First Published in 2006. This volume introduces and provides a semantic analysis of Discourse Adjectives, a natural class of adjectives that the author argues includes apparent, clear, evident, and obvious among its prototypical members. With a main claim that Discourse Adjectives do not provide information about the facts of the world. Rather, they are used by interlocutors to negotiate the status of propositions in a discourse.
For anyone approaching Discourse Analysis for the first time, theory means little when it is not related to actual knowledge and experience of language in use. Describing Discourse takes the unique approach of introducing discourse studies through the hands-on analysis of linguistic data. The book introduces students to specific discourses constructed for particular purposes, for example, from the domains of advertising, law, medicine and education. Each chapter provides examples, exercises and commentary designed to develop the analytical abilities needed in describing the characteristic forms and typical functions of different discourses. Describing Discourse provides the ideal entry into the study of discourse for students new to the subject.
Sensory Adjectives in the Discourse of Food presents a frame-based analysis of sensory descriptors. This book investigates the identification and usefulness of conceptual frames in three respects: First, an analysis of scientific language use shows that a semantic interpretation of the adjectives is dependent on the operationalizations performed in the field of sensory science. Second, a systematic frame semantic analysis of the descriptors sheds light on how meaning is constructed with regard to the lexemes’ wider context, from the utterance to the text type. Third, a comparison with German descriptors tests the applicability of a frame from one language to another (English – German). Framing presents itself as a means to capture the knowledge representation that underlies a particular discourse. With its detailed linguistic analyses and its interdisciplinary treatment of framing across discourse (specialized vs. public discourse), this book is interesting for researchers working within cognitive linguistics, terminology, and sensory science.
Discourse Description presents in one convenient volume a variety of approaches to text description that have been proposed in the linguistic literature in the last decade or so. The book is organized to make it easy to understand and compare the various approaches. Since all of the researchers are analyzing the same text, their differences are readily seen. The text they analyze is a letter, mailed in bulk by a Washington-based lobbying organization which is supported by contributions from donors. Far from simply informing the readers, the letter seeks to appeal to them on many levels, intellectual, emotional, and financial. It is a fascinating study in how texts do their work. Discourse Description is expected to serve both as a research document and as a case textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses in discourse and text analysis, as well as a resource for text analysts.
This book investigates context-sensitivity in natural language by examining the meaning and use of a target class of theoretically recalcitrant expressions. These expressions-including epistemic vocabulary, normative and evaluative vocabulary, and vague language ("CR-expressions")-exhibit systematic differences from paradigm context-sensitive expressions in their discourse dynamics and embedding properties. Many researchers have responded by rethinking the nature of linguistic meaning and communication. Drawing on general insights about the role of context in interpretation and collaborative action, Silk develops an improved contextualist theory of CR-expressions within the classical truth-conditional paradigm: Discourse Contextualism. The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the distinctive linguistic behavior of a CR-expression from a particular contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. It is shown how in using CR-expressions, speakers can exploit their mutual grammatical and world knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning skills, to coordinate their attitudes and negotiate about how the context should evolve. The book focuses primarily on developing a Discourse Contextualist semantics and pragmatics for epistemic modals. The Discourse Contextualist framework is also applied to other categories of epistemic vocabulary, normative and evaluative vocabulary, and vague adjectives. The similarities/differences among these expressions, and among context-sensitive expressions more generally, have been underexplored. The development of Discourse Contextualism in this book sheds light on general features of meaning and communication, and the variety of ways in which context affects and is affected by uses of language. Discourse Contextualism provides a fruitful framework for theorizing about various broader issues in philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science.
The book examines the ways in which adjectives contribute to the realization of the various language functions in several of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s (1914–2003) spirituality works and transcribed talks, as well as in their Romanian translated versions. In particular, it aims at offering an application of the communication theory (cf. Jakobson 1960/1987, Kinneavy 1980) to Metropolitan Anthony’s contemporary religious discourse and an investigation of the underlying lexical-semantic and pragmatic relations carried out by the adjectival class in order for discourse aim to be achieved. It also seeks to reveal the role of adjectives in the process of translation from English into Romanian, more specifically in preserving the source text functions in the target language. To this end, the study engages in an analysis of the hierarchical communicative functions in the corpus, as well as of the role played by adjectives both in the realization and transfer of the respective language functions. The present book, which may be of equal interest to researchers in linguistics and to theologians, demonstrates not only the pivotal role of adjectives in fulfilling communicative purposes specific to religious communication, but also their cohesive discourse role in Metropolitan Anthony’s legacy. At the same time, it highlights the outstanding status of the adjectival class in establishing the functional-cognitive correspondence between the source text and the target text in translation.
This study investigates three different postmodifying adjective constructions in the English language. While English adjectives generally precede the entities they modify, they may also occur in postmodifying position. This study assumes that the different postmodifying constructions are a positional variation of attributive premodification. The support for this claim is derived from a detailed analysis of the general syntax and semantics of adjectives as well as a cross-check of previous theories with a wide range of actual language examples taken from computerized corpora. An approach from the Prague School 'Functional Sentence Perspective' enables this study to accomplish an integrated view of adjectival postmodification.
This book brings together research on the semantics and pragmatics of adjectives and adverbs. It integrates lexical and compositional semantics and provides a full account of the structural and interpretive properties of adjectives and adverbs. It will interest students in linguistics and philosophy at graduate level and above.
Recommends that language teachers incorporate discourse and pragmatics in their teaching if they wish to implement a communicative approach in their classrooms. The authors show how a discourse perspective can enhance the teaching of traditional areas of linguistic knowledge and language skills.
