Language Studies

Language Studies

Author: Andrew Littlejohn

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2012-12-04

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1443843865

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As a defining characteristic of what it means to be human, the use of language plays a central role in almost all human activity. Language functions as a cornerstone in the construction of our identity and in the relationships we build. It takes a central role in facilitating every enterprise we undertake, creates the thread which forms our own biographies, and enables us to play a part in the transmission and maintenance of our culture. This pervasive nature of language means that it may form the starting point for an investigation into virtually any aspect of social life. In recent years, this has led to a stretching of the boundaries of language studies, prompted by an intense cross-fertilisation of ideas with a wide range of disciplines. It is this cross-fertilisation which forms the focus of the present collection. Taken together, the thirteen papers it contains provide an absorbing, rich array of subjects touched by the centrality of language. Encompassing themes from social psychology, translation theory, computer science, forensics, educational policy, language change, archaeology, and literature, the collection demonstrates that the study of language offers limitless possibilities to aid an understanding of the world in which we live. International in scope, the collection includes contributions from scholars well-established in their fields, at work in Europe, the USA, the Middle East and Asia. As such, the collection offers a stimulating perspective for readers in a wide range of contexts, whether they themselves are principally concerned with language or are simply eager to see how the study of language may be relevant to their own discipline.


The Verb Phrase in English

The Verb Phrase in English

Author: Bas Aarts

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-02-14

Total Pages: 475

ISBN-13: 1107016355

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This volume features new and groundbreaking research on recent changes in the English verb phrase.


Investigating Content and Language Integrated Learning

Investigating Content and Language Integrated Learning

Author: Liss Kerstin Sylvén

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2019-01-18

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1788922433

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This book provides a rich and unique longitudinal account of content and language integrated learning (CLIL). The chapters report on the findings from a large-scale, three-year research project undertaken at senior high school level in Sweden. The ecological perspective, with quantitative and qualitative methods, gives voice to both learners and teachers, as well as being an excellent critical example of how such longitudinal research might be carried out. Through emic and etic approaches, the book provides insights into language learning outcomes, both with regard to the target language English and the majority language Swedish; learner motivation among CLIL and non-CLIL students; effects of extramural exposure to English; issues in relation to assessment in CLIL and much more. As a whole, the book offers an unprecedented overview of learner outcomes and detailed insights into the comparison of CLIL and non-CLIL education. While it is embedded in the Swedish context, the nature of this study means that it has strong implications on an international basis.


Stretched Verb Constructions in English

Stretched Verb Constructions in English

Author: D. J. Allerton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1134517416

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Constructions such as 'make an accusation against', or 'give one's approval for' can be seen as 'stretched' versions of simple verbs, such as 'accuse' or 'approve of'. What is the precise linguistic nature of stretched verbs, and how many basic types are there? What kinds of grammatical connections are involved, and what lexical limits are there on these constructions? What is their precise semantic value? These are some of the questions that this book sets out to answer in its investigation of stretched verb constructions.


Corpus Linguistics. Volume 1

Corpus Linguistics. Volume 1

Author: Anke Lüdeling

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 797

ISBN-13: 3110211424

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This volume provides an up-to-date survey of the field of corpus linguistics, a field whose methodology has revolutionized much of the empirical work done in most fields of linguistic study over the past decade. Corpus linguistics investigates human language by starting out from large collections of texts - spoken, written, or recorded. These language corpora, which are now regularly available in electronic form, are the basis for quantitative and qualitative research on almost any question of linguistic interest. Many techniques that are in use in corpus linguistics today are rooted in the tradition of the late 18th and 19th century, when linguistics began to make use of mathematical and empirical methods. Modern corpus linguistics has used and developed these methods in close connection with computer science and computational linguistics. The handbook sketches the history of corpus linguistics, shows its potential, discusses its problems, and describes various methods of collecting, annotating, and searching corpora as well as processing corpus data. It also reports case studies that illustrate the wide range of linguistic research questions addressed in corpus linguistics. The over 60 articles included in the handbook are divided into five sections: (1) the origins and history of corpus linguistics and surveys of its relationship to central fields of linguistics (2) corpus compilation (3) corpus types (4) preprocessing of corpora (5) the use and exploitation of corpora. The final section gives an overview of the results of corpus studies obtained in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, stylometry, dialectology, and discourse analysis. It also reports on recent advances made in human and machine translation, contrastive studies, computer-assisted language learning, and automatic summarization. The contributors to the volume are internationally known experts in their respective fields. The handbook is intended for a wide audience ranging from teachers, university students, and scholars to anyone interested in the use of computers in linguistic analyses and applications.


Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English

Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English

Author: Hans Lindquist

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9027222843

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Grammaticalization is an important concept in general and typological linguistics and a prominent type of explanation in historical linguistics. For historical corpus linguists, grammaticalization theory provides a frame of orientation in their effort to analyze and systematize a fast-accumulating mass of data. Students of grammaticalization have become increasingly aware of the potential of existing corpora and established corpus-linguistic methodology for their work. This book continues and develops the dialogue between the two fields. All the contributions are based on extensive use of various electronic corpora. Relating corpus practices to recent theoretical concerns of grammaticalization studies they deal with grammaticalization and historical sociolinguistics, lexicalization and grammaticalization, layering, frequency, grammaticalization and dialects, degrammaticalization and grammaticalization in a contrastive perspective. The papers show that a synthesis of corpus methodology and grammaticalization studies leads to new and interesting insights about the mechanisms of language change and the communicative functions of language.


Old and Middle English Sickness-nouns in Historical Perspective

Old and Middle English Sickness-nouns in Historical Perspective

Author: Marta Sylwanowicz

Publisher: Æ Academic Publishing

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 0996102108

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The monograph aims at filling a long-existing gap in English historical linguistics by offering a comprehensive account of the semantic development of Old and Middle English synonyms of the term sickness, and an examination of possible conditioning factors leading to the loss of Anglo-Saxon lexical items, presented within the context of previous research on the semantic change in general, and theoretical and practical discussion of English medieval medicine, in particular. Analyzing the origin and meaning of the terms within the overall structure of the lexical field, the author also considers different chronological layers of the sickness-nouns and the explicatory techniques used by the scribe when presenting those terms to their reader. The book will be of interest to lexicologists, scholars interested in historical language for specialized purposes, as well as historians of medicine.


The Cambridge History of the English Language

The Cambridge History of the English Language

Author: Richard M. Hogg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 828

ISBN-13: 9780521264778

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The volumes of The Cambridge history of the English language reflect the spread of English from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon England to its current role as a multifaceted global language that dominates international communication in the 21st century.