This collection of 19 articles comes out of the 1999 International Symposium of Linguistic Politeness, held in Bangkok, Thailand. The contributions span a wide geographical and linguistic array, ranging all the way from Ireland and England over Sweden to China and Japan, from Australia over Thailand to Greece and Spain. Also, the languages represented are quite untypical for studies in this field: more than half of the contributions (even if not counting the three plenaries) stem from people working in such fields as Chinese, Japanese or Thai.
As linguists, we know that language matters. But to many people it might come as a surprise to realize that when students begin their university life, some of their main problems are linguistic ones. When students fail to communicate with professors in an appropriate register, or allow the relaxed style of a lecture to disrupt the formality of a term paper, they are falling into linguistic traps for which no one has prepared them. For non-native speakers, the difficulties may be particularly acute, but even for natives, mastering a range of new registers can pose serious difficulties. Yet this problem often passes unnoticed, perhaps because people are almost as oblivious to language as to the air they breathe or because tools have not been available to research the situation objectively.
Drawing on both original texts and critical literature, Linguistics in a Colonial World surveys the methods, meanings, and uses of early linguistic projects around the world.
Explores how early endeavours in linguistics were used to aid in overcoming practical and ideological difficulties of colonial rule
Traces the uses and effects of colonial linguistic projects in the shaping of identities and communities that were under, or in opposition to, imperial regimes
Examines enduring influences of colonial linguistics in contemporary thinking about language and cultural difference
Brings new insight into post-colonial controversies including endangered languages and language rights in the globalized twenty-first century
Philosophy of Language introduces the non-specialist to the main issues and theories in twentieth-century philosophy of language, focusing specifically on linguistic phenomena. Part I explores several theories of how proper names, descriptions, and other terms bear a referential relation to non-linguistic objects. Part II surveys competing theories of linguistic meaning and compares their various advantages and liabilities. Part III introduces the basic concepts of linguistic pragmatics, includes a detailed discussion of the problems of indirect force, and Part IV examines linguistic theories of metaphor.
This book looks at the relationship between linguistic universals and language change. Reflecting the resurgence of work in both fields over the last two decades, it addresses two related issues of central importance in linguistics: the balance between synchronic and diachronic factors in accounting for universals of linguistic structure, and the means of distinguishing genuine aspects of a universal human cognitive capacity for language from regularities that may be traced to extraneous origins. The volume brings together specially commissioned work by leading scholars, including prominent representatives of generative and functional linguistics. It examines rival explanations for linguistic universals and assesses the effectiveness of competing models of language change. The authors investigate patterns and processes of grammatical and lexical change across a wide range of languages; they consider the degree to which common characteristics condition processes of change in related languages; and examine how far differences in linguistic outcomes may be explained by cultural or external factors. This book will interest the wide range of scholars in linguistics and related fields concerned with language change, historical linguistics, linguistic typology and universals, and the nature of the human language faculty.
