Ethnosyntax : Explorations in Grammar and Culture
Ethnosyntax : Explorations in Grammar and Culture

Author: N. J. Enfield

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2002-07-04

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0191581798

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a fresh and original approach to the 'ethnosyntax' concept - the proposition that the grammar of a language is intimately linked to the culture of its speakers. It focuses on three related questions: how far culture accounts for linguistic variation; how culture and grammar are connected; and to what extent one may constitute the other. It looks, for example, at the ways in which grammatical (including semantic) resources may be constrained by social values, and at the possible sociocultural significance of grammatical devices. The chapters add up to an important and timely contribution to the renewed debate among linguists and anthropologists on the relationship between grammar, culture, and cognition. The authors represent a wide range of research traditions, some of which have not until now explicitly addressed the grammar and culture issue. They consider the subject in the context of a wide range of cultures in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The clarity and accessibility of their writing, together with Dr Enfield's introduction to the field, make this not only a work or original value and impeccable scholarship, but an excellent modern textbook on a subject of enduring fascination in linguistics and anthropology.

Ethnosyntax
Ethnosyntax

Author: N. J. Enfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 9780199266500

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a fresh and original approach to the 'ethnosyntax' concept - the proposition that the grammar of a language is intimately linked to the culture of its speakers. It focuses on three related questions: how far culture accounts for linguistic variation; how culture and grammar are connected; and to what extent one may constitute the other. It looks, for example, at the ways in which grammatical (including semantic) resources may be constrained by social values, and at thepossible sociocultural significance of grammatical devices. The chapters add up to an important and timely contribution to the renewed debate among linguists and anthropologists on the relationship between grammar, culture, and cognition. The authors represent a wide range of research traditions, some of which have not until now explicitly addressed the grammar and culture issue. They consider the subject in the context of a wide range of cultures in North America, Europe, and Australasia.The clarity and accessibility of their writing, together with Dr Enfield's introduction to the field, make this not only a work of original value and impeccable scholarship, but an excellent modern textbook on a subject of enduring fascination in linguistics and anthropology.

The Semantics of Grammar
The Semantics of Grammar

Author: Anna Wierzbicka

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1988-01-01

Total Pages: 629

ISBN-13: 9027286124

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“The semantics of grammar” presents a radically semantic approach to syntax and morphology. It offers a methodology which makes it possible to demonstrate, on an empirical basis, that syntax is neither “autonomous” nor “arbitrary”, but that it follows from “semantics”. It is shown that every grammatical construction encodes a certain semantic structure, which can be revealed and rigorously stated, so that the meanings encoded in grammar can be compared in a precise and illuminating way, within one language and across language boundaries. The author develops a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals or near-universals (and, ultimately, on a system of universal semantic primitives), and shows that the same semantic metalanguage can be used for explicating lexical, grammatical and pragmatic aspects of language and thus offers a method for an integrated linguistic description based on semantic foundations. Analyzing data from a number of different languages (including English, Russian and Japanese) the author explores the notion of ethnosyntax and, via semantics, links syntax and morphology with culture. She attemps to demonstrate that the use of a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals makes it possible to rephrase the Humboldt-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in such a way that it can be tested and treated as a program for empirical research.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture
The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture

Author: Farzad Sharifian

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 1317743180

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture presents the first comprehensive survey of research on the relationship between language and culture. It provides readers with a clear and accessible introduction to both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies of language and culture, and addresses key issues of language and culturally based linguistic research from a variety of perspectives and theoretical frameworks. This Handbook features thirty-three newly commissioned chapters which cover key areas such as cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and sociolinguistics offer insights into the historical development, contemporary theory, research, and practice of each topic, and explore the potential future directions of the field show readers how language and culture research can be of practical benefit to applied areas of research and practice, such as intercultural communication and second language teaching and learning. Written by a group of prominent scholars from around the globe, The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture provides a vital resource for scholars and students working in this area.

Ethnopragmatics
Ethnopragmatics

Author: Cliff Goddard

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-04-20

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 3110911116

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The studies in this volume show how speech practices can be understood from a culture-internal perspective, in terms of values, norms and beliefs of the speech communities concerned. Focusing on examples from many different cultural locations, the contributing authors ask not only: 'What is distinctive about these particular ways of speaking?', but also: 'Why - from their own point of view - do the people concerned speak in these particular ways? What sense does it make to them?'. The ethnopragmatic approach stands in opposition to the culture-external universalist pragmatics represented by neo-Gricean pragmatics and politeness theory. Using "cultural scripts" and semantic explications - techniques developed over 20 years work in cross-cultural semantics by Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues - the authors examine a wide range of phenomena, including: speech acts, terms of address, phraseological patterns, jocular irony, facial expressions, interactional routines, discourse particles, expressive derivation, and emotionality. The authors and languages are: Anna Wierzbicka (English), Cliff Goddard (Australian English), Jock Wong (Singapore English), Zhengdao Ye (Chinese), Catherine Travis (Colombian Spanish), Rie Hasada (Japanese) and Felix Ameka (Ewe). Taken together, these studies demonstrate both the profound "cultural shaping" of speech practices, and the power and subtlety of new methods and techniques of a semantically grounded ethnopragmatics. The book will appeal not only to linguists and anthropologists, but to all scholars and students with an interest in language, communication and culture.

Language Structure and Environment
Language Structure and Environment

Author: Rik De Busser

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2015-06-15

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9027268738

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Language Structure and Environment is a broad introduction to how languages are shaped by their environment. It makes the argument that the social, cultural, and natural environment of speakers influences the structures and development of the languages they speak. After a general overview, the contributors explain in a number of detailed case studies how specific cultural, societal, geographical, evolutionary and meta-linguistic pressures determine the development of specific grammatical features and the global structure of a varied selection of languages. This is a work of meticulous scholarship at the forefront of a burgeoning field of linguistics.

The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology
The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology

Author: N. J. Enfield

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-09-11

Total Pages: 910

ISBN-13: 1139992325

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The field of linguistic anthropology looks at human uniqueness and diversity through the lens of language, our species' special combination of art and instinct. Human language both shapes, and is shaped by, our minds, societies, and cultural worlds. This state-of-the-field survey covers a wide range of topics, approaches and theories, such as the nature and function of language systems, the relationship between language and social interaction, and the place of language in the social life of communities. Promoting a broad vision of the subject, spanning a range of disciplines from linguistics to biology, from psychology to sociology and philosophy, this authoritative handbook is an essential reference guide for students and researchers working on language and culture across the social sciences.

Approaches to Language and Culture
Approaches to Language and Culture

Author: Svenja Völkel

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-08-22

Total Pages: 554

ISBN-13: 3110727153

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides an overview of approaches to language and culture, and it outlines the broad interdisciplinary field of anthropological linguistics and linguistic anthropology. It identifies current and future directions of research, including language socialization, language reclamation, speech styles and genres, language ideology, verbal taboo, social indexicality, emotion, time, and many more. Furthermore, it offers areal perspectives on the study of language in cultural contexts (namely Africa, the Americas, Australia and Oceania, Mainland Southeast Asia, and Europe), and it lays the foundation for future developments within the field. In this way, the book bridges the disciplines of cultural anthropology and linguistics and paves the way for the new book series Anthropological Linguistics.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis
The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis

Author: Bernd Heine

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 1217

ISBN-13: 0199677077

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This handbook compares the main analytic frameworks and methods of contemporary linguistics. It offers a unique overview of linguistic theory, revealing the common concerns of competing approaches. By showing their current and potential applications it provides the means by which linguists and others can judge what are the most useful models for the task in hand. Distinguished scholars from all over the world explain the rationale and aims of over thirty explanatory approaches to the description, analysis, and understanding of language. Each chapter considers the main goals of the model; the relation it proposes from between lexicon, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and phonology; the way it defines the interactions between cognition and grammar; what it counts as evidence; and how it explains linguistic change and structure. The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis offers an indispensable guide for everyone researching any aspect of language including those in linguistics, comparative philology, cognitive science, developmental philology, cognitive science, developmental psychology, computational science, and artificial intelligence. This second edition has been updated to include seven new chapters looking at linguistic units in language acquisition, conversation analysis, neurolinguistics, experimental phonetics, phonological analysis, experimental semantics, and distributional typology.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture
The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture

Author: Farzad Sharifian

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 724

ISBN-13: 1317743172

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture presents the first comprehensive survey of research on the relationship between language and culture. It provides readers with a clear and accessible introduction to both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies of language and culture, and addresses key issues of language and culturally based linguistic research from a variety of perspectives and theoretical frameworks. This Handbook features thirty-three newly commissioned chapters which cover key areas such as cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and sociolinguistics offer insights into the historical development, contemporary theory, research, and practice of each topic, and explore the potential future directions of the field show readers how language and culture research can be of practical benefit to applied areas of research and practice, such as intercultural communication and second language teaching and learning. Written by a group of prominent scholars from around the globe, The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture provides a vital resource for scholars and students working in this area.