Kitāb Sībawayhi: Syntax and Pragmatics


Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the Kitāb Sībawayhi. It offers new insights into its historical and linguistic arguments and underlines their strong correlation. The decisive historical argument highlights al-Ḥīra’s role, not only as the centre of pre-Islamic Arabic culture, but also as the matrix within which early Arab linguistics grew and developed. The Kitāb’s value as a communicative grammar forms the crux of the linguistic argument. The complementarity of syntax and pragmatics is established as a condition sine qua non for Sībawayhi’s analysis of language. The benefits of a complementary approach are reflected in the analysis of nominal sentences and related notions of ibtidā’ and definiteness. The pragmatic principle of identifiability is uncovered as the ultimate determiner of word order.




The Theme-topic Interface


Book Description

The Theme-Topic Interface (TTI) gives a useful catalogue of approaches to the concept Theme in the analysis of Natural Language. The book is written with both theoretical and descriptive goals and aims to synthesize and revise current approaches to pragmatic functions. In addition, TTI explains that different thematic constructions in natural language reveal different discourse strategies related to point of view and speaker subjectivity, which shows the mutually supportive role of form and discourse function vis-á-vis each other. The book's value is enhanced by the use of natural language corpora, the Lancaster IBM Spoken English Corpus (LIBMSEC), and by running multivariate statistical tests, taking into account both segmental and suprasegmental features. The bibliography lists more than 600 publications providing ample material for further research into an integrated theory of language and its use. The indexes provide easy access to most authors mentioned and to the major concepts covered.




Identity and Pragmatic Language Use


Book Description

ELF (English as a lingua franca) research counters the monocentric view of English based on norms of native speakers of English, and supports any usages reflecting sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic reality of ELF communication. Such an approach empowers any speakers of English to contemplate their own varieties of English as legitimate, providing them greater options for positive self-identification. Based on qualitative and interpretive methodology, this book illustrates how Japanese L2 English users establish identities related to L2 English as part of their multiple identities, and how they explore new identity options through ELF. Moreover, the author demonstrates how power relations relating to English language are constructed through the participants’ experiences in ELF interactions. Also, analysis of the data reveals that to what degree the Japanese L2 English users wish to affiliate with particular groups in ELF interactions with people from diverse cultural background. Because of the multidisciplinary nature of the study, this book will appeal to a broad audience such as scholars and students who are interested in further understanding of identity and sociocultural issues involved in intercultural communication.




Introducing Pragmatics


Book Description

This innovative, comprehensive course textbook uses a clinical approach to explore pragmatics and pragmatic language skills. Drawing on authentic, real-life examples of pragmatic breakdown in children and adults who have developmental or acquired language disorders, Louise Cummings expertly guides readers to core insights and principles for understanding where context and meaning in human communication meet. Key features include: Chapter-opening learning objectives and chapter-closing summaries Authentic illustrative cases of atypical pragmatic interaction Exercises for checking knowledge and understanding Annotated recommended further reading A detailed glossary of important terms in pragmatics and clinical linguistics Aimed equally at undergraduate and graduate students who are coming to pragmatics for the first time, the text discusses the key issues and concepts of this field in a fascinating new way. With a common, easy-to-follow structure across chapters and a wealth of pedagogical resources, this is an essential text for students of linguistics and applied linguistics, communication studies, speech-language pathology, psychology and cognitive science, and beyond.




L2 Pragmatics in Action


Book Description

This is the first edited volume dedicated to both teachers and learners of second/foreign language (L2) pragmatics. It comprises a collection of studies that explore how teachers background and practices, and individual learners differences contribute to the teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics. Also included are chapters that present pedagogical approaches that bring teachers and learners together in action in the classroom setting. Written by an international team of experts, the volume examines the most relevant topics on instructional pragmatics in a variety of language contexts, including Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United States, and Vietnam. This global perspective represents a key contribution in the current increasingly multilingual and multicultural society. Taken together, the findings presented have diverse research and pedagogical implications, and provide new directions to explore L2 pragmatic competence. This innovative book will be a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students, as well as for language teachers and course developers.




Explorations in Internet Pragmatics


Book Description

This volume takes the reader on an exploration in the dynamics underlying digital interaction. The chapters investigate the ways in which individuals shape and interpret intentions, construct identities, and engage in interpersonal exchanges. Online platforms from forums and Wikipedia to Periscope, YouTube and WhatsApp are approached with multifaceted qualitative methods. Aside from English, languages studied include Bangla, Finnish, French, Hindi, Hungarian, Lithuanian, and Norwegian. The range of phenomena, platforms and languages shed light on the complex and nuanced ways of communication in digital spaces.




Discourse Topics


Book Description

Discourse topics are a frequently mentioned but rarely operationalised concept in linguistics. Taking a text linguistic approach and defining discourse topics as clusterings of concepts, this book examines and compares methods for investigating topic boundaries, topic identification and topic development. The first book to be devoted to topics in extended discourse, Discourse Topics examines topics in several genres and generates new insights into the nature of discourse topics that challenge the status quo. It is essential reading for researchers in linguistics, discourse analysis, natural language processing and psychology whose work concerns topics.




Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics


Book Description

Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics, Second Edition (COPE) is an authoritative single-volume reference resource comprehensively describing the discipline of pragmatics, an important branch of natural language study dealing with the study of language in it's entire user-related theoretical and practical complexity. As a derivative volume from Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition, it comprises contributions from the foremost scholars of semantics in their various specializations and draws on 20+ years of development in the parent work in a compact and affordable format. Principally intended for tertiary level inquiry and research, this will be invaluable as a reference work for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics inquiring into the study of meaning and meaning relations within languages. As pragmatics is a centrally important and inherently cross-cutting area within linguistics, it will therefore be relevant not just for meaning specialists, but for most linguistic audiences. Edited by Jacob Mey, a leading pragmatics specialist, and authored by experts The latest trends in the field authoritatively reviewed and interpreted in context of related disciplines Drawn from the richest, most authoritative, comprehensive and internationally acclaimed reference resource in the linguistics area Compact and affordable single volume reference format




Translational Action and Intercultural Communication


Book Description

Translation and interpreting studies and intercultural communication have so far largely been treated as separate disciplines. Translational Action and Intercultural Communication offers an overview of a range of different theoretical and methodological approaches to examining the hitherto largely ignored connection between the two research strands. Drawing on three key concepts ('functional equivalence', 'dilated speech situation' and 'intercultural understanding'), this interdisciplinary volume attempts to interrelate the following thematic strands: procedures of mediating between cultures in translational action, problems of intercultural communication in translational action, and insights into intercultural communication based on analyses of translational action. The volume features both contrastive papers and papers which investigate communicative events in actu. The analyses presented deal with a variety of genres and types of interaction, including children's books, speech acts in dramatic text, popular science and economic texts, excerpts from intercultural university encounters, phatic talk, toast giving and medical communication.