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This empirical study examines the learning problem of the argument structure of psych predicates such as «The dog frightens John» and the related V-ing adjectives such as «The dog is frightening to John». The problem is theoretically interesting because of the marked nature of the thematic role mapping of these sentences in relation to the principle of the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH). The problem is highly relevant to our understanding of second language acquisition, as this is known to be a prevalent difficulty among language learners. The author has framed the learning problem within a coherent parametric framework drawing on a sophisticated critical review of the syntax/semantics literature and theories of L2 development. The author has specifically developed a theory, the «Semantic Salience Hierarchy Model» (SSHM), to explain the learning process. The significance of the model is not confined only to this particular study, as the issues related to the L2 acquisition of other causative verbs can also be examined within this model. The findings of this study also bear implications to TESOL.

The papers in this volume are devoted to new in-depth treatments of distinctive aspects of Chinese and Japanese syntax, semantics and pragmatics, informed by influential theoretical concepts of the day, including cognitive grammar, construction grammar, information structure, grammaticalization and linguistic typology.

Provides insights into historical aspects of language, particularly items regularly deployed for politeness functions, and the social, particularly interpersonal, contexts with which it interacts. This title also sheds light on how meanings are dynamically constructed in situ, and probes various theoretical aspects of politeness.

The studies presented in this volume concentrate on aspects of Late Modern English correspondence in the usage of individuals belonging to different social classes, writing for different purposes, and finding themselves in different social contexts, both in Britain and in its colonies. As the growing body of research published in recent years has shown, analysing the language of letters presents both a challenge and an opportunity to obtain access to as full a range of styles as would be possible for a period for which we only have access to the language in its written form. It is an area of study in which all the contributors have considerable expertise, which affords them to present data findings while discussing important methodological issues. In addition, in most cases data derive from specially-designed ¿second-generation¿ corpora, reflecting state-of-the-art approaches to historical sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Theoretical issues concerning letters as a text type, their role in social network analysis, and their value in the identification of register or variety specific traits are highlighted, alongside issues concerning the (often less than easy) relationship between strictly codified norms and actual usage on the part of speakers whose level of education could vary considerably.

What does learning a language involve? Obviously, a rapid and definitive answer cannot be provided for this question since the aspects and situations affecting language learning are many and varied. From the role of culture to the use of new technologies in foreign language learning, this work aims to offer its readers some of the current research being carried out in different areas relevant to the topic. A long developing project has become reality thanks to the work of several researchers who are also experienced teaching professionals. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that most chapters of the book relate to different aspects of language learning within the classroom context which has resulted in realistic approaches to foreign language learning that can be of great help to those involved and/or interested in this field. Moreover, the clear division into sections allows readers to make their choice on how to proceed with the reading of the book depending on their thematic interests. Five sections make up this practical work: culture and language learning, human resources in language learning, language learning strategies, language learning software and language learning web resources.

The focus of this volume is on the business letter genre, a seminal and widely used genre in business communication. Since the introduction of the Internet, interest in this genre has increased once again, because of the digital format of the letter. E-mail has partially taken over the multiple functions of the traditional business letter and bypassed, again partially, the fax. However, the letter has also survived in its written form. Since the 1990s, genre theory has been receiving a lot of attention, both in academic and pedagogical circles. Discourse analysts have increasingly discovered the importance of the genre concept for the understanding of discourse. Not only do we get a better understanding of the linguistic characteristics (register, lexico-grammatical features) of texts, but we also become aware of their macrostructures which appear to be organised according to genre expectations and conventions rooted in the socio-cultural context. This evolution is also reflected in the different research approaches to the business letter, as shown by the various chapters of this volume.

Has the internet changed the nature of conducting controversies? This question cannot be answered easily as different forms of human interaction in an online environment exist and controversies in an online environment have not been analyzed from a linguistic point of view so far. On the other hand, there are many linguistic analyses of controversies in the Early Modern Period. First, this volume describes the communicative background of two online discussion forums dedicated to the study of historical arms and armor. Then, the volume analyzes the similarities and differences between Early Modern controversies and controversies in online internet discussion forums. Further, this book offers an accurate analysis of the strategies used in online discussion forums, analyzing two controversial threads taken from two online discussion forums and provides insights into the individual tactics and strategies applied in online controversies and highlights the similarities and differences of applied principles, norms, and rules. The book finally comments on stylistic choices used by participants in the controversies.

The volume offers a collection of best practice European projects carried out in university contexts with the aim of highlighting the relevant role that Language Centres play in the field of language learning. A variety of project topics is described showing project coordinators' willingness of promoting cooperation which encourages a wide-angled multilingual and multicultural perspective.

This book explores the ways in which the use of English as a medium of instruction can contribute to a closer alignment between educational outcomes and the demands of the world of work in those contexts where English is used as a foreign language.

This book examines media representation of migrant workers in China. Drawing on discourse analysis and sociolinguistic theories, it investigates how identities of and stances towards migrant workers were constructed and mediated in media with a view to exploring the interrelationship between media representation and social change in China.

This volume comprises a selection of papers delivered at the Fourth ELC International Postgraduate Conference on Language and Cognition (ELC4). The eleven papers collected here pertain to different areas of linguistics as varied as diachronic linguistics, syntax, pragmatics or psycholinguistics.

This volume provides a shared context for surfacing deeply held beliefs and providing clearer pathways for closer understanding and adaptations to support integrated learning. The studies in each of the eight chapters are built on an in-depth critical review of research which enables the reader to carefully position the challenging questions posed.

This volume investigates the difficulties adult L2 users of English encounter with plosive consonants. It presents the results of two tasks examining the acquisition of plosive voicing contrasts by college students with CG backgrounds. These results are discussed in relation to the approaches of second language phonology and speech perception.

Catorce investigadores de diferentes países y nacionalidades, especialistas en diferentes campos de estudio sobre la lengua española ¿ Didáctica del ELE y del EFE, lengua de especialidad, lexicología, lingüística aplicada, terminología, traducción ¿, resaltan, al enfocar el léxico dentro de un contexto profesional y cultural específicos, la permeabilidad y renovación de la lengua española. Sus investigaciones inéditas que se enmarcan dentro de diversas perspectivas y áreas de investigación como la cibernética, la cognitiva, la didáctica, la estructuralista y la lingüística aplicada, abordan temas como los préstamos, las colocaciones sintácticas, la traducción, el léxico profesional y de especialidad, el discurso retórico de la prensa, el lenguaje del turismo, los enfoques didácticos sobre el léxico. El resultado de sus análisis de corpus muestra diferentes interpretaciones del léxico español dentro de los ámbitos arriba mencionados.

This volume deals with collocations from a lexicographic perspective by addressing, in detail, the boundaries between collocations and other word combinations, the possibility of adapting the definition of collocation to the objectives of specific dictionaries, and approaches towards collocation extraction for lexicographic purposes.

This book presents a comparative interdisciplinary socio-psycholinguistic study on plurilingual code-switching (CS) in Italy, Croatia and Scotland-UK, based on Italian in contact with four standard varieties (Spanish, English, Philipino and Croatian) and five non-standard varieties (Arbereshe, Occitan, Calabrese, Istrovenetian and Chakavski).

The aim of this book is to propose an original hypothesis to account for the difficulties associated with dyslexia, suggesting that this disorder is characterized by deficits affecting the subject's phonological and processing abilities. The results of four experimental protocols are discussed, providing further support for this hypothesis.

As a corpus-based typological cognitive study of English binominal quantitative expressions based on English-Chinese comparison, the book discovers functional equivalents of Chinese numeral classifiers in English, i.e. `Quasi-Numeral Classifiers' (QNCs) and unveils the categorisation process reflected by five cases of Dimensionality-based QNCs.

The focus of this book is to investigate interprofessional telephone interaction, a routine yet disruptive activity at the hospital, and to expose how nurses and physicians coordinate in view of delivering efficient patient care. The analysis of recorded calls at a Swiss hospital displays the variable formats through which nurses produce requests.

The book examines the linguistic varieties in the MS 133 Digby Mary Magdalene. It shows that most unusual forms are diatopic and diastratic alternatives used in specific religious contexts to realize well-defined sociolinguistic purposes.