The Nonverbal Shift in Early Modern English Conversation

The Nonverbal Shift in Early Modern English Conversation PDF Author: Axel Hübler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027253972
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This is the first historical investigation on the nonverbal component of conversation. In the courtly society of 16th and 17th century England, it is argued that a drift appeared toward an increased use of prosodic means of expression at the expense of gestural means. Direct evidence is provided by courtesy books and personal documents of the time, indirect evidence by developments in the English lexicon. The rationale of the argument is cognitively grounded; given the integral role of gestures in thinking-for-speaking, it rests on an isomorphism between gestural and prosodic behavior that is established semiotically and elaborated by insights from neurocognitive frequency theory and task dynamics. The proposal is rounded off by an illustration from present-day conversational data and the proof of its adaptability to current theories of language change. The cross-disciplinary approach addresses all those interested in (historical) pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, cultural semantics, semiotics, or language change.

The Nonverbal Shift in Early Modern English Conversation

The Nonverbal Shift in Early Modern English Conversation PDF Author: Axel Hübler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027253972
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This is the first historical investigation on the nonverbal component of conversation. In the courtly society of 16th and 17th century England, it is argued that a drift appeared toward an increased use of prosodic means of expression at the expense of gestural means. Direct evidence is provided by courtesy books and personal documents of the time, indirect evidence by developments in the English lexicon. The rationale of the argument is cognitively grounded; given the integral role of gestures in thinking-for-speaking, it rests on an isomorphism between gestural and prosodic behavior that is established semiotically and elaborated by insights from neurocognitive frequency theory and task dynamics. The proposal is rounded off by an illustration from present-day conversational data and the proof of its adaptability to current theories of language change. The cross-disciplinary approach addresses all those interested in (historical) pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, cultural semantics, semiotics, or language change.

Early Modern English News Discourse

Early Modern English News Discourse PDF Author: Andreas H. Jucker
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902725432X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session

Early Modern English Dialogues

Early Modern English Dialogues PDF Author: Jonathan Culpeper
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521835410
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
This book analyses speech-related genres in Early Modern English, providing ideas of what spoken interaction in earlier times might have been like.

Tracing Private Conversations in Early Modern Europe

Tracing Private Conversations in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Johannes Ljungberg
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031466306
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description


Thou and You in Early Modern English Dialogues

Thou and You in Early Modern English Dialogues PDF Author: Terry Walker
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027254016
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This book is a corpus-based study examining thou and you in three speech-related genres from 1560–1760, a crucial period in the history of second person singular pronouns, spanning the time from when you became dominant to when thou became all but obsolete. The study embraces the fields of corpus linguistics, historical pragmatics, and historical sociolinguistics. Using data drawn from the recently released A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 and manuscript material, the aim is to ascertain which extra-linguistic and linguistic factors highlighted by previous research appear particularly relevant in the selection and relative distribution of thou and you. Previous research on thou and you has tended to concentrate on Drama and/or been primarily qualitative in nature. Depositions in particular have hitherto received very little attention. This book is intended to help fill a gap in the literature by presenting an in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of pronoun usage in Trials, Depositions, and, for comparative purposes, Drama Comedy.

Social Roles and Language Practices in Late Modern English

Social Roles and Language Practices in Late Modern English PDF Author: Päivi Pahta
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027254400
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"This is a trailblazing volume. Too often do studies in historical linguistics adopt social (or other) theories of yesterday. But here we have cutting-edge research on social roles, identities and practices applied innovatively to historical data, leading to new insights-not just about Late Modern English but also about the dynamics of language, social phenomena and change-and lighting the way for future research." Jonathan Culpeper, Senior Lecturer, English Language and Linguistics, Lancaster University --

English Speech Rhythm

English Speech Rhythm PDF Author: Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027285837
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This monograph reconsiders the question of speech isochrony, the regular recurrence of (stressed) syllables in time, from an empirical point of view. It proposes a methodology for discovering isochrony auditorily in speech and for verifying it instrumentally in the acoustic laboratory. In a small-scale study of an English conversational extract, the gestalt-like rhythmic structures which isochrony creates are shown to have a hierarchical organization. Then in a large-scale study of a corpus of British and American radio phone-in programs and family table conversations, the function of speech rhythm at turn transitions is investigated. It is argued that speech rhythm serves as a metric for the timing of turn transitions in casual English conversation. The articular rhythmic configuration of a transition can be said to contextualize the next turn as, generally speaking, affiliative or disaffiliative with the prior turn. The empirical investigation suggests that speech rhythm patterns at turn transitions in everyday English conversation are not random occurrences or the result of a social-psychological adaptation process but are contextualization cues which figure systematically in the creation and interpretation of linguistic meaning in communication.

Instructional Writing in English

Instructional Writing in English PDF Author: Matti Peikola
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027290482
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The history of English writing is, to a considerable extent, the history of instructional writing in English. This volume is the first collection of papers to focus on instructional writing throughout the history of the language. Spanning a millennium of English texts, the materials studied represent procedural and behavioural discourse in a variety of genres. The primary texts, from Ælfric’s homilies to medieval cooking recipes to seventeenth-century American conduct literature to present-day language textbooks, display a variety of linguistic devices typical of instruction. The materials nonetheless differ with respect to the explicitness of their instructive purpose. Bringing together a broad range of instructional writing from the Old, Middle and Modern English periods, this collection celebrates the sixtieth birthday of Risto Hiltunen, who has successfully combined discourse-linguistic approaches with the history of English in his research, and inspired the colleagues and former students contributing to this volume.

The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800)

The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800) PDF Author: Arja Nurmi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027254281
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
The Language of Daily Life in England (1400–1800) is an important state-of-the art account of historical sociolinguistic and socio-pragmatic research. The volume contains nine studies and an introductory essay which discuss linguistic and social variation and change over four centuries. Each study tackles a linguistic or social phenomenon, and approaches it with a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, always embedded in the socio-historical context. The volume presents new information on linguistic variation and change, while evaluating and developing the relevant theoretical and methodological tools. The writers form one of the leading research teams in the field, and, as compilers of the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, have an informed understanding of the data in all its depth. This volume will be of interest to scholars in historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and socio-pragmatics, but also e.g. social history. The approachable style of writing makes it also inviting for advanced students.

Aspects of a Cognitive-pragmatic Theory of Language

Aspects of a Cognitive-pragmatic Theory of Language PDF Author: Jan Nuyts
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027250324
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This book is about a theory of language that combines two observations (1) that language is based on an extensive cognitive infrastructure (cognitivism) and (2) that it is functional for its user (functionalism). These observations are regarded as two dimensions of one phenomenon that both need to be accounted for, simultaneously and coherently, in accounting for language. Chapter 1 presents the cognitivist and functionalist points of view and their interrelation and discusses the integration of language research under a cognitive umbrella; the issue of defining 'functions of language', and the formalism-functionalism debate. Chapter 2 criticizes the Chomskyan formalist conception of language and cognition from the perspective of cognitive-pragmatic theory. The focus is on different aspects of the competence-performance dichotomy, and in particular on the nature of linguistic knowledge. The ontogenesis and phylogenesis of language are also discussed. Chapter 3 deals with the potential contribution of a functional-linguistic grammar to an integrated conception of the cognitive systems of language, viz. Dik's Functional Grammar, and introduces the concept of a Functional Procedural Grammar as a more integrative model for language production. Special attention is also paid to the nature of conceptual knowledge and the relationship between language production and interpretation. The debate is illustrated by an analysis of negative-raising.