Functional Approaches to Language
Functional Approaches to Language

Author: Shannon Bischoff

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-10-29

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 3110285320

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Functionalism, as characterized by Allen, (2007:254) "holds that linguistic structures can only be understood and explained with reference to the semantic and communicative functions of language, whose primary function is to be a vehicle for social interaction among human beings." Since the 1970s, inspired by the work of Jespersen, Bolinger, Dik, Halliday, and Chafe, functionalism has been attached to a variety of movements and models making major contributions to linguistic theory and to various subfields within linguistics, such as syntax, discourse, language acquisition, cognitive linguistics, typology, and documentary linguistics. Further, functional approaches have had a major impact outside linguistics in fields such as psychology and education, both in terms of theory and application. The main goal of functionalist approaches is to clarify the dynamic relationship between form and function (Thompson 2003:53). Functionalist perspectives have gained more ground over the past decades with more linguists resorting to functional explanations to account for linguistic structure. The authors in this volume present the current state of functional approaches to linguistic inquiry expanding our knowledge of language and linguistics.

Social and Functional Approaches to Language and Thought
Social and Functional Approaches to Language and Thought

Author: Maya Hickmann

Publisher: Brill

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the most fundamental and recurring issues in the social sciences--the relation between language and thought--is examined in this work from a broad and coherent interdisciplinary perspective. Many of the great historical issues are also addressed and newly examined such as: the multifunctionality of language, the role of "natural logic" in the structuring of linguistic rules, and the place of linguistic disambiguation and repair in particular cultures.

Contexts of Competence
Contexts of Competence

Author: Margie Berns

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1475798385

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The introduction of communicative competence as the goal of second and for eign language teaching has led to recognition of the role of context in language learning and use. As communicative competence is defined by the social and cultural contexts in which it is used, no single communicative competence can serve as the goal and model for all learners. This recognition has had an impact on program design and materials development. One significant change is that the choice of a teaching method is no longer the primary concern. Instead, the first step for the program designer is becoming familiar with the social and cultural features of the context of the language being taught. This includes a consideration of the uses speakers make of the language, their reasons for using it, and their attitudes toward it. Contexts of Competence: Social and Cultural Considerations in Commu nicative Language Teaching explores the relationship between context and com petence from a theoretical and practical perspective. Its audience is applied linguists in general and language teaching practitioners in particular. The overall aim of its five chapters is to provide a framework for consideration of various contexts of language learning and use and to guide the implementation and development of models of communicative language teaching that are responsive to the context-specific needs of learners.

The New Psychology of Language
The New Psychology of Language

Author: Michael Tomasello

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2014-06-05

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1317693515

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the point of view of psychology and cognitive science, much of modern linguistics is too formal and mathematical to be of much use. The New Psychology of Language volumes broke new ground by introducing functional and cognitive approaches to language structure in terms already familiar to psychologists, thus defining the next era in the scientific study of language. The Classic Edition volumes re-introduce some of the most important cognitive and functional linguists working in the field. They include a new introduction by Michael Tomasello in which he reviews what has changed since the volumes first published and highlights the fundamental insights of the original authors. The New Psychology of Language volumes are a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how cognitive and functional linguistics has become the thriving perspective on the scientific study of language that it is today.

Studies of Chinese Linguistics
Studies of Chinese Linguistics

Author: Janet Zhiqun Xing

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2009-02-01

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 9622099645

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The nine essays in this volume present the most recent developments in the study of Chinese linguistic research using functional approaches. Topics discussed in the volume include Chinese typology, word order variation, word formation, semantic change, cognition, discourse analysis, interface among syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and grammaticalization. Studies of Chinese Linguistics will be a valuable and stimulating reference for graduate students and researchers interested in functional linguistics. Readers in general and applied linguistics will also appreciate the insights it offers into the interaction of Chinese form and function.

Functionalism in Linguistics
Functionalism in Linguistics

Author: René Dirven

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1987-01-01

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 9027215243

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume offers a variety of viewpoints on the functional approach to the study of language. After an exposition of the Prague School functionalism, and Dik's and Halliday's functional approaches, it presents a wider area of text-linguistic, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, theoretical, descriptive and applied issues from a functional point of view, testifying of the very wide-spread and in-depth impact of functionalist thought on the present-day linguistic scene.

The Register-Functional Approach to Grammatical Complexity
The Register-Functional Approach to Grammatical Complexity

Author: Douglas Biber

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-31

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 1000481972

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This collection brings together the authors' previous research with new work on the Register-Functional (RF) approach to grammatical complexity, offering a unified theoretical account for its further study. The book traces the development of the RF approach from its foundations in two major research strands of linguistics: the study of sociolinguistic variation and the text-linguistic study of register variation. Building on this foundation, the authors demonstrate the RF framework at work across a series of corpus-based research studies focused specifically on grammatical complexity in English. The volume highlights early work exploring patterns of grammatical complexity in present-day spoken and written registers as well as subsequent studies which extend this research to historical patterns of register variation and the application of RF research to the study of writing development for L1 and L2 English university students. Taken together, along with the addition of introductory chapters connecting the different studies, the volume offers readers with a comprehensive resource to better understand the RF approach to grammatical complexity and its implications for future research. The volume will appeal to students and scholars with research interests in either descriptive linguistics or applied linguistics, especially those interested in grammatical complexity and empirical, corpus-based approaches.

English Tense and Aspect in Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar
English Tense and Aspect in Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar

Author: Carl Bache

Publisher: Equinox Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is aimed at fellow practitioners and researchers in functional linguistics. It offers a friendly but critical appraisal of a major component of the 'standard' version of SFL, i.e. the account given by Halliday and Matthiessen of tense and aspect in English. Supporting his criticisms with evidence from a project in corpus linguistics, Bache suggests that this account fails in several ways to satisfy accepted functionalist criteria, and hence needs revising and extending. After surveying alternative functionalist approaches to modelling time and tense in English (including Fawcett's Cardiff school approach and Harder's instructional-semantic approach), and after presenting a number of principles of category description, Bache goes on to offer an alternative SFL account of this area of grammar. In Bache's model, the focus is on the speaker's communicative motivation for choosing particular verb forms. The relevant choice relations are seen to draw on metafunctionally diverse resources, such as tense, action, aspect and other domains. The basically univariate, serial structure of the verbal group is accordingly enriched with certain characteristics associated with multivariate structures, and the idea of recursion is abandoned. Finally, Bache examines the descriptive potential of his model in connection with projection, conditions, and narration.

Functional Approaches to Language, Culture, and Cognition
Functional Approaches to Language, Culture, and Cognition

Author: David G. Lockwood

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 699

ISBN-13: 9027236682

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume contains functional approaches to the description of language and culture, and language and cultural change. The approaches taken by the authors range from cognitive approaches including Stratificational grammar to more socially oriented ones including Systemic Functional linguistics. The volume is organized into two sections. The first section 'Functional Approaches to the Structure of Language: Theory and Practice' starts with contributions developing a Stratificational model; these are followed by contributions focusing on some related functional model of language; and by articles describing some particular set of language phenomena.In the second section 'Functional Approaches to the History of Language and Linguistics' general studies of language change are addressed first; a second group of contributions examines language change, lexicon and culture; and the last cluster of contributions treats the history of linguistics and culture.

Language Form and Language Function
Language Form and Language Function

Author: Frederick J. Newmeyer

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9780262640442

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The two basic approaches to linguistics are the formalist and the functionalist approaches. In this engaging monograph, Frederick J. Newmeyer, a formalist, argues that both approaches are valid. However, because formal and functional linguists have avoided direct confrontation, they remain unaware of the compatability of their results. One of the author's goals is to make each side accessible to the other. While remaining an ardent formalist, Newmeyer stresses the limitations of a narrow formalist outlook that refuses to consider that anything of interest might have been discovered in the course of functionalist-oriented research. He argues that the basic principles of generative grammar, in interaction with principles in other linguistic domains, provide compelling accounts of phenomena that functionalists have used to try to refute the generative approach.