Formal Models in the Study of Language


Book Description

This volume presents articles that focus on the application of formal models in the study of language in a variety of innovative ways, and is dedicated to Jacques Moeschler, professor at University of Geneva, to mark the occasion of his 60th birthday. The contributions, by seasoned and budding linguists of all different linguistic backgrounds, reflect Jacques Moeschler’s diverse and visionary research over the years. The book contains three parts. The first part shows how different formal models can be applied to the analysis of such diverse problems as the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of tense, aspect and deictic expressions, syntax and pragmatics of quantifiers and semantics and pragmatics of connectives and negation. The second part presents the application of formal models to the treatment of cognitive issues related to the use of language, and in particular, demonstrating cognitive accounts of different types of human interactions, the context in utterance interpretation (salience, inferential comprehension processes), figurative uses of language (irony pretence), the role of syntax in Theory of Mind in autism and the analysis of the aesthetics of nature. Finally, the third part addresses computational and corpus-based approaches to natural language for investigating language variation, language universals and discourse related issues. This volume will be of great interest to syntacticians, pragmaticians, computer scientists, semanticians and psycholinguists.




The Evolution of EMI Research in European Higher Education


Book Description

This book presents state-of-the-art research into English-medium instruction (EMI) in European higher education over the last 20 years, offering a comprehensive comparative analysis toward identifying gaps in our understanding of relevant theories, research, and practice. Molino, Dimova, Kling, and Larsen argue for the need to take stock of the progression of EMI research in European higher education in order to consolidate scholarship and better inform EMI implementation in new contexts. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of EMI implementation, including policies, attitudes, language use, assessment, training, learning outcomes, identity, and intercultural communication across five different countries: Denmark, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. The book brings together the authors' collective work on an annotated database of over 200 resources, featuring a range of publications of varying format, type, and language, as well as information on relevant research questions, methodologies, and findings. This detailed approach allows in-depth discussions on the most widely researched areas in EMI as well as those under-explored toward outlining a way forward for future research in both the European higher education context and on a global scale. This book will be key reading for scholars working in English-medium instruction, world Englishes, English as an international language, English as a lingua franca, and applied linguistics.




Keats's Places


Book Description

As the essays in this volume reveal, Keats’s places could be comforting, familiar, grounding sites, but they were also shifting, uncanny, paradoxical spaces where the geographical comes into tension with the familial, the touristic with the medical, the metropolitan with the archipelagic. Collectively, the chapters in Keats’s Places range from the claustrophobic stands of Guy’s Hospital operating theatre to the boneshaking interior of the Southampton mail coach; from Highland crags to Hampstead Heath; from crowded city interiors to leafy suburban lanes. Offering new insights into the complex registrations of place and the poetic imagination, the contributors to this book explore how the significant places in John Keats’s life helped to shape an authorial identity.




Food Across Cultures


Book Description

This edited volume brings together original sociolinguistic and cultural contributions on food as an instrument to explore diasporic identities. Focusing on food practices in cross-cultural contact, the authors reveal how they can be used as a powerful vehicle for positive intercultural exchange either though conservation and the maintenance of cultural continuity, or through hybridization and the means through which migrant communities find compromise, or even consent, within the host community. Each chapter presents a fascinating range of data and new perspectives on cultures and languages in contact: from English (and some of its varieties) to Italian, German, Spanish, and to Japanese and Palauan, as well as an exemplary range of types of contact, in colonial, multicultural, and diasporic situations. The authors use a range of integrated approaches to examine how socio-linguistic food practices can, and do, contribute to identity construction in diverse transnational and diasporic contexts. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of translation, semiotics, cultural studies and sociolinguistics.




Controversies in the Contemporary World


Book Description

Inspired by Marcelo Dascal’s theory of controversies, this volume includes studies in the theory of controversies, studies of the history of controversy forms and their evolution, and case-studies of particular historical and current controversies. The purpose of this volume is to identify a taxonomy of controversies and also to sense a line of development for the phenomenon of controversies itself. At the same time, we want to ask ourselves about the impact and the spread of controversies in the contemporary world, eminently intended as a heuristic element facilitating knowledge. For all these reasons, the fundamental aim of the volume is to provide the reader with a selection of current theoretical and practical perspectives on controversies, and to offer a broad picture of the complex range of definitions, meanings and practices connected to them.




Emilio Salgari


Book Description

Who created the most famous Southeast Asian hero during the heyday of imperialism and colonialism? Who inaugurated with The Mysteries of the Black Jungle over a century long link uniting the Italian imaginary to the Indian one? Who envisioned the most celebrated interracial love stories of world literature, those between Sandokan, leader of the Tigers of Mompracem, and Marianna, the Pearl of Labuan, between Tremal-Naik, the Bengali snake catcher, and Ada, the Virgin of Kali’s temple at the time of the British Raj? Who defined the Caribbean as a symbolic trope of plunder and rebellion through the melancholic viewpoint of the Black Corsair and the forsaken love for his enemy’s daughter? Who created Yanez de Gomera, a most famous Portuguese hero, and the imperfect voice of white anti-colonialism? It was Italy’s great adventure novelist, Emilio Salgari (Verona, 1862 – Turin, 1911). From the Mahdi’s revolt in Sudan to the African slave trade, from the Philippine insurgency to the Mediterranean at war between Turks and Christians, and to ancient Egypt, Salgari’s breath-taking plots, together with his indigenous heroes and heroines in Vietnam, Thailand, Venezuela, Arctic Canada, the American Far West, the Chinese diaspora, deeply challenge canonical colonialist representations by contemporary Victorian authors like Conrad, Kipling, and Forster.




The Multimodal Analysis of Television Commercials


Book Description

Esta colección incluye una rica variedad de enfoques a los complejos entendimientos de los sureños con el cambio y los avances reflejados en la literatura, la historia y la cultura de esta región tan característica. Los colaboradores de ambas partes del Atlántico abordan viajes introspectivos de peregrinación literaria, arrojan nueva luz sobre la historia del movimiento de los derechos civiles, así como su reflejo en la literatura, analizan las transacciones desde la literatura hacia el cine, trazan las peregrinaciones religiosas tanto en la historia como en el cine, y siguen a un gran número de autores y personajes literarios en sus viajes a través del Sur o en su huida forzosa o voluntaria de él, en busca de otros lugares donde puedan hallar refugio o donde puedan sembrar las simientes de un nuevo comienzo.




Computational Models of Argument


Book Description

Argumentation, which has long been a topic of study in philosophy, has become a well-established aspect of computing science in the last 20 years. This book presents the proceedings of the fifth conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA), held in Pitlochry, Scotland in September 2014. Work on argumentation is broad, but the COMMA community is distinguished by virtue of its focus on the computational and mathematical aspects of the subject. This focus aims to ensure that methods are sound – that they identify arguments that are correct in some sense – and provide an unambiguous specification for implementation; producing programs that reason in the correct way and building systems capable of natural argument or of recognizing argument. The book contains 24 long papers and 18 short papers, and the 21 demonstrations presented at the conference are represented in the proceedings either by an extended abstract or by association with another paper. The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves argumentation as it relates to artificial intelligence.




Research on Integrating Language and Content in Diverse Contexts


Book Description

Co-published with The International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF), the ninth volume in the Global Research on Teaching and Learning English series presents research on the practice of integrating content and language in diverse contexts where English is used as a medium of instruction. With chapters written by TIRF Doctoral Dissertation Grant awardees and other scholars, the volume offers an overview of a wide range of methodological approaches to teaching content in English to English learners and examines factors that impede or contribute to effective instruction. The chapters include findings from original empirical research, as well as overviews of existing research and model programs, providing valuable insights and taking into account a multitude of contextual features. Offering up-to-date research on integrating language and content at the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels, this book familiarizes readers with the latest advances in theory and practice. It is a key text for teacher education courses for preservice teachers, a resource for professional development programs for practicing teachers, and a useful reference for researchers.




Student Perspectives on English-Medium Instruction


Book Description

This book offers a window into student perceptions of English-Medium Instruction (EMI), building on research from an Italian university to provide a better understanding of attitudes toward EMI in Europe and future directions for cross-country comparative research. The volume provides context on the current situation with EMI in Italy, unpacking debates around the tensions between the increased competitiveness it brings at the higher education level with the potential detrimental impact of English on local language practices. Seeking to introduce a counterpoint to existing research on lecturer experiences, Guarda draws on a wide range of data, from online questionnaires to semi-structured interviews and a focus group, to showcase perceptions on EMI from students enrolled in English-Taught Programmes at the University of Padova over a two-year period. The resulting insights contribute to the current literature on EMI toward creating a clearer and more holistic picture of the advantages and challenges of learning through English and implications for quality improvement measures for EMI implementation in Italy, Europe and beyond. This book will be of interest to scholars in English-Medium Instruction and applied linguistics, especially to those working on issues around language policy, bilingual education and the internationalisation of higher education.