Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages

Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages PDF Author: Cornelia Ebert
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400753101
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This anthology of papers analyzes a range of specificity markers found in natural languages. It reflects the fact that despite intensive research into these markers, the vast differences between the markers across languages and even within single languages have been less acknowledged. Commonly regarded specific indefinites are by no means a homogenous class, and so this volume fills a gap in our understanding of the semantics and pragmatics of indefinites. The papers explore differences and similarities among these specificity markers, concentrating on the following issues: whether specificity is a purely semantic or also a pragmatic notion; whether the contribution of specificity markers is located on the level of the at-issue content; whether some kind of speaker-listener asymmetry concerning the identification of the referent is involved; and the behavioral scope of these indefinites in the context of other quantifiers, negation, attitude verbs, and intensional/modal operators.

Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages

Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages PDF Author: Cornelia Ebert
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400753101
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Get Book Here

Book Description
This anthology of papers analyzes a range of specificity markers found in natural languages. It reflects the fact that despite intensive research into these markers, the vast differences between the markers across languages and even within single languages have been less acknowledged. Commonly regarded specific indefinites are by no means a homogenous class, and so this volume fills a gap in our understanding of the semantics and pragmatics of indefinites. The papers explore differences and similarities among these specificity markers, concentrating on the following issues: whether specificity is a purely semantic or also a pragmatic notion; whether the contribution of specificity markers is located on the level of the at-issue content; whether some kind of speaker-listener asymmetry concerning the identification of the referent is involved; and the behavioral scope of these indefinites in the context of other quantifiers, negation, attitude verbs, and intensional/modal operators.

Nominal anchoring

Nominal anchoring PDF Author: Kata Balogh
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961102848
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The papers in this volume address to different degrees issues on the relationship of articles systems and the pragmatic notions of definiteness and specificity in typologically diverse languages: Vietnamese, Siwi (Berber), Russian, Mopan (Mayan), Persian, Danish and Swedish. The main questions that motivate this volume are: How do languages with and without an article system go about helping the hearer to recognize whether a given noun phrase should be interpreted as definite, specific or non-specific? Is there clear-cut semantic definiteness without articles or do we find systematic ambiguity regarding the interpretation of bare noun phrases? If there is ambiguity, can we still posit one reading as the default? What exactly do articles in languages encode that are not analyzed as straightforwardly coding (in)definiteness? Do we find linguistic tools in these languages that are similar to those found in languages without articles? Most contributions report on research on different corpora and elicited data or present the outcome of various experimental studies. One paper presents a diachronic study of the emergence of article systems. On the issue of how languages with and without articles guide the hearer to the conclusion that a given noun phrase should be interpreted as definite, specific or non-specific, the studies in this paper argue for similar strategies. The languages investigated in this volume use constructions and linguistic tools that receive a final interpretation based on discourse prominence considerations and various aspects of the syntax-semantics interface. In case of ambiguity between these readings, the default interpretation is given by factors (e. g., familiarity, uniqueness) that are known to contribute to the salience of phrases, but may be overridden by discourse prominence. Articles that do not straightforwardly mark (in)definiteness encode different kinds of specificity. In the languages studied in this volume, whether they have articles or do not have an article system, we find similar factors and linguistic tools in the calculation process of interpretations. The volume contains revised selected papers from the workshop entitled Specificity, definiteness and article systems across languages held at the 40th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), 7-9 March, 2018 at the University of Stuttgart.

Language-Specific Factors in First Language Acquisition

Language-Specific Factors in First Language Acquisition PDF Author: Anne-Katharina Harr
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 1614511748
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
A growing number of studies have begun to examine the influence of language-specific factors on language acquisition. During language acquisition, German children from six years on use structures that are similar to those of adults in their language group and also encode all semantic components from an early age. In striking contrast, French children up to ten years have difficulties producing some of the complex structures that are necessary for the simultaneous expression of several semantic components. Nonetheless, in addition to these striking cross-linguistic differences, the results of this study also clearly show similar developmental progressions in other respects, suggesting the impact of general developmental determinants.

Specific Language Impairment

Specific Language Impairment PDF Author: Stavroula Stavrakaki
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268428
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This volume is dedicated to the field of Specific Language Impairment (SLI), addressing important research questions, including: the interrelation of genetic and cognitive profiles of individuals with SLI; the comorbidity issue and clinical boundaries between SLI and other developmental disorders; cross-linguistic manifestations of SLI; and theory-motivated therapy approaches to individuals with SLI. This volume brings together researchers with different scientific backgrounds and research disciplines, challenging current points of view and offering new perspectives on issues of SLI and developmental disorders.

Language for Specific Purposes

Language for Specific Purposes PDF Author: Sandra Gollin-Kies
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113750076X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book fully explicates current trends and best practices in LSP, surveying the field with critical insightful commentary and analyses. Covering course areas such as planning, implementation, assessment, pedagogy, classroom management, professional development and research, it is indispensable for teachers, researchers, students.

Challenges for Language Education and Policy

Challenges for Language Education and Policy PDF Author: Bernard Spolsky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134658656
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Addressing a wide range of issues in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and multilingualism, this volume focuses on language users, the ‘people.’ Making creative connections between existing scholarship in language policy and contemporary theory and research in other social sciences, authors from around the world offer new critical perspectives for analyzing language phenomena and language theories, suggesting new meeting points among language users and language policy makers, norms, and traditions in diverse cultural, geographical, and historical contexts. Identifying and expanding on previously neglected aspects of language studies, the book is inspired by the work of Elana Shohamy, whose critical view and innovative work on a broad spectrum of key topics in applied linguistics has influenced many scholars in the field to think “out of the box” and to reconsider some basic commonly held understandings, specifically with regard to the impact of language and languaging on individual language users rather than on the masses.

Children with Specific Language Impairment, second edition

Children with Specific Language Impairment, second edition PDF Author: Laurence B. Leonard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262535408
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
The landmark reference in the field, completely updated: a comprehensive treatment of a disorder that is more prevalent than autism. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show a significant deficit in spoken language that cannot be attributed to neurological damage, hearing impairment, or intellectual disability. More prevalent than autism and at least as prevalent as dyslexia, SLI affects approximately seven percent of all children; it is longstanding, with adverse effects on academic, social, and (eventually) economic standing. The first edition of this work established Children with Specific Language Impairment as the landmark reference on this condition, considering not only the disorder's history, possible origins, and treatment but also what SLI might tell us about language organization and development in general. This second edition offers a complete update of the earlier volume. Much of the second edition is completely new, reflecting findings and interpretations based on the hundreds of studies that have appeared since the publication of the first edition in 1997. Topics include linguistic details (descriptive and theoretical), word and sentence processing findings, genetics, neurobiology, treatment, and comparisons to such conditions as autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, and dyslexia. The book covers SLI in children who speak a wide range of languages, and, although the emphasis is on children, it also includes studies of adults who were diagnosed with SLI as children or are the parents of children with SLI. Written by a leading scholar in the field, Children with Specific Language Impairment offers the most comprehensive, balanced, and unified treatment of SLI available.

Language for Specific Purposes

Language for Specific Purposes PDF Author: Giuliana Elena Garzone
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443862738
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
This volume brings together work by both well-known scholars and emerging researchers in the various areas of Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), such as political, legal, medical, and business discourse. The volume is divided into three parts in order to align rather than separate three different but related aspects of LSP: namely, translation, linguistic research, and domain specific communication on the web. Underlying all the contributions here is the growing awareness of the ever-increasing multiformity of specialised communication and the ever-wider social implications of the communicative situations in which it is embedded, especially where it involves the need to move across languages, cultures and modes, as in translation and interpreting. The contributions consistently bear witness to the need to review received notions, pose new questions, and explore fresh perspectives. The picture that emerges is one of extreme complexity, in which researchers into specifically linguistic aspects of LSPs and their translation across languages and media declare their awareness of the pressing need to come to terms with a wide range of social, pragmatic, intercultural and political factors, above and beyond socio-technical knowledge of the domains under investigation.

Connecting Language and Disciplinary Knowledge in English for Specific Purposes

Connecting Language and Disciplinary Knowledge in English for Specific Purposes PDF Author: Alissa J. Hartig
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
ISBN: 178309852X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
How are language and disciplinary knowledge connected in the English for Legal Purposes (ELP) classroom, and how far should ELP practitioners go in supporting students’ acquisition of the conceptual frameworks that shape the genres they are learning? This book presents a pedagogical model for incorporating these conceptual frameworks into disciplinary language instruction and follows four focal participants as they learn to read and write new genres in a second language and disciplinary culture. By examining not just students’ written texts, but also their reading practices and interactions in class and in tutoring sessions, the book traces the ways in which disciplinary knowledge and language interact as students develop academic literacy in a new disciplinary community. Throughout the book, the discipline of law is used as a lens for examining broader connections between language, culture and disciplinary knowledge, and their relevance for English for Specific Purposes and writing in the disciplines.

Language Competence Across Populations

Language Competence Across Populations PDF Author: Yonata Levy
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135642540
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
This unique, edited book bridges studies in language disorders and linguistic theory with timely contributions from leading scholars in language development. It presents an attempt to define Specific Language Impairment, relating it to children of normal and disordered language capabilities. The chapter presentations examine language development across a variety of populations of children, from those with Specific Language Impairment to second language learners. The contributors discuss criteria for the definition of SLI, compare and contrast SLI with profiles of children with other disorders and dialects, and offer a comprehensive look at the Whole Human Language, which ties together spoken and signed languages. Methodological concerns that affect the credibility and generalizability of the findings are discussed and controversies between opposing linguistic approaches to language acquisition are presented. The conceptual thread that gradually reveals itself as the chapters unfold is a theoretical issue of central importance to cognitive theory, as well as to our understanding of the biological correlates of language--it concerns the variability that linguistic competence can manifest in children under different biological conditions and life circumstances. Language Competence Across Populations: Toward a Definition of Specific Language Impairment is an essential volume for advanced students and scholars in linguistics and psychology who have an interest in language acquisition and language disorders, as well as for the clinical professionals dealing with children with language impairments.