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During most of the 20th century, the classical Saussurean distinction between language usage and language structure remained untranscendable in much linguistic theory. The dominant view, propagated in particular by generative grammar, was that there are structural facts and usage facts, and that in principle the former are independent of, and can be described in complete isolation from, the latter. With the appearance of functional-cognitive approaches on the scene, this view has been challenged. The view of structure as usage-based has had two consequences that make time ripe for a focused study of the interaction between usage and structure. Within the generative camp it has inspired a mor...
New perspectives on how and why syntax varies between and within speakers, focusing on explaining theoretical backgrounds and methods.
"What explains variation in human language? How are linguistic and social factors related? How do we examine possible semantic differences between variants? These questions and many more are explored in this volume, which examines syntactic variables in a range of languages. It brings together a team of internationally acclaimed authors to provide perspectives on how and why syntax varies between and within speakers, focusing on explaining theoretical backgrounds and methods. The analyses presented are based on a range of languages, making it possible to address the questions from a cross-linguistic perspective. All chapters demonstrate rigorous quantitative analyses, which expose the conditioning factors in language change as well as offering important insights into community and individual grammars. It is essential reading for researchers and students with an interest in language variation and change, and the theoretical framework and methods applied in the study of how and why syntax varies"--
This pioneering book introduces cutting-edge methods for examining the grammatical choices made by speakers of English around the world.
The Handbook of Dialectology provides an authoritative, up-to-date and unusually broad account of the study of dialect, in one volume. Each chapter reviews essential research, and offers a critical discussion of the past, present and future development of the area. The volume is based on state-of-the-art research in dialectology around the world, providing the most current work available with an unusually broad scope of topics Provides a practical guide to the many methodological and statistical issues surrounding the collection and analysis of dialect data Offers summaries of dialect variation in the world's most widely spoken and commonly studied languages, including several non-European languages that have traditionally received less attention in general discussions of dialectology Reviews the intellectual development of the field, including its main theoretical schools of thought and research traditions, both academic and applied The editors are well known and highly respected, with a deep knowledge of this vast field of inquiry
Drawing on cutting-edge research, this book shows how tools from formal semantics can be used to formalize theories from sociolinguistics.
Cognitive Sociolinguistics draws on the rich theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics and focuses on the social factors that underlie the variability of meaning and conceptualization. In the last decade, the field has expanded in various way. The current volume takes stock of current and emerging advances in the field in short academic contributions. The studies collected in this book have a usage-based approach to language variation and change, drawing on the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics and are sensitive to social variation, be it cross-linguistic or language-internal. Three types of contributions are collected in this book. First, it contains theoretical overview papers on the domains that have witnessed expansion in recent years. Second, it presents novel research ideas in proof-of-concept contributions, aimed at blue-sky research and out-of-the-box linguistic analyses. Third, it showcases recent empirical studies within the field. By combining these three types of contributions, the book provides an encompassing overview of novel developments in the field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics.
This book focuses on the historical construction of language norms and its relationship to actual language use in contemporary Japan.
Making Waves tells the human story of an academic field based on one-to-one interviews with 43 of the most famous scholars in Variationist Sociolinguistics. Explanations of concepts, ideas, good practice and sage advice come directly from the progenitors of the discipline. An authentic, inside story about the origins of Sociolinguistics as Language Variation and Change, recording the context and spirit of sociolinguistics Gives students access to the views on language variation of major sociolinguists such as Bill Labov and Peter Trudgill Offers a human story of an academic field, and is written in the style of a novel, offering complete accessibility with minimal in-group terminology Provides a timely audio archive of the reminiscences of the major Sociolinguists, including Labov, Fasold, Milroy, Trudgill, and Wolfram, with a companion website featuring 400 audio clips from the interviews. Visit the site at www.wiley.com/go/tagliamonte/makingwaves
Although there is a large literature on referentiality, going back to at least the nineteenth and early twentieth century, much of this early work is based on constructed data and most of it is on English. The chapters in this volume contribute to a growing body of work that examines referentiality through naturalistic data in context. Taking an interactional approach to (non)referentiality, contributors to this volume ask how participants talk in real time about persons and things as individuals or as categories, and what distinguishes ‘referential’ from ‘nonreferential’, ‘specific’ from ‘nonspecific’, and ‘generic’ from ‘nongeneric’. Crucially, we ask whether these ...