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This book is about one of the most fundamental action sequences found across human societies and socio-cultural contexts: polar questions and their responses. Question¿answer sequences are among the most basic building blocks for sequences of action in interaction and are ubiquitous among the languages of the world. Among different types of questions, polar questions are the most common, occurring with greater frequency in all studied languages. This volume presents a collection of conversation analytic studies into responses to polar questions across ten different, typologically diverse languages, in a range of action environments and social contexts. The studies explore different ways in which speakers can respond to polar questions, and the relationships between response design, the action implemented by the response, and the context in which it occurs. Taken together, the studies assembled in the volume present a nuanced view of polar responses as a situated social action.

This volume presents eight studies of linguistic phenomena in Nordic languages (notably Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) from a construction grammar perspective. The contributions both deepen and widen the focus of construction grammar applied to Nordic languages by dealing with a variety of topics, such as the constructional network, pseudo-coordination, additional language learning and emerging multilingualism, prototypical semantics in argument structure constructions, and domain-specific discourse and language behavior. The volume showcases the vibrant research activity within part of the construction grammar community dealing with Nordic languages, contributing to the knowledge about the structure, use and learning of these languages, as well as to the field of construction grammar as a whole.

Cross-linguistic research is a fruitful field of language inquiry that has benefited enormously from the use of corpora. As sources of linguistic data of various kinds and as tools for language processing, corpora have shaped the development of cross-linguistic research, enabling both language description and practical applications. This volume contains twelve studies that emphasize the usefulness and usability of parallel corpora in accurately exploring the structure and use of seven under-researched languages and language varieties. The first part emphasizes the role of corpus-based descriptive analyses at the lexicogrammatical and discursive levels, as a first step on the way towards concrete applications like translation or language teaching. The second part focuses on the role of parallel-corpus-based language processing techniques and applications that facilitate professional communication. This book will be of interest to scholars in contrastive linguistics, translation studies, discourse analysis, language teaching, and natural language processing.

Individual Differences in Anaphora Resolution: Language and cognitive effects explores anaphora resolution from different perspectives, and investigates various aspects of the phenomenon, as contributions include research protocols that combine old and new experimental methodologies as well as theoretical and empirical approaches. A central theme across volume contributions are the multiple linguistic and extralinguistic factors that constrain anaphora resolution, its processing and acquisition by a variety of populations (children and adults, monolinguals, bilinguals and second language learners) as well as the mechanisms underlying anaphora resolution. Anaphora resolution constitutes an ideal environment to test the interaction between domain-general cognitive systems and domain-specific linguistic sub-routines, since variability in referential preferences is not related to binding constraints (an integral part of syntax per se) but is closely tied to processing (functional constraints) modulated by the integration of discourse-filtered information.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in grammatical variation, a core explanandum of grammatical theory. The present volume explores questions that are fundamental to this line of research: First, the question of whether variation can always and completely be explained by intra- or extra-linguistic predictors, or whether there is a certain amount of unpredictable ¿ or `free¿ ¿ grammatical variation. Second, the question of what implications the (in-)existence of free variation would hold for our theoretical models and the empirical study of grammar. The volume provides the first dedicated book-length treatment of this long-standing topic. Following an introductory chapter by the editors, it contains ten case studies on potentially free variation in morphology and syntax drawn from Germanic, Romance, Uralic and Mayan.

This volume addresses the issue of pragmatic meaning and interpretation in communication contexts regarding health and does so by combining a series of diverse and complementary approaches, which together highlight the relevance of successfully shared understanding to achieve more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable healthcare systems. The volume is divided into five thematic sections: 1) Analytical approaches to health communication, 2) Intercultural and mediated communication, 3) Negotiation and meaning construction, 4) Expertise and common ground, 5) Uncertainty and evasive answers, bringing together a group of top scholars on the much-debated issue of shared understanding both at the micro-level of dialogues between professionals and patients, and the macro-level of institutional communication. In the variety of its contributions, it represents an ambitious attempt at setting pragmatics at the core of healthcare communication research and practice, by combining conceptual reflections on core topics in the field of pragmatics (among which are speech acts, common ground, ambiguity, implicitness), with discourse and linguistic analysis of real-world examples exploring various problems in health communication.

As a core component of legal language used to draft, enforce and practice law, legal terms have fascinated lawyers, linguists, terminologists and other scholars for centuries. Third in the series, this Handbook offers a comprehensive compendium of the current state of knowledge on legal terminology. It is the first attempt to bring together perspectives from the domains of Terminology, Translation Studies, Linguistics, Law and Information Technology in a single place. This interdisciplinary endeavour comprises systematic reviews, case studies and research papers which overview key properties of legal terms and concepts, terminological tools and resources, training aspects, as well as translation in national contexts and multilingual organizations. The Handbook attests to the complex multifaceted nature of legal terminology and showcases its cultural, communicative, cognitive and social contexts in diverse legal systems. It is a rich resource for scholars, practitioners, trainers and students, presenting vibrant research and practice in this area.

Urban Panamanian English presents the first detailed account of the English used by the descendants of the Afro-Caribbean builders of the Panama Canal. It offers an up-to-date sociolinguistic account of the Panamanian West Indian community of Panama City and Colón, including empirical coverage of the advanced state of language shift taking place among bilinguals. The book also showcases spoken interview data and takes stock of the variety‿s grammatical features. In particular, it provides an advanced quantitative study of variation in the use of verbal -s which contributes to longstanding discussions regarding the principles constraining this variable in Englishes world-wide. This work of documentation and description richly complements existing research on Panamanian Creole English and spotlights Panama as part and parcel of the English-speaking Caribbean. As such, this book is of interest to all scholars and students of language contact, variation, and change.

This volume presents innovative research on the interface between pragmatics and translation. Taking a broad understanding of translation, papers are presented in four different parts. Part I focuses on interpreting; Part II centers on the translation of fictional and non-fictional texts and spaces; Part III discusses audiovisual translation; and Part IV explores translation in a wider context that includes transforming senses and action into language. The issues that transpire as worth exploring in these areas are mediality and multi-modality, interpersonal pragmatics, close and approximate renditions, interpretese and translationese, participation structures and the negotiation of discourses and power.

This book is a phonological investigation of place assimilation phenomena in two major Arabic dialects: Cairene Egyptian and Baghdadi Iraqi. The studied phenomena involve interactions between consonants (various types of local assimilation), between vowels (monophthongization), or between consonants and vowels (emphasis spread and labialization). Throughout the content chapters, the patterns for each of these processes are carefully described and validated by ample data, and then analyzed representationally using a minimalist model of feature geometry. The analysis follows a holistic approach, as the representations are consistently used for all the segmental phenomena within a dialect. The first exclusive treatment of place assimilation in colloquial Arabic, this book will be of particular interest to scholars and advanced students of Arabic linguistics and dialectology, and to phonologists in general, and can be a point of reference for researchers examining the details of such phenomena in other dialects of Arabic as well.

This is a book in the classical Quaestiones genre, like the Tusculanae Quaestiones (“Tusculan questionsâ€?) of Cicero (around 45 BCE) and the Quÿstiones disputatÿ de Veritate (“disputed questions on truthâ€?) of St. Thomas Aquinas (1256-1259). It seeks to ask seven series of questions about key theoretical approaches to the study of translation: three on equivalence theories (semantic equivalence, dynamic equivalence, and deverbalization), three on Descriptive Translation Studies (norms, Toury‿s laws, and the translator‿s narratoriality), and one on the translator‿s visibility. Each “Questionâ€? (chapter) charts a circuitous course through past answers to new questions and new answers, drawing especially on the theoretical traditions of hermeneutics, phenomenology, and 4EA cognitive science. The book will guide both veteran and novice scholars of translation deep into the complexities besetting the seven keywords.

This book represents a detailed discussion and corpus analysis of Theme in English and German originals and translations. The empirical results are based on thousands of clauses from four different registers, cover a variety of linguistic aspects including multiple Themes, marked Themes, participant roles, agency, and identifiability, and are tested statistically using regression analyses. The book sheds light on one of the most elusive concepts of the systemic functional linguistics framework, Theme, by comparing it with different approaches, related concepts, and realizations in different languages and by examining empirically different Theme models, contrastive differences, and translation effects. Given that Theme in English and German is realized formally by being the first clause constituent and is thus, effectively, a syntactic phenomenon, this monograph is not only relevant for functional linguists, but any interested in English and German word order differences and their effects on translations.

Religious and Identity Conversions to Islam: A Transatlantic Study of Spaniards and US latinos examines how two groups with historical, cultural, and linguistic commonalities redefine their new religious identity and make sense of their conversion to Islam, not only as national groups but also, as Hispanos. In short, converts examine how history, culture, and language are utilized to make sense of their new religious identity and to legitimize their religious choices. History is then examined, one that is rooted in pre-colonized Spain, and not in colonizing Spain; culture is transformed by adopting new practices and omitting others; and language is strategized to redefine the new religious identity , which is carried out through loanwords, code-switching, transferences and other linguistic strategies. In short, this book represents the first transatlantic study of conversions to Islam among Spaniards and US latinos through the study of history, culture and language.

Text and Wine: Approaches from terminology and translation collects part of the results of the research project WeinApp: Multilingual System of Information and Winegrowing-Resources (MINECO, Ref. FFI2016-79785-R), carried out by researchers from the universities of Cordoba and Cadiz (Spain), on wine production, the wine sector, and its language and terminology in English, French, German and Spanish. The editors, principal investigators of the project, begin the volume, which contains works on phytopathology, lexical domains and subdomains, wine tourism, agro-legal texts, Indo-European languages, labelling, tasting metaphors, wine and literature, interpretation, wine and medicine, oenological websites, and lexical and morphosyntactic formation around the language of wine.

This book is the first edited volume to compile up-to-date scholarship that discusses frontier knowledge on second language (L2) collaborative writing (CW) and highlights technology-mediated solutions to it. The volume consists of conceptual papers and empirical studies that explore theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical approaches to CW in face-to-face, online, and hybrid learning contexts. The ten chapters of the book are divided into three sections: (1) theoretical perspectives and a methodological review of CW; (2) empirical research addressing the processes, products, and effects pertaining to CW; (3) pedagogical aspects relevant to CW, namely task design, technology use, and assessment. By examining the implementation of various CW tasks across modes, genres, and L2 learning settings, this book re-evaluates the practices of CW and illustrates how diverse forms of CW can facilitate students' L2 learning and writing development.

This book is a collection of studies about forms of address in the world‿s languages, with a focus on contrast and difference. The individual chapters highlight inter- and intralinguistic variation in the expression of address and its sociol-cultural functions across media, registers, geographical contexts and time ‿ in more than 15 languages. The volume showcases the variety of approaches that exists in current address research, including the breadth of contrastive methodologies harnessing surveys and questionnaires, focus group discussions, corpus linguistics, discourse and conversation analysis to offer complementary perspectives on culture-specific address practice. This volume is for students and researchers of address and social interaction in a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including various sub-disciplines of linguistics (such as contrastive, variational and intercultural pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and morphology) and intercultural communication, as well as experts in individual languages and qualitative sociologists.

The widespread view that risk is highly relevant in late modern societies has also meant that the very study of risk has become central in many areas of social studies. The key aim of this book is to establish Risk Discourse as a field of research of its own in language studies. Risk Discourse is introduced as a field that not only targets elements of risk, safety and security, but crucially requires aspects of responsibility for in-depth analysis. Providing a rich illustration of ways in which risk and responsibility can serve as analytical tools, the volume brings together scholars from different disciplines within the study of language. An Introduction and an Epilogue highlight the intricate relationship between risk and responsibility. Part 1 deals with expert and lay perspectives on risk; Part 2 with emerging genres for risk discourse; Part 3 with risk and technology and Part 4 with ways of managing risk. The topics covered ¿ such as COVID-19, nuclear energy, machine translation, terrorism ¿ are socially pertinent and timely.

The Sociophonetics of Dublin English shows how social inequalities and language are connected by the stances speakers take in interaction. It is based on an instrumental phonetic analysis of recorded interviews and broadcasting data and a detailed qualitative account of the same data as well as the socio-cultural context in Ireland. The analysis not only considers macro-social categories but also pragmatic norms and situational, more fluid aspects of communication. Contemporary social meanings and associated phonetic realisations are described and explained as the result of diachronic developments. Since the independence of Ireland local pronunciations have been re-evaluated and realisations connected with the former coloniser have fallen out of use even in formal and powerful domains. This investigation thus highlights the importance of diachronic data to understand contemporary sociolinguistic variation.

The present volume explores the meeting ground between Critical Discourse Studies and Cultural Linguistics. The contributions investigate culture-specific conceptualisations, ways of framing and conceptual metaphors in political discourse, as well as cultural models, cultural stereotypes and stereotyping. The individual authors use quantitative (e.g. corpus-based approaches) and/or qualitative methods. They address a range of contexts, e.g. Europe, the US, Japan, West Africa, and a variety of topics, e.g. migration, presidential elections, identity, food culture, concepts of health. The papers included in this volume show that ideologies, the key concern of Critical Discourse Studies, cannot be analysed independently of cultural conceptualisations. In a complementary, dialectic fashion, cultural conceptualisation, the central concern of Cultural Linguistics, have ideological implications, sometimes subtle, sometimes very straightforward. The present volume thus illustrates that travelling on this meeting ground is a natural and fruitful endeavour for both approaches.