Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. The ransom note for Jon Benet Ramsey. The anthrax letters threatening our government and media agencies. With the aid of forensic linguistics, the words criminals leave behind in their unsigned letters can be as distinctive as a signature or voice. Although the linguistic study of language is well established, this important analytical tool is something new for many jurors, judges, attorneys, and other forensic specialists dealing with both criminal and civil cases.
The proposition that there is a correlation between language and
culture or culture-specific ways of thinking can be traced back to the
views of Herder and von Humboldt in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries. It is generally accepted today that a language, especially
its lexicon, influences its speakers' cultural patterns of thought and
perception in various ways, for example through a culture-specific
segmentation of the extralinguistic reality, the frequency of
occurrence of particular lexical items, or the existence of keywords or
key word combinations revealing core cultural values. The aim of this
volume is to explore the cultural dimension of a wide range of
preconstructed or semi-preconstructed word combinations in English. The
17 papers of the volume are divided into four sections, focusing on
particular lexemes (e.g. enjoy and its collocates), types of word
combinations (e.g. proverbs and similes), use-related varieties (such
as the language of tourism or answering-machine messages), and
user-related varieties (such as Aboriginal English or African English).
Semantics: A Reader contains a broad selection of classic articles on
semantics and the semantics/pragmatics interface. Comprehensive in the
variety and breadth of theoretical frameworks and topics that it
convers, it includes articles representative of the major theoretical
frameworks within
semantics, including: discourse representation theory, dynamic
predicate logic, truth theoretic semantics, event semantics, situation
semantics, and cognitive semantics.
All the major topics in semantics are covered, including lexical
semantics and the semantics of quantified noun phrases, adverbs,
adjectives, performatives, and interrogatives. Included are classic
papers in the field of semantics as well as papers written especially
for the volume. The volume
comes with an extensive introduction designed not only to provide an
overview of the field, but also to explain the technical concepts the
beginner will need to tackle before the more demanding articles.
Semantics will have appeal as a textbook for upper level and graduate
courses and as a reference
for scholars of semantics who want to the classic articles in their field in one convenient place.
Now fully updated, this guide to research work continues to be indispensable for students at school, college or university.
In
this new edition, Ralph Berry sets out in clear and concise terms the
student's main tasks in the order in which they will be encountered,
covering:
* choosing a topic
* using the library
* taking notes
* shaping and composing the project
* writing cross-references and bibliography
An important new chapter focuses on conducting research via the Internet, and how the www is changing research methods in virtually all disciplines.
The Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics is a major new reference that presents a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical concepts and theoretical models of Cognitive Linguistics, and covers its various subfields, theoretical as well as applied.
