The Linguistic Individual

Author : Barbara Johnstone
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Individuality
ISBN : 9780195101850

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The Linguistic Individual by Barbara Johnstone Pdf

Linguists usually discuss language or dialects in terms of groups of speakers. Believing that patterns can be seen more clearly in the group than the individual, researchers often present group scores with no indication of the variation within the group. Even though linguists acknowledge that no two individuals speak alike, few study individual variation and voice. Barbara Johnstone makes a case for the individual's importance and idiosyncrasies in language and linguistics. Using theoretical arguments and discourse analysis, along with linguistic examples from a variety of speakers and settings, Johnstone illustrates how speakers draw on linguistic models associated with class, ethnicity, gender, and region, among others, to construct an individual voice. In doing so Johnstone shows that certain important questions in sociolinguistics and pragmatics can only be answered with reference to individual speakers. Johnstone's study is important both for the understanding of speech as expressive of self, and for the study of variation and mechanisms of linguistic choice and change.

Author : Barbara Johnstone
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 1996-06-27
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780195356335

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The Linguistic Individual by Barbara Johnstone Pdf

Linguists usually discuss language or dialects in terms of groups of speakers. Believing that patterns can be seen more clearly in the group than the individual, researchers often present group scores with no indication of the variation within the group. Even though linguists acknowledge that no two individuals speak alike, few study individual variation and voice. Barbara Johnstone makes a case for the individual's importance and idiosyncrasies in language and linguistics. Using theoretical arguments and discourse analysis, along with linguistic examples from a variety of speakers and settings, Johnstone illustrates how speakers draw on linguistic models associated with class, ethnicity, gender, and region, among others, to construct an individual voice. In doing so Johnstone shows that certain important questions in sociolinguistics and pragmatics can only be answered with reference to individual speakers. Johnstone's study is important both for the understanding of speech as expressive of self, and for the study of variation and mechanisms of linguistic choice and change.

Author : Phil Benson,Lucy Cooker
Publisher : Equinox Publishing (UK)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Applied linguistics
ISBN : 1908049391

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The Applied Linguistic Individual by Phil Benson,Lucy Cooker Pdf

A focus on learner individuality in Applied Linguistics has been considered a mark of theoretical weakness from several perspectives. One branch of second language acquisition research has systematically discounted individual characteristics in favour of a search for universal acquisition processes. Another has adopted 'individual differences' as its object of inquiry, but emphasises psychological and sociological group characteristics over those of individuals. At the other end of the spectrum, critical researchers have viewed these approaches as 'individualistic' and have emphasised instead the deeply social character of second language acquisition. More recently, however, the qualitative approaches favoured by socially-oriented researchers have begun to bring issues of individuality to the fore. Autonomy, agency and identity have emerged as important constructs through which researchers are seeking to understand relationships between individuals and the social contexts in which they learn and use languages, and case studies of individuals have become a preferred approach to Applied Linguistics research. These developments raise important questions about the relationship between the social and individual, which has now become a key philosophical and methodological issue in research. This volume addresses this issue through contributions from researchers who carry out their work in a variety of settings in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America. The authors explore how individuality is conceptualised in socially-oriented approaches to Applied Linguistics research, including Sociocultural Theory, Situated Learning, Imagined Communities, Complexity Theory, and Autonomy Theory. Is there a tension between the social and the individual in these approaches, and if so, how is it manifested and resolved in empirical research?

Author : Phil Benson,Lucy Cooker
Publisher : Equinox Publishing (UK)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Applied linguistics
ISBN : 1908049383

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The Applied Linguistic Individual by Phil Benson,Lucy Cooker Pdf

A focus on learner individuality in Applied Linguistics has been considered a mark of theoretical weakness from several perspectives. One branch of second language acquisition research has systematically discounted individual characteristics in favour of a search for universal acquisition processes. Another has adopted 'individual differences' as its object of inquiry, but emphasises psychological and sociological group characteristics over those of individuals. At the other end of the spectrum, critical researchers have viewed these approaches as 'individualistic' and have emphasised instead the deeply social character of second language acquisition. More recently, however, the qualitative approaches favoured by socially-oriented researchers have begun to bring issues of individuality to the fore. Autonomy, agency and identity have emerged as important constructs through which researchers are seeking to understand relationships between individuals and the social contexts in which they learn and use languages, and case studies of individuals have become a preferred approach to Applied Linguistics research. These developments raise important questions about the relationship between the social and individual, which has now become a key philosophical and methodological issue in research. This volume addresses this issue through contributions from researchers who carry out their work in a variety of settings in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America. The authors explore how individuality is conceptualised in socially-oriented approaches to Applied Linguistics research, including Sociocultural Theory, Situated Learning, Imagined Communities, Complexity Theory, and Autonomy Theory. Is there a tension between the social and the individual in these approaches, and if so, how is it manifested and resolved in empirical research?

Author : Almerindo E. Ojeda
Publisher : Center for the Study of Language (CSLI)
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0937073857

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Linguistic Individuals by Almerindo E. Ojeda Pdf

The goal of semantics is the insightful identification of the set of meanings that human language can express - the construction of what has been called the metaphysics of natural language. A formal attempt to construct such a metaphysics has generally involved identifying a set of individuals referred to as the universe of discourse. Until recently, however, semanticists have had little to say about the structure of this set. Ojeda argues that the structure of the set of linguistic individuals is a mereology, that is, the domain of discourse is made up of kinds and the instantiations of kinds. His argument forms the four main sections of this work. The first examines the semantics of countability (countable stems, number inflection, adjectives of measure, and determiners); the second explores the semantics of uncountability (the individuation of reference, the reversibility of countability, cumulative and distributive reference, and non-Boolean mass predicates); the third takes up the semantics of nominality (the mereological homogeneity of nouns and the constraints on nouns in classifier languages); and the last investigates the semantics of the conceptional neuter, a pronominal category discussed by Otto Jesperson. Ojeda's investigations contribute to the characterization of linguistic individuals and provide for a new basis for the semantics of individuation.

Author : Charles J Fillmore,Daniel Kempler,William S-Y. Wang
Publisher : Academic Press
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2014-05-10
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781483263205

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Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior by Charles J Fillmore,Daniel Kempler,William S-Y. Wang Pdf

Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior is a collection of papers that discusses differences at the center of the study of language, specifically, on the various dimensions of linguistic ability and behavior along which individuals can differ from each other. Papers also review the development of techniques that measure these dimensions in relation to biological, psychological, and cultural parameters. Some papers review individual differences in language study in terms of different perspectives: that of a psychometrician's, of an individualistic's vantage point, and of a psycholinguistic's. Other papers discuss how each individual accesses, uses, and judges his language through fluency, biases, spatial principles, or a linguistic-phonetic mode. Several papers examine individual differences in language acquisition, such as "profile analysis," strategies in acquisition of sounds, second language learning, and duplication of adult language system. A group of papers addresses the biological aspects of language variation. These biological aspects include selective disorders of syntax (agrammatism), selective disorders of lexical retrieval (anomia), and cerebral lateralization effects in language processing. Certain papers explain individual differences in languages using sociolinguistic analysis. The collection is well suited for linguists, ethnologists, psychologists, and researchers whose works involve linguistics, learning, communications, and syntax.

Author : Alexander Werth,Lars Bülow,Simone E. Pfenninger,Markus Schiegg
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2021-09-07
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110743128

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Intra-individual Variation in Language by Alexander Werth,Lars Bülow,Simone E. Pfenninger,Markus Schiegg Pdf

This volume offers several empirical, methodological, and theoretical approaches to the study of observable variation within individuals on various linguistic levels. With a focus on German varieties, the chapters provide answers on the following questions (inter alia): Which linguistic and extra-linguistic factors explain intra-individual variation? Is there observable intra-individual variation that cannot be explained by linguistic and extra-linguistic factors? Can group-level results be generalised to individual language usage and vice versa? Is intra-individual variation indicative of actual patterns of language change? How can intra-individual variation be examined in historical data? Consequently, the various theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches in this volume offer a better understanding of the meaning of intra-individual variation for patterns of language development, language variation and change. The inter- and transdisciplinary nature of the volume is an exciting new frontier, and the results of the studies in this book provide a wealth of new findings as well as challenges to some of the existing findings and assumptions regarding the nature of intra-individual variation.

Author : Almerindo Ojeda
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:947127314

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Linguistic Individuals by Almerindo Ojeda Pdf

Author : Francesca Di Garbo , Bruno Olsson , Bernhard Wälchli
Publisher : Language Science Press
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2024-06-29
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783961101788

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Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity I by Francesca Di Garbo , Bruno Olsson , Bernhard Wälchli Pdf

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 : Lynn Anthonissen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 339 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2021-10-25
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783110725841

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Individuality in Language Change by Lynn Anthonissen Pdf

Linguists have typically studied language change at the aggregate level of speech communities, yet key mechanisms of change such as analogy and automation operate within the minds of individual language users. Drawing on lifespan data from 50 authors and the intriguing case of the special passives in the history of English, this study addresses three fundamental issues relating to individuality in language change: (i) how variation and change at the individual level interact with change at the community level; (ii) how much innovation and change is possible across the adult lifespan; (iii) and to what extent related linguistic patterns are associated in individual cognition. As one of the first large-scale empirical studies to systematically link individual- and community-based perspectives in language change, this volume breaks new ground in our understanding of language as a complex adaptive system.

Author : John C. Maher
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2017-05-18
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780191038075

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Multilingualism: A Very Short Introduction by John C. Maher Pdf

The languages of the world can be seen and heard in cities and towns, forests and isolated settlements, as well as on the internet and in international organizations like the UN or the EU. How did the world acquire so many languages? Why can't we all speak one language, like English or Esperanto? And what makes a person bilingual? Multilingualism, language diversity in society, is a perfect expression of human plurality. About 6,500-7,000 languages are spoken, written and signed, throughout the linguistic landscape of the world, by people who communicate in more than one language (at work, or in the family or community). Many origin myths, like Babel, called it a 'punishment' but multilingualism makes us who we are and plays a large part of our sense of belonging. Languages are instruments for interacting with the cultural environment and their ecology is complex. They can die (Tasmanian), or decline then revive (Manx and Hawaiian), reconstitute from older forms (modern Hebrew), gain new status (Catalan and Maori) or become autonomous national languages (Croatian). Languages can even play a supportive and symbolic role as some territories pursue autonomy or nationhood, such as in the cases of Catalonia and Scotland. In this Very Short Introduction John C. Maher shows how multilingualism offers cultural diversity, complex identities, and alternative ways of doing and knowing to hybrid identities. Increasing multilingualism is drastically changing our view of the value of language, and our notion of the part language plays in national and cultural identities. At the same time multilingualism can lead to social and political conflict, unequal power relations, issues of multiculturalism, and discussions over 'national' or 'official' languages, with struggles over language rights of local and indigenous communities. Considering multilingualism in the context of globalization, Maher also looks at the fate of many endangered languages as they disappear from the world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Otto Jespersen
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1954
Category : Comparative linguistics
ISBN : UOM:39015003583633

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Mankind, Nation and Individual by Otto Jespersen Pdf

Author : John E. Joseph
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2006-06-21
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780748626977

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Language and Politics by John E. Joseph Pdf

Language, this book argues, is political from top to bottom, whether considered at the level of an individual speaker's choice of language or style of discourse with others (where interpersonal politics are performed), or at the level of political rhetoric, or indeed all the way up to the formation of national languages. By bringing together this set of topics and highlighting how they are interrelated, the book will function well as a textbook on any applied or sociolinguistic course in which some or all of these various aspects of the politics of language are covered.

Author : Gisela Granena,Daniel O. Jackson,Yucel Yilmaz
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2016-12-23
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027266323

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Cognitive Individual Differences in Second Language Processing and Acquisition by Gisela Granena,Daniel O. Jackson,Yucel Yilmaz Pdf

Cognitive Individual Differences in Second Language Processing and Acquisition contains 14 chapters that focus on the role of cognitive IDs in L2 learning and processing. The book brings together theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of cognitive IDs, as well as empirical studies that investigate the mediating role of cognitive IDs in various linguistic domains. Chapters include contributions from researchers working within second language acquisition (SLA), psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology, sharing a common interest in the application of cognitive IDs to their respective areas of study. The interdisciplinary understanding of cognitive IDs presented in this book makes the book of interest to a wide readership of graduate students, faculty members, and academic researchers in the fields of SLA, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and education.

Author : Amy C. Cottrill
Publisher : T&T Clark
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2008-05-15
Category : Poetry
ISBN : UOM:39015075621675

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Language, Power, and Identity in the Lament Psalms of the Individual by Amy C. Cottrill Pdf

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