europe (CoE) in its official document The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, 2001). This book aims to provide a detailed explanation of this approach in all its dimensions: its origins, how it has developed as a new methodology within its new didactic configuration, how to implement it in language textbooks and the classroom as well as the issue of designing social action-oriented curricula and programs. We believe this book will be a useful resource for curriculum developers, language textbook writers, researchers in the language teaching field, language teacher trainees, language teachers (K-12), and university students.




Linguistic Perspectives on the Construction of Meaning and Knowledge


Book Description

This book is an exploration of the dimensions of meaning in language from several important perspectives that are of major interest to scholars today, bringing together studies from the realms of linguistic pragmatics, semantics, ontological knowledge engineering, and computational linguistics. Situated within modern functional-cognitive constructional-ontological and computational paradigms, the analyses here are supported by authentic language data, including corpus data, from a rich set of languages. Context and situation play an important but complex role in meaning elaboration. The role of context and situation is elusive and has proved difficult to elucidate with respect to meaning and knowledge representation. This volume provides evidence of the nature of the, often rapid, emergence of meaning in the digital world of the internet, social media, and Internet memes. The use of computational avatars and the rise of human language technologies, including big data and digital corpora, have made the construction of meaning and human language understanding essential to the work of linguists, cognitive scientists and computer scientists who are increasingly working together in collaborative teams to share insights.







On the Pragmatics of Communication


Book Description

This volume brings together Habermas's key writings on language and communication. Including some classic texts as well as new material which is published here for the first time, this book is a detailed and up-to-date introduction to Habermas's formal pragmatics, which is a vital aspect of his social theory. Written from 1976 to 1996, the essays show the extent to which formal pragmatics underpins Habermas's theory of communicative action. They are presented in chronological order, so that the reader can trace developments and revisions in Habermas's thought. The volume includes a critical discussion of Searle's theory of meaning, and Richard Rorty's neopragmatism. It concludes with Habermas's recent defence of his theory of communicative action, in which he reaffirms his view that interpretative understanding inescapably involves evaluation. This book will be an indispensable text for students and academics who want a clear and accessible introduction to the development of Habermas's theory of communication and its relation to his broader social and political theory.




Social Professional Activities and the State


Book Description

The guiding question of this work is the following: In which way, if at all, can we define a framework that allows a comparative view on social professional activity in an international perspective? Going beyond positivist research usually means to look for qualitative standards, however remaining caught by taking individual professions in a national setting from one country for granted and looking from what we know for 'counterparts' and/or 'partners' in other countries. To avoid the subsequent shortcoming of an underlying 'professional rigidity' we face the need of developing a functional perspective, focusing on the societies in which Social Professional Activities (SPA) emerge in their respective particular national patterns. This means, however, to start by defining 'the social' as determining societies in general, looking from there at different national patterns -- pragmatically but as well structurally the nation state will be taken as point of reference. In such a perspective, several current concepts have to be fundamentally questioned as far as the mainstream consensus is concerned. Terms in question are in particular: the social, professions and social problems - this is especially necessary when it comes to developing an international perspective. Despite the need of looking for a general definition of the social, there is in particular a more specific need for debating the understanding of different strands of activities that are - in the widest sense - captured as social professions, for example social work, community/youth work, nursing and care professions, but as well social management and social action (especially the latter pointing on the problematique of professionalisation in strictu sensu). International comparative research of social professional activities does not fail (primarily) because of the huge variety of national regimes and regulations. The actual reason is the fundamentally different point of departure, expressing various national traditions of the reasoning on the state - a reasoning being at the end a practical reasoning. In other words, we have to recur on the different national understanding of 'social contracts'. This approach allows taking a dialectical perspective in order to revisit the actual character of social professional activities. It is the practical confrontation of the individual with his/her environment that constitutes processes of socialisation.




British Sign Language


Book Description

This first linguistic study of British Sign Language is written for students of linguistics, for deaf and hearing sign language researchers, for teachers and social workers for the deaf. The author cross-refers to American Sign Language, which has usually been more extensively studied by linguists, and compares the two languages.




Text Knowledge and Object Knowledge


Book Description

Rothkegel argues that text production is the result of interaction between text knowledge and object knowledge – the conventional ordering and presentation of knowledge for communicative purposes and the conceptual organisation of world knowledge.