Grammatical Complexity in Academic English PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Grammatical Complexity in Academic English PDF full book. Access full book title Grammatical Complexity in Academic English by Douglas Biber. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Douglas Biber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700926X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Get Book Here
Book Description
Using corpus-based analyses, the book challenges widely held beliefs about grammatical complexity, academic writing, and linguistic change in written English.
Author: Douglas Biber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700926X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Get Book Here
Book Description
Using corpus-based analyses, the book challenges widely held beliefs about grammatical complexity, academic writing, and linguistic change in written English.
Author: Douglas Biber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000481972
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 506
Get Book Here
Book Description
This collection brings together the authors' previous research with new work on the Register-Functional (RF) approach to grammatical complexity, offering a unified theoretical account for its further study. The book traces the development of the RF approach from its foundations in two major research strands of linguistics: the study of sociolinguistic variation and the text-linguistic study of register variation. Building on this foundation, the authors demonstrate the RF framework at work across a series of corpus-based research studies focused specifically on grammatical complexity in English. The volume highlights early work exploring patterns of grammatical complexity in present-day spoken and written registers as well as subsequent studies which extend this research to historical patterns of register variation and the application of RF research to the study of writing development for L1 and L2 English university students. Taken together, along with the addition of introductory chapters connecting the different studies, the volume offers readers with a comprehensive resource to better understand the RF approach to grammatical complexity and its implications for future research. The volume will appeal to students and scholars with research interests in either descriptive linguistics or applied linguistics, especially those interested in grammatical complexity and empirical, corpus-based approaches.
Author: Christian Mair
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139459627
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 26
Get Book Here
Book Description
Standard English has evolved and developed in many ways over the past hundred years. From pronunciation to vocabulary to grammar, this concise survey clearly documents the recent history of Standard English. Drawing on large amounts of authentic corpus data, it shows how we can track ongoing changes to the language, and demonstrates each of the major developments that have taken place. As well as taking insights from a vast body of literature, Christian Mair presents the results of his own cutting-edge research, revealing some important changes which have not been previously documented. He concludes by exploring how social and cultural factors, such as the American influence on British English, have affected Standard English in recent times. Authoritative, informative and engaging, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in language change in progress, particularly those working on English, and will be welcomed by students, researchers and language teachers alike.
Author: Frederick J. Newmeyer
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199685304
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book examines the question of whether languages can differ in grammatical complexity and, if so, how relative complexity differences might be measured. The volume differs from others devoted to the question of complexity in language in that the authors all approach the problem from the point of view of formal grammatical theory, psycholinguistics, or neurolinguistics. Chapters investigate a number of key issues in grammatical complexity, taking phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic considerations into account. These include what is often called the 'trade-off problem', namely whether complexity in one grammatical component is necessarily balanced by simplicity in another; and the question of interpretive complexity, that is, whether and how one might measure the difficulty for the hearer in assigning meaning to an utterance and how such complexity might be factored in to an overall complexity assessment. Measuring Grammatical Complexity brings together a number of distinguished scholars in the field, and will be of interest to linguists of all theoretical stripes from advanced undergraduate level upwards, particularly those working in the areas of morphosyntax, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics.
Author: Eva Berlage
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110701512X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Get Book Here
Book Description
What makes the noun phrase 'the man I saw' more complex than 'the man'? This book explores that question.
Author: Francesca Di Garbo
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961101787
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Get Book Here
Book Description
The many facets of grammatical gender remain one of the most fruitful areas of linguistic research, and pose fascinating questions about the origins and development of complexity in language. The present work is a two-volume collection of 13 chapters on the topic of grammatical gender seen through the prism of linguistic complexity. The contributions discuss what counts as complex and/or simple in grammatical gender systems, whether the distribution of gender systems across the world’s languages relates to the language ecology and social history of speech communities. Contributors demonstrate how the complexity of gender systems can be studied synchronically, both in individual languages and over large cross-linguistic samples, and diachronically, by exploring how gender systems change over time. In addition to three chapters on the theoretical foundations of gender complexity, volume one contains six chapters on grammatical gender and complexity in individual languages and language families of Africa, New Guinea, and South Asia. This volume is complemented by volume two, which consists of three chapters providing diachronic and typological case studies, followed by a final chapter discussing old and new theoretical and empirical challenges in the study of the dynamics of gender complexity.
Author: Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191567663
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.
Author: Douglas Biber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521860601
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book describes the most important kinds of texts in English and introduces the methodological techniques used to analyse them. Three analytical approaches are introduced and compared, describing a wide range of texts from the perspectives of register, genre and style. The primary focus of the book is on the analysis of registers. Part 1 introduces an analytical framework for studying registers, genre conventions, and styles. Part 2 provides detailed descriptions of particular text varieties in English, including spoken interpersonal varieties (conversation, university office hours, service encounters), written varieties (newspapers, academic prose, fiction), and emerging electronic varieties (e-mail, internet forums, text messages). Finally, Part 3 introduces advanced analytical approaches using corpora, and discusses theoretical concerns, such as the place of register studies in linguistics, and practical applications of register analysis. Each chapter ends with three types of activities: reflection and review activities, analysis activities, and larger project ideas.
Author: Kersti Borjars
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134671512
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Get Book Here
Book Description
Answering key questions such as 'Why study grammar?' and 'What is standard English?', Introducing English Grammar guides readers through the practical analysis of the syntax of English sentences. With all special terms carefully explained as they are introduced, the book is written for readers with no previous experience of grammatical analysis. It is ideal for all those beginning their study of linguistics, English language or speech pathology, as well as students with primarily literary interests who need to cover the basics of linguistic analysis. The approach taken is in line with current research in grammar, a particular advantage for students who may go on to study syntax in more depth. All the examples and exercises use real language taken from newspaper articles, non-standard dialects and include excerpts from studies of patients with language difficulties. Students are encouraged to think about the terminology as a tool kit for studying language and to test what can and cannot be described using these tools. This new edition has been fully revised in line with recent research. There is a new chapter on World English, a new glossary and a free website with extensive further reading and answers to the exercises.
Author: Günter Rohdenburg
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110900017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 573
Get Book Here
Book Description
What factors influence the choice between alternative grammatical structures such as the following: a lit / a lighted cigarette, more full / fuller of convincing arguments, the main thesis of the book / the book's main thesis, take hostage a group of 15 holiday makers / take a group of 15 holidaymakers hostage, conceding that the argument is convincing / conceding the argument to be convincing? This is the central issue explored in this volume, which contains a unique selection of innovative in-depth empirical studies written in a broadly functional framework. The factors investigated include the following: phonological influences (such as the principle of rhythmic alternation and optimal syllable structure), frequency, pervasive semantic and pragmatic aspects (including iconicity, markedness, grammaticalization and typological tendencies), information structure, processing complexity and horror aequi (the avoidance of identity effects).
