Reported Discourse - A Meeting Ground for Different Linguistic Domains
The present volume unites 15 papers on reported discourse from a wide genetic and geographical variety of languages. Besides the treatment of traditional problems of reported discourse like the classification of its intermediate categories, the book reflects in particular how its grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic properties have repercussions in other linguistic domains like tense-aspect-modality, evidentiality, reference tracking and pronominal categories, and the grammaticalization history of quotative constructions.
Over the years, pragmatics - the study of the use and meaning of utterances to their situations - has become a more and more important branch of linguistics, as the inadequacies of a purely formalist, abstract approach to the study of language have become more evident. This book presents a rhetorical model of pragmatics: that is, a model which studies linguistic communication in terms of communicative goals and principles of 'good communicative behaviour'.
Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation, 2nd Edition, provides an introduction to the study of language and applied linguistics for students who have had a minimum of exposure to the discipline of linguistics. Using clear, easy-to-understand explanations and examples, this text avoids the in-depth theoretical coverage found in texts written for those who specialize in linguistics or SLA. This book is perfect for students whose chosen fields require them to be acquainted with the ways language works, such as future teachers, psychologists, sociologists...
What is Meaning? Fundamentals of Formal Semantics is a concise introduction to the field of semantics as it is actually practiced. Through simple examples, pictures, and metaphors, Paul Portner presents the field’s key ideas about how language works. - explains the fundamental ideas and some of the most significant results of modern semantic theory - combines foundational discussion with simplified analyses of complex phenomena to provide readers with a sense of the fascination to be found in the details of the human language - includes exercises and thought-provoking questions to facilitate learning
Word in process - On the Interpretation, Acquisition, and Production of Words
This dissertation deals with the relation between words and meanings. Word meanings are flexible. The same word may have different interpretations, dependent on the context in which it occurs. In this thesis, the writer argues that a meaning is not a static property of a word but that it is the input to the process of the production of a word or it is the result of the process of interpretation. The focus of this thesis is on the factors that determine the outcome of these processes.
