How do we know a cat is a cat? And why do we call it a cat? How much of our perception of things is based on cognitive ability, and how much on linguistic resources? Here, in six remarkable essays, Umberto Eco explores in depth questions of reality, perception, and experience. Basing his ideas on common sense, Eco shares a vast wealth of literary and historical knowledge, touching on issues that affect us every day. At once philosophical and amusing, Kant and the Platypus is a tour of the world of our senses, told by a master of knowing what is real and what is not.
The articles in this volume analyse the noun phrase within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), the successor to Simon C. Dik's Functional Grammar. In its current form, FDG has an explicit top-down organization and distinguishes four hierarchically organized, interacting levels: (i) the interpersonal level (language as communicational process), (ii) the representational level (language as a carrier of content), (iii) the morphosyntactic level and (iv) the phonological level.
This book addresses a number of salient issues related to foreign language (FL) teaching, learning, and acquisition. Its ultimate goal is to help prospective FL teachers understand the theories and practices in FL education while making such connection more accessible. The selection of topics has been made considering primarily their relevance in the learning-acquisition process of second language (L2) learners and the challenge they pose to beginning FL teachers and interns (student-teachers).
This book is the result of a year-long research project conducted during 1999–2000 at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, in collaboration with four experienced FL high school teachers from the same region. This project was funded by the Schools’ Partnership Grant and the BellSouth Foundation. The main contribution of this book to the FL profession is the integration of the theoretical and practical planes. Both the knowledge of researchers and the voices of experienced FL teachers are brought together. This link aims at helping ease the tension that beginning teachers and interns experience when they move from the FL methods course into the real FL classroom. This connection, in turn, will provide FL interns with a realistic view of FL education.
The book is designed to be used in an introductory course for under-graduate or graduate students. The goal is to make the information contained herein available to students with a wide variety of background knowledge. The book can be used with those with a background in language and/or linguistics and those with little or no background in these areas. The book developed out of our belief that the complexities of the field can and should be brought to the attention of many students, both those who are intending to delve further into the field and those who are only curious about the pervasive phenomenon of learning a second language.
