Lexis in Contrast


Book Description

This work explores recent trends in cross-linguistic lexical studies. Topics include: lexis and contrastive linguistics; the revival of contrastive linguistics; multilingual corpora; theoretical and methodological issues; and types of cross-linguistic correspondence.




Lexis in Contrast


Book Description

This volume takes stock of current research in contrastive lexical studies. It reflects the growing interest in corpus-based approaches to the study of lexis, in particular the use of multilingual corpora, shared by researchers working in widely differing fields - contrastive linguistics, lexicology, lexicography, terminology, computational linguistics and machine translation. The articles in the volume, which cover a wide diversity of languages, are divided into four main sections: the exploration of cross-linguistic equivalence, contrastive lexical semantics, corpus-based multilingual lexicography, and translation and parallel concordancing. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction to recent trends in contrastive lexical studies written by the editors of the volume, Bengt Altenberg and Sylviane Granger.




Patterns in Contrast


Book Description

Combining the fields of phraseology and contrastive analysis, this book describes how patterns, defined as recurrent word-combinations with semantic unity, behave cross-linguistically. As the contrastive approach adopted in the book relies on translations and a bidirectional corpus model, the first part offers an in-depth discussion of contrastive linguistics, with special emphasis on using translations as tertium comparationis and a parallel corpus as the main source of material. Central to the contrastive analysis is the use of corpus-linguistic methods in the identification of patterns, while a deeper understanding of the phraseological nature of the patterns is closely related to the concept of extended units of meaning. The second part of the book presents five case studies, using an easy-to-follow step-by-step method to illustrate the phraseological-contrastive approach at work. The studies show that patterns weave an intricate web of meanings across languages and demonstrate the potential of exploring patterns in contrast.




Cross-linguistic Correspondences


Book Description

Contrastive Linguistics is an expanding field, as witnessed by the publication in recent years of an increasing number of monographs, collected volumes and journal articles. The present volume, which comprises an introduction and ten chapters dealing with lexical contrasts between English and other languages, shows advances within the well-established lexical work in the field. Each of the chapters takes lexical items as its starting point and compares English with one or more languages. The languages represented are Spanish, Lithuanian, Swedish, German, Norwegian and Czech. Furthermore, they emphasise the link between lexis and grammar, not only within the same language, but also across languages. Finally, several studies represent one of the more recent developments of contrastive linguistics, namely a growing focus on genre and register comparisons. The book should appeal to both established scholars and advanced students with an interest in lexis, genre, corpus linguistics and/or contrastive linguistics.




Languages and Cultures in Contrast and Comparison


Book Description

This volume explores various hitherto under-researched relationships between languages and their discourse-cultural settings. The first two sections analyze the complex interplay between lexico-grammatical organization and communicative contexts. Part I focuses on structural options in syntax, deepening the analysis of information-packaging strategies. Part II turns to lexical studies, covering such matters as human perception and emotion, the psychological understanding of ‘home’ and ‘abroad’, the development of children’s emotional life and the relation between lexical choice and sexual orientation. The final chapters consider how new techniques of contrastive linguistics and pragmatics are contributing to the primary field of application for contrastive analysis, language teaching and learning. The book will be of special interest to scholars and students of linguistics, discourse analysis and cultural studies and to those entrusted with teaching European languages and cultures. The major languages covered are Akan, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.




Corpora and Lexis


Book Description

The contributions in this volume provide a kaleidoscope of state-of-the-art research in corpus linguistics on lexis and lexicogrammar. Central issues are the presentation of major corpus resources (both corpora and software tools), the findings (especially about frequency) which are simply not accessible without such resources, their theoretical implications relating to both lexical units and word meanings, and the practical – especially pedagogical – applications of corpus findings. This is complemented by a lexicographer’s view on the data structures implicit in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The volume, which has sprung from the 36th ICAME conference, held in at Trier University in May 2015, will be of relevance for theoretical and applied linguists interested in corpora, word usage, and the mental lexicon.




From Minimal Contrast to Meaning Construct


Book Description

This book offers new perspectives on the study of Chinese lexical semantics, as well as discourse analysis and cognitive pragmatics based on lexical semantics. The first part focuses on fundamental issues in lexical semantic research, while the second features articles highlighting various aspects of the lexical category systems in Chinese. The third part discusses application-oriented research on lexical semantics. Presenting the latest research in the field, the book is a valuable resource for specialists in Chinese lexical semantics, as well as for researchers and students interested in grammar, theory of lexical semantics, and word/meaning processing.




Contrastive Corpus Linguistics


Book Description

Marking 30 years of contrastive corpus linguistics, this volume provides a state-of-the-art of the field, charting its development over time and expanding the boundaries of the discipline. Focusing on a diversity of methods and approaches to language comparison, it uses both comparable and translation corpora, and explores a broad range of language registers from newspaper reporting and spoken political discourse to film scripts and football match reports. Using English as the pivot language for each chapter, the volume offers contrastive bilingual and trilingual perspectives on a number of languages, including Czech, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish, covering a typologically diverse field. By exploring the application of complex multi-genre multilingual data sets and expanding the horizons of contrastive studies, it demonstrates how a juxtaposition of cross-linguistic and register variation can deepen our insight into language variation and use. The volume is dedicated to two prominent contrastive corpus linguists: Karin Aijmer and Bengt Altenberg, who have decisively shaped the discipline from its very beginnings. The book opens with a chapter by Aijmer, reflecting on the current breadth and future prospects of research in the area while pointing to emergent trends with an insight that only she can offer.




Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space


Book Description

The differences among functionalist, cognitivist and/or constructionist models are generally taken to be not absolute, but rather a matter of emphasis and degree, with an increasing permeability between paradigms arising from cross-fertilizing influences. This book further explores this burgeoning area of research through the notion of functional-cognitive space, namely, the topography of the space occupied by functional, cognitivist and/or constructionist models against the background of formalist approaches in general and of Chomsky’s Minimalism in particular. Specifically, the twelve contributions in the present volume update the reader on recent developments in functionalism (Systemic Functional Grammar, Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar) and cognitivism (Word Grammar, (Cognitive) Construction Grammar and the Lexical Contructional Model). Plotting cognitive-space proves particularly adequate for situating the six models represented in this volume, not only in relation to each other, but also potentially with respect to a wide spectrum of functionalist, cognitivist and/or constructionist models.




The Dynamics of Language Use


Book Description

This book brings together a collection of articles characterized by two main themes: the contrastive study of parallel phenomena in two or more languages, and an essentially functional approach in which language is regarded, first and foremost, as a rich and complex communication system, inextricably embedded in sociocultural and psychological contexts of use. The majority of the studies reported are empirical in nature, many making use of corpora or other textual materials in the language(s) under investigation. The book begins with an introductory section in which the editors provide surveys of the state of the art in both functional and contrastive linguistics. The other five sections of the volume are devoted to (i) a cognitive perspective on form and function, (ii) information structure, (iii) collocations and formulaic language, (iv) language learning, and (v) discourse and culture.