Why Language

Download or read book Why Language? written by Jacques Moeschler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-08-23 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is, at present, no book introducing the general issue of why language is specific to human beings, how it works, why language is not communication and communication is not language, why languages vary and how they evolved. Based on the most recent works in linguistics and pragmatics, Why Language? addresses many questions that everyone has about language. Starting from false claims about language and languages, showing that language is not communication and communication is not language, the first part (Language and Communication) ends by proposing a difference between linguistic rules and communicative principles. The second part (Language, Society, Discourse) includes domains of language and language uses which are generally taken as extrinsic to language, such as language variety, discourse and non-ordinary (literary) usages. Special attention is given to figures of discourse (metaphor, metonymy, irony) and literary usages such as narration and free indirect style. The reader, either specialist or amateur in language science, will find a first and unique synthesis about what we know today about language and what we have yet to learn, sketching what could be the future of linguistics in the next decades.

Download or read book Why Language? written by Jacques Moeschler and published by De Gruyter Mouton. This book was released on 2023-05-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the issue of why language is a unique and specific means of communication among species and argues for a radical separation between language and communication, leading to a division of labor between linguistic rules and pragmatic

Download or read book Why Language? written by Jacques Moeschler and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mouton Series in Pragmatics (MSP) is a timely response to the growing demand for innovative and authoritative monographs and edited volumes from all angles of pragmatics. Recent theoretical work on the semantics/pragmatics interface, applications of evolutionary biology to the study of language, and empirical work within cognitive and developmental psychology and intercultural communication has directed attention to issues that warrant reexamination, as well as revision of some of the central tenets and claims of the field of pragmatics. The series welcomes proposals that reflect this endeavour and exploration within the discipline and neighboring fields such as language philosophy, communication, information science, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and cognitive science. MSP will provide a forum for authors who represent different subfields of pragmatics including the linguistic, cognitive, social, and intercultural paradigms, and have important and intriguing ideas and research findings to share with scholars who are interested in linguistics in general and pragmatics in particular.

Download or read book Why You Need a Foreign Language & how to Learn One written by Edward Trimnell and published by Beechmont Crest Pub. This book was released on 2005 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The first half of this book examines the commercial, social, and political implications of American monolingualism. The second half of the book explores the techniques and tools that a working professional can use to acqure functional skills in a new language."--Back cover.

Download or read book Language vs. Reality written by N.J. Enfield and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating examination of how we are both played by language and made by language: the science underlying the bugs and features of humankind’s greatest invention. Language is said to be humankind’s greatest accomplishment. But what is language actually good for? It performs poorly at representing reality. It is a constant source of distraction, misdirection, and overshadowing. In fact, N. J. Enfield notes, language is far better at persuasion than it is at objectively capturing the facts of experience. Language cannot create or change physical reality, but it can do the next best thing: reframe and invert our view of the world. In Language vs. Reality, Enfield explains why language is bad for scientists (who are bound by reality) but good for lawyers (who want to win their cases), why it can be dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, and why it deserves our deepest respect. Enfield offers a lively exploration of the science underlying the bugs and features of language. He examines the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the cutting edge of language research, argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more.

Download or read book Why Only Us written by Robert C. Berwick and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

Download or read book Why Language Documentation Matters written by Shobhana L. Chelliah and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-22 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the latest insights on language documentation, a reborn, refashioned, and reenergized subfield of linguistics motivated by the urgent task of creating a record of the world’s fast disappearing languages. Language documentation provides data to challenge and improve existing linguistic theory. In addition, because it requires input from various fields to be comprehensive, language documentation serves to build bridges between linguistics and other disciplines. Language documentation also provides resources for communities interested in language and culture preservation, language maintenance, and language revitalization. This book informs, evokes interest, and encourages involvement at all levels.