Meaning Through Language Contrast


Book Description

In four parts, this title deals with: grammaticalization; metaphor in contrast; cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts; and the semantics/pragmatics boundary - theory and applications.




Meaning Through Language Contrast


Book Description

These volumes contain selected papers from the Second International Conference on Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics that was held at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, in September 2000. They include papers on negation, temporality, modality, evidentiality, eventualities, grammar and conceptualization, grammaticalization, metaphor, cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. There are contributions by, amongst many others, Les Bruce, Ilinca Crainiceanu, Thorstein Fretheim, Saeko Fukushima, Ronald Geluykens, Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach, Klaus von Heusinger, K. M. Jaszczolt, Susumu Kubo, Akiko Kurosawa, Eva Lavric, Didier Maillat, Márta Maleczki, Steve Nicolle, Sergei Tatevosov, L. M. Tovena, Jacqueline Visconti and Krista Vogelberg.




Meaning Through Language Contrast


Book Description

These volumes contain selected papers from the Second International Conference on Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics that was held at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, in September 2000. They include papers on negation, temporality, modality, evidentiality, eventualities, grammar and conceptualization, grammaticalization, metaphor, cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. There are contributions by, amongst many others, Les Bruce, Ilinca Crainiceanu, Thorstein Fretheim, Saeko Fukushima, Ronald Geluykens, Javier Gutierrez-Rexach, Klaus von Heusinger, K. M. Jaszczolt, Susumu Kubo, Akiko Kurosawa, Eva Lavric, Didier Maillat, Marta Maleczki, Steve Nicolle, Sergei Tatevosov, L. M. Tovena, Jacqueline Visconti and Krista Vogelberg.




Translation Competence and Language Contrast – A Multi-Method Study


Book Description

Experience in translation does not always correlate with the quality of the target text. Also, the evaluations of translation work vary considerably among evaluators. Why not shifting the focus of attention from the final translation to the underlying translation process when assessing translation competence? Iryna Kloster applies a multi-method approach to model the translation competence based on empirical parameters, such as gaze behavior, dictionary use, revisions as well as subjective evaluations of comprehension and translation difficulty. Eye tracking, keystroke logging, screen recording and retrospective interviews were applied to collect data in the experimental groups consisting of novice and semi-professional translators. As a consequence, the author suggests using language contrasts for researching translation competence. She draws conclusions based on hypotheses testing, provides justification by triangulating quantitative and qualitative data and discusses the results in the light of empirical translation studies as well.




Analogy and Contrast in Language


Book Description

Within cognitive and functional approaches to language structure and grammaticality, analogy and contrast represent two fundamental human cognitive capacities, which, up to now, have mostly been examined separately. This volume seeks to bridge that gap and in doing so it brings together cutting-edge theoretical and empirical research in the field. The chapters in this book examine analogy and contrast across a variety of languages (English, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian), for different language phenomena (constructions, lexical semantics, morphology, sentence structure, text organization), and with the use of various methods (corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, experimental methods, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis). This state-of-the-art research presented in the book should be of interest to specialists within Cognitive Linguistics, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, discourse analysis, translation studies, metaphor research, and cross-cultural research.




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.




The Grammatical Realization of Polarity Contrast


Book Description

The polarity of a sentence is crucial for its meaning. It is thus hardly surprising that languages have developed devices to highlight this meaning component and to contrast statements with negative and positive polarity in discourse. Research on this issue has started from languages like German and Dutch, where prosody and assertive particles are systematically associated with polarity contrast. Recently, the grammatical realization of polarity contrast has been at the center of investigations in a range of other languages as well. Core questions concern the formal repertoire and the exact meaning contribution of the relevant devices, the kind of contrast they evoke, and their relation to information structure and sentence mood. This volume brings together researchers from a theoretical, an empirical, and a typological orientation and enhances our understanding of polarity with the help of in-depth analyses and cross-linguistic comparisons dealing with the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and/or prosodic aspects of the phenomenon.




On Information Structure, Meaning and Form


Book Description

This collection of articles offers a new and compelling perspective on the interface connecting syntax, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. At the core of this volume is the hypothesis that information structure represents the common interface of these grammatical components. Information structure is investigated here from different theoretical viewpoints yielding typologically relevant information and structural generalizations. In the volume's introductory chapter, the editors identify two central approaches to information structure: the formal and the interpretive view. The remainder of the book is organized accordingly. The first part examines information structure and grammar, concentrating on generalizations across languages. The second part investigates information structure and pragmatics, concentrating on clause structure and context. Through concrete analyses of topic, focus, and related phenomena across different languages, the contributors add new and convincing evidence to the research on information structure.




Contrastive Studies in Morphology and Syntax


Book Description

Using different theoretical approaches and frameworks, this book addresses a broad range of themes in contrastive linguistics, including inflection, derivation and compounding, tense, wh-questions, post-verbal subjects, focus and clitics, among others. Comparing English, German, Greek, Romance, Slavic and South Pacific languages, the book highlights the significance of the contrastive perspective for language-specific description and general interface issues, casting light on contrasts between languages at the levels of morphology and syntax. In this respect, it makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of language typology and language universals.




Language and Music as Cognitive Systems


Book Description

The past 15 years have witnessed an increasing interest in the comparative study of language and music as cognitive systems. Language and music are uniquely human traits, so it is not surprising that this interest spans practically all branches of cognitive science, including psychology, computer science, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and education. Underlying the study of language and music is the assumption that the comparison of these two domains can shed light on the structural and functional properties of each, while also serving as a test case for theories of how the mind and, ultimately, the brain work. This book presents an interdisciplinary study of language and music, bringing together a team of leading specialists across these fields. The volume is structured around four core areas in which the study of music and language has been particularly fruitful: (i) structural comparisons, (ii) evolution, (iii) learning and processing, and (iv) neuroscience. As such it provides a snapshot of the different research strands that have focused on language and music, identifying current trends and methodologies that have been (or could be) applied to the study of both domains, and outlining future research directions. This volume is valuable in promoting the investigation of language and music by fostering interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration. With an ever increasing interest in both music cognition and language, this book will be valuable for students and researchers of psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and musicology.