Books in the Linguistic Insights series

This volume explores intercultural communication in specialist fields and its realisations in language for specific purposes. Special attention is given to legal, commercial, political and institutional discourse used in particular workplaces, analysed from an intercultural perspective. The contributions explore to what extent intercultural pressure leads to particular discourse patternings and lexico-grammatical / phonological realisations, and also the extent to which textual re-encoding and recontextualisation alter the pragmatic value of the texts taken into consideration.

This empirical study examines the learning problem of the argument structure of psych predicates such as «The dog frightens John» and the related V-ing adjectives such as «The dog is frightening to John». The problem is theoretically interesting because of the marked nature of the thematic role mapping of these sentences in relation to the principle of the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH). The problem is highly relevant to our understanding of second language acquisition, as this is known to be a prevalent difficulty among language learners. The author has framed the learning problem within a coherent parametric framework drawing on a sophisticated critical review of the syntax/semantics literature and theories of L2 development. The author has specifically developed a theory, the «Semantic Salience Hierarchy Model» (SSHM), to explain the learning process. The significance of the model is not confined only to this particular study, as the issues related to the L2 acquisition of other causative verbs can also be examined within this model. The findings of this study also bear implications to TESOL.

The papers in this volume are devoted to new in-depth treatments of distinctive aspects of Chinese and Japanese syntax, semantics and pragmatics, informed by influential theoretical concepts of the day, including cognitive grammar, construction grammar, information structure, grammaticalization and linguistic typology.

Provides insights into historical aspects of language, particularly items regularly deployed for politeness functions, and the social, particularly interpersonal, contexts with which it interacts. This title also sheds light on how meanings are dynamically constructed in situ, and probes various theoretical aspects of politeness.

The studies presented in this volume concentrate on aspects of Late Modern English correspondence in the usage of individuals belonging to different social classes, writing for different purposes, and finding themselves in different social contexts, both in Britain and in its colonies. As the growing body of research published in recent years has shown, analysing the language of letters presents both a challenge and an opportunity to obtain access to as full a range of styles as would be possible for a period for which we only have access to the language in its written form. It is an area of study in which all the contributors have considerable expertise, which affords them to present data findings while discussing important methodological issues. In addition, in most cases data derive from specially-designed ¿second-generation¿ corpora, reflecting state-of-the-art approaches to historical sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Theoretical issues concerning letters as a text type, their role in social network analysis, and their value in the identification of register or variety specific traits are highlighted, alongside issues concerning the (often less than easy) relationship between strictly codified norms and actual usage on the part of speakers whose level of education could vary considerably.

What does learning a language involve? Obviously, a rapid and definitive answer cannot be provided for this question since the aspects and situations affecting language learning are many and varied. From the role of culture to the use of new technologies in foreign language learning, this work aims to offer its readers some of the current research being carried out in different areas relevant to the topic. A long developing project has become reality thanks to the work of several researchers who are also experienced teaching professionals. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that most chapters of the book relate to different aspects of language learning within the classroom context which has resulted in realistic approaches to foreign language learning that can be of great help to those involved and/or interested in this field. Moreover, the clear division into sections allows readers to make their choice on how to proceed with the reading of the book depending on their thematic interests. Five sections make up this practical work: culture and language learning, human resources in language learning, language learning strategies, language learning software and language learning web resources.

The focus of this volume is on the business letter genre, a seminal and widely used genre in business communication. Since the introduction of the Internet, interest in this genre has increased once again, because of the digital format of the letter. E-mail has partially taken over the multiple functions of the traditional business letter and bypassed, again partially, the fax. However, the letter has also survived in its written form. Since the 1990s, genre theory has been receiving a lot of attention, both in academic and pedagogical circles. Discourse analysts have increasingly discovered the importance of the genre concept for the understanding of discourse. Not only do we get a better understanding of the linguistic characteristics (register, lexico-grammatical features) of texts, but we also become aware of their macrostructures which appear to be organised according to genre expectations and conventions rooted in the socio-cultural context. This evolution is also reflected in the different research approaches to the business letter, as shown by the various chapters of this volume.

Has the internet changed the nature of conducting controversies? This question cannot be answered easily as different forms of human interaction in an online environment exist and controversies in an online environment have not been analyzed from a linguistic point of view so far. On the other hand, there are many linguistic analyses of controversies in the Early Modern Period. First, this volume describes the communicative background of two online discussion forums dedicated to the study of historical arms and armor. Then, the volume analyzes the similarities and differences between Early Modern controversies and controversies in online internet discussion forums. Further, this book offers an accurate analysis of the strategies used in online discussion forums, analyzing two controversial threads taken from two online discussion forums and provides insights into the individual tactics and strategies applied in online controversies and highlights the similarities and differences of applied principles, norms, and rules. The book finally comments on stylistic choices used by participants in the controversies.

This book contains a collection of original research articles on lexicography written by prominent international scholars within the field. It aims at describing the state-of-the-art in lexicography at the beginning of the 21 century and at making proposals for future theoretical and practical work in the field. Theoretical lexicography currently has two competing theories: a contemplative theory focusing on the description of existing dictionaries on the basis of linguistic principles, and a function-based, transformative theory focusing on the dictionary and the user in order to develop new principles for dictionary research and dictionary making. Research in lexicography has now reached a crossroads and it is time to take stock of the present situation and try to identify the theories and principles that will set the agenda and point the direction for future lexicographic research and the production of printed and electronic dictionaries.