Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories

Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories
Author: Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2005-02-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027294623

From the refinement of general methodology, to new insights of synchronic and diachronic universals, to studies of specific phenomena, this collection demonstrates the crucial role that language data play in the evolution of useful, accurate linguistic theories. Issues addressed include the determination of meaning in typological studies; a refined understanding of diachronic processes by including intentional, social, statistical, and level-determined phenomena; the reconsideration of categories such as sentence, evidential or adposition, and structures such as compounds or polysynthesis; the tension between formal simplicity and functional clarity; the inclusion of unusual systems in theoretical debates; and fresh approaches to Chinese classifiers, possession in Oceanic languages, and English aspect. This is a careful selection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories in Boulder, Colorado. The purpose of the Symposium was to confront fundamental issues in language structure and change with the rich variation of forms and functions observed across languages.

Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories

Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories
Author: Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027230829

From the refinement of general methodology, to new insights of synchronic and diachronic universals, to studies of specific phenomena, this collection demonstrates the crucial role that language data play in the evolution of useful, accurate linguistic theories. Issues addressed include the determination of meaning in typological studies; a refined understanding of diachronic processes by including intentional, social, statistical, and level-determined phenomena; the reconsideration of categories such as sentence, evidential or adposition, and structures such as compounds or polysynthesis; the tension between formal simplicity and functional clarity; the inclusion of unusual systems in theoretical debates; and fresh approaches to Chinese classifiers, possession in Oceanic languages, and English aspect. This is a careful selection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories in Boulder, Colorado. The purpose of the Symposium was to confront fundamental issues in language structure and change with the rich variation of forms and functions observed across languages.

Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice

Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice
Author: Ingrid Piller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2016-02-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199937257

Understanding and addressing linguistic disadvantage must be a central facet of the social justice agenda of our time. This book explores the ways in which linguistic diversity mediates social justice in liberal democracies undergoing rapid change due to high levels of migration and economic globalization. Focusing on the linguistic dimensions of economic inequality, cultural domination and imparity of political participation, Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice employs a case-study approach to real-world instances of linguistic injustice. Linguistic diversity is a universal characteristic of human language but linguistic diversity is rarely neutral; rather it is accompanied by linguistic stratification and linguistic subordination. Domains critical to social justice include employment, education, and community participation. The book offers a detailed examination of the connection between linguistic diversity and inequality in these specific contexts within nation states that are organized as liberal democracies. Inequalities exist not only between individuals and groups within a state but also between states. Therefore, the book also explores the role of linguistic diversity in global injustice with a particular focus on the spread of English as a global language. While much of the analysis in this book focuses on language as a means of exclusion, discrimination and disadvantage, the concluding chapter asks what the content of linguistic justice might be.

Linguistic Diversity and European Democracy

Linguistic Diversity and European Democracy
Author: Anne Lise Kjær
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2016-05-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317104927

What role does linguistic diversity play in European democratic and legal processes? Is it an obstacle to deliberative democracy and a hindrance to legal certainty, or a cultural and economic asset and a prerequisite for the free movement of citizens? This book examines the tensions and contradictions of European language laws and policy from a multi-disciplinary perspective. With contributions from leading researchers in EU law and legal theory, political science, sociology, sociolinguistic and cognitive linguistics, it combines mutually exclusive and competing perspectives of linguistic diversity. The work will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of European law, legal theory and linguistics.

Theory and description in African Linguistics

Theory and description in African Linguistics
Author: Emily Clem
Publisher: Language Science Press
Total Pages: 788
Release: 2019
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3961102058

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL.

Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education

Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education
Author: Peter Pericles Trifonas
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-09-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9783319446929

This volume covers the multidimensional and international field of Heritage Language Education, including concepts, practices, and the correlation between culture and language from the perspectives of pedagogy and research. Heritage Language Learning is a new dimension in both the linguistic and pedagogic sciences, and is linked to processes of identity negotiation and cultural inheritance. It is a distinct pedagogical and curricular domain that is not exhausted within the domains of bilingualism and second or foreign language education. A heritage language is not a second or foreign language, it is the vehicle whereby cultural memory is transmitted over time, across distances, communities, and generations. Heritage languages play an important role ensuring the balance between coherence and pluralism in contemporary societies that have come to realize that diversity is an advantage for social, cultural, and economic reasons. The volume includes topics like First Nation indigenous languages, languages in diaspora, immigrant and minority languages, and contributions from North, central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It addresses the social, linguistic, and cultural issues in educational contexts in a new way by taking up questions of globalization, difference, community, identity, democracy, ethics, politics, technology, language rights and cultural policies through the evolving field of Heritage Language Education.

Linguistic Justice

Linguistic Justice
Author: April Baker-Bell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1351376705

Bringing together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic supremacy, this book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts. By highlighting the counterstories of Black students, Baker-Bell demonstrates how traditional approaches to language education do not account for the emotional harm, internalized linguistic racism, or consequences these approaches have on Black students' sense of self and identity. This book presents Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as a framework that explicitly names and richly captures the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. To move toward Black linguistic liberation, Baker-Bell introduces a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students. This volume captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in classrooms while simultaneously illustrating how theory, research, and practice can operate in tandem in pursuit of linguistic and racial justice. A crucial resource for educators, researchers, professors, and graduate students in language and literacy education, writing studies, sociology of education, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, this book features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.

Expanding the Linguistic Landscape

Expanding the Linguistic Landscape
Author: Martin Pütz
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2018-12-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1788922174

This book provides a forum for theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to research on language(s), multimodality and public space, which will advance new ways of understanding the sociocultural, ideological and historical role of communication practices and experienced lives in a globalised world. Linguistic Landscape is viewed as a metaphor and expanded to include a wide variety of discursive modalities: imagery, non-verbal communication, silence, tactile and aural communication, graffiti, smell, etc. The chapters in this book cover a range of geographical locations, and capture the history, motives, uses, causes, ideologies, communication practices and conflicts of diverse forms of languages as they may be observed in public spaces of the physical environment. The book is anchored in a variety of theories, methodologies and frameworks, from economics, politics and sociology to linguistics and applied linguistics, literacy and education, cultural geography and human rights.

Space in Languages

Space in Languages
Author: Maya Hickmann
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2006-05-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027293554

Space is presently the focus of much research and debate across disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. One strong feature of this collection is to bring together theoretical and empirical contributions from these varied scientific traditions, with the collective aim of addressing fundamental questions at the forefront of the current literature: the nature of space in language, the linguistic relativity of space, the relation between spatial language and cognition. Linguistic analyses highlight the multidimensional and heterogeneous nature of space, while also showing the existence of a set of types, parameters, and principles organizing the considerable diversity of linguistic systems and accounting for mechanisms of diachronic change. Findings concerning spatial perception and cognition suggest the existence of two distinct systems governing linguistic and non-linguistic representations, that only partially overlap in some pathologies, but they also show the strong impact of language-specific factors on the course of language acquisition and cognitive development.