This book celebrates one of the lights of the field of child language, Melissa Bowerman, with contributions from leading experts who have been directly influenced by her work. It provides the most up-to-date statement of key positions and theorizing regarding fundamental questions in the field of child language development.

This book belongs to the rapidly growing field of historical pragmatics. More specifically, it aims to lend definition to the area of historical sociopragmatics. It seeks to enhance our understanding of the language of the historical courtroom by documenting changes to the discursive roles of the most active participant groups of the English courtroom (e.g. the judges, lawyers, witnesses and defendants) in the period 1640–1760. 

 

This volume provides a state-of-the-art treatment of research on language attrition, the non-pathological loss of a language through lack of exposure. It combines a review of past and present research with in-depth treatments of specific theoretical and methodological issues and reports on individual studies. Special prominence is given to the identification of problematic areas in attrition research, with a view to pointing out possible solutions.

This volume is a research monograph analysing the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from an ethnographic/linguistic point of view. The central proposition of this book is that the TRC can be regarded as a mechanism that leads to the hegemony of specific discourses, thus excercising power. The analysis illustrates how, through a certain type of reconciliation discourse constructed at the TRC hearings, a reconciliation-oriented reality took shape in post-TRC South Africa.

The selected contributions of this volume focus on various issues related to second language pedagogy and second language acquisition in the Japanese context. Part I covers such topics as discourse pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics in language teaching; the instruction of conversation through training in story telling skills; task activities as a means for grammarization in grammar teaching; the development of a computerized speaking test and a proficiency scale for EFL learners; and the social aspects of the language teacher expertise.