bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lexical segments in text
Authors: Berber Sardinha Tony
Published: August 2014

Editors’ introduction

Berber Sardinha’s paper deals with a problem, namely text segmentation, which connects at several points with
those of the other contributors to this volume. Like Scott, Sinclair and Coulthard, Berber Sardinha is interested in
understanding the computer’s understanding of text, or rather the computer’s failure to handle the
complexities of text satisfactorily. Like the other contributors who have been influenced by Hoey’s work on
text patterning, his work is also concerned with the problem of identifying the stages which a text goes through as it
moves from one component of a pattern to the next.

The problem is not trivial. Computer methods for processing text have already led to an explosion of text
retrieval methods which anyone who uses Internet search engines knows, needs and curses. That is, a fairly simple
technology is there to help us find all instances of a desired word or phrase in a database, or in the whole Internet, or
on a given computer, and the uses to which this technology can be put are both text retrieval — to find the text
one is searching for — and pedagogical: to learn about word collocation and colligation. But as
Sinclair’s paper shows, such a technology may be efficient in its own terms but disconnected from the way
human users relate to the world and to each other. Thus, a very large number of irrelevant hits are typically found,
which usually hinder text retrieval as much as they help it and may also obscure and frustrate collocational inference.

It is likely that these problems will be best tackled by refinements to the techniques used, refinements which
are very likely to involve questions central to the rest of this volume, concerning the aboutness of individual text
segments, and the relations between text segments or elements. Thus, for information retrieval and language learning
we certainly need to know much more than “which texts contain word x or phrase y?” and move
towards “which texts are about z?” and “which segments of which texts are about p and not
q?” and “where does the text change from explaining r to evaluating it?”. It is probable that as
we learn to answer questions such as these, we shall be that much nearer to a truly useful text retrieval.

Berber Sardinha’s paper proposes a detailed and ingenious method for getting at the boundaries
within a text, identifying its segments in the sense of changes in aboutness.

As with the other contributors using computer methods, the problems are as yet greater than the solutions
encountered. It is therefore important to view the method being proposed in the right light: the purpose here as in so
much else is to model the world; it is through insights arising from model-making, model application and model-
testing that progress is eventually made.
Patterns of text in teacher education
Authors: Edge Julian , Wharton Sue
Published: August 2014

Editors’ introduction

The focus of the contribution by Edge and Wharton is pedagogical, like that of Darnton. However, as a contributionthis is unusual, in that it recounts a narrative and provides a detailed outline of teacher education as opposed toanalysing a text or a set of texts. What guides Edge and Wharton is the possibility of applying Hoey’s (1979,1983) Situation — Problem — Response — Evaluation (SPRE) model; first, with Turkish andNamibian trainee teachers who benefited from seeing SPRE as a guide for reading with enhanced comprehension;later, and taking up the bulk of the contribution, with mostly British and American students taking an MSc in TESOLin Britain, who used SPRE as a guide to writing assignments or publishable papers.

The article describes in some detail the steps their students took, guided by the developing ideas of Edge andWharton over a ten year timeframe. Of particular interest is the detailed explanation of how the components S, P, R,E relate to the generation of text. Some of the linkages described are “endophoric”, in thatthey connect features of S to P or E to R within the existing and developing text. Other relations discussed by Edge andWharton are “exophoric”, linking elements of structure to the world outside the text, e.g. in claimingnewness, a claim most writers wish to make. The emphasis throughout is facilitatory: these are not rigid taskframeworks but guides which facilitate the growth of each learner’s writing.

A major question which arises is “why should this be so necessary?”.

It is readily accepted in the field that the problems of reading and writing are not reducible to problems ofgrammar and lexis: it is not uncommon to find a chunk of text which contains familiar grammar and lexis yet isincomprehensible (such as on coming into the middle of a conversation, or to take Bolívar’s case in thisvolume, reading an editorial on a topic where one does not know the underlying story), so it cannot be newsworthy,within Applied Linguistics, that students’ problems often lie elsewhere. Useful places to look beyond lexis andgrammar are the notion of schema (Rumelhart 1984) or SPRE (Hoey 1979, 1983). These provide frameworks whichstructure the reader’s knowledge, in the case of the schema, and the overall text architecture in the case ofSPRE, as Edge and Wharton show.

The point, though, is that students themselves may not have realised that their problems are not exclusivelyto do with lack of knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Students of English as a foreign language know that theyneed more vocabulary and better control of grammar; students whose L1 is English may simply know that writing is“tricky”. Without awareness-raising, though, we none of us have the mental“tools” to describe and solve our problems.

The value of the approach described here, then, is arguably that the procedures enabled students to thinkabout their own reading and writing, to become aware of the role of information in building and structuring anargument. The problem, in a sense, is not “how do I say it?” but “what shall Isay?”.
Constraints on inferential constructions
Authors: Koops Christian
Published: August 2014

This chapter addresses the cross-linguistic variability of inferential constructions and the constrained character of the English it is that-construction in particular. A quantitative case study of the latter (e.g. It’s just that I’m a different person now) shows that, compared with inferential constructions in other languages, the English construction is even more restricted than has previously been assumed. A discourse constraint is proposed which limits its applicability to inferences which are highly accessible at the point of utterance. This constraint severely limits the use of the construction in its unmarked form, i.e. in affirmative declarative clauses without further modification, and explains why it occurs specifically with certain modifiers and in combination with certain other grammatical constructions. The chapter explores the implications of these findings for the study of inferential constructions across languages.
The ambiguity of brightness (with special reference to Old English) and a new model for colour description in semantics
Authors: Biggam Carole P.
Published: August 2014

The paper addresses problems of ambiguity in the use of the English words bright andbrightness in certain publications on color semantics. The Old English language (records date from the late fifth century to c.1150 A.D.) is taken as a case study. After establishing which visual sensations could be described as ‘bright’, the usages of various authors writing on Old English color are investigated, and found to differ considerably. The evidence for the frequently encountered statement that Old English was concerned almost entirely with ‘brightness’, and not hue, is then investigated, and (hopefully) amore balanced conclusion is reached. Finally, a proposed metalanguage for color statements concerning historical languages (where native speakers cannot be consulted) is presented in an effort to avoid future ambiguity.
Color terms in ancient Egyptian and Coptic
Authors: Schenkel Wolfgang
Published: August 2014

The examination of the ancient Egyptian-Coptic color terms, their grammatical identification, their range of usage, and their etymologies permit the following conclusions: There are four BCTs, all verbs, ‘black,’ ‘white,’ ‘red’ and ‘green,’ as traditionally translated. The focus of ‘red’ is in the red range and not in the middle of the red-with-yellow range. The focus of ‘green’ lies in the green range and not in the middle of the green-with-blue range nor in the pale green range. In the final, Coptic, stage, the partition of the red range into ‘deep red’ and ‘light-red’ must be assumed. The traditional written language allowed additional place for further verbal color terms, but these never entered the colloquial language as BCTs. Among these alternatives, the use of ‘lapis lazuli-colored, blue’ is strikingly common; that of ‘charcoal-like, black’ and ‘golden’ is less common. Egyptian did not develop a BCT for either blue or yellow. Basically Egyptian-Coptic remained at B&K Stage IIIa.
Basic color term evolution in the light of ancient evidence from the Near East
Authors: Warburton David A.
Published: August 2014

Ancient languages rely on concrete and specific meaning rather than abstraction, naming basic color categories differently than do the contemporary languages upon which Berlin and Kay base their universalist evolutionary theory. The ancient languages named red and blue with words transparently derived from precious stones; they applied these to more than one basic category; and they exchanged these traditions, and sometimes the terms. We find the evidence through interpretation of the same philological data used to support conclusions favorable to Berlin and Kay’s thesis. Superficially, the validity of Berlin and Kay’s thesis is thrown into doubt, as it would appear that it loses its “universal character” due to the neglect of the nuances visible in ancient languages: application of their hypothesis actually obscures the early evidence. Studying linguistic color expression of antiquity contributes to understanding color expression, thus improving overall insight into the evolution of color terminology.
Towards a history and typology of color categorization in colloquial Arabic
Authors: Borg Alexander
Published: August 2014

The word stock of Old Arabic attested in the Pre-Islamic literature displays by far the most elaborately lexified color paradigm attested within the Semitic language family. The present article surveys color usage in the modern Arabic colloquials (both Eastern and Western) from a diachronic angle and suggests that a qualitative evolutionary shift from brightness to hue categories coincided roughly with the sedentarization of Arabicspeaking nomads which brought them in contact with basic color systems of sedentary communities influenced by the dyer’s palette. The Old Arabic five-term color system (abyad. ‘white, bright’, aswad ‘black, dark’, ah. mar ‘red, light brown’, axd. ar ‘green, blue, black’, and as. far ‘yellow’; Fischer 1965) paralleled in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic lies at the basis of most modern colloquial color paradigms. Whereas urban Arabic vernaculars spoken, for instance, in Cairo, Beirut, Jerusalem, etc., display systems approximating the Berlin/Kay eleven-term paradigm, co-territorial semi-nomadic communities tend to retain archaic color paradigms with fewer basic categories alongside a rich non-basic nomenclature encoding predominantly ecological hues.
Color and emotions in English
Authors: Steinvall Anders
Published: August 2014

This paper presents a corpus study of collocational patterns of English color and emotion words. A collection of 50 color terms and 135 emotion terms served as the starting point for the search of patterns. The obtained patterns are described and analysed with regard to salience from two different points of view: For each emotion category we ask which color categories are most salient, and for each color category we ask which emotion categories are most salient. The analysis of the underlying motivation for salient color-emotion collocations demonstrates that the commonest motivations are based in metaphorical models linked to the body. This indicates the importance of experiential and embodied models for creating associations involving color terms.
Color words in painting descriptions: Some linguistic evidence for entity-like conceptualization
Authors: Anishchanka Alena V.
Published: August 2014

The chapter contains linguistic analysis of a sample of 100 catalogue entries written for three American museums to describe individual paintings. The aim of the study is to investigate the use of color words by art critics and painters in American English. Results of the analysis indicate an extensive use of nominalization in the color lexicon of discourse studied – along with attributive function of color words, which perform as modifiers of nouns and signal color as a property of an entity. Notably, both basic and non-basic color terms tend to be used as nouns. The nominalized color words exhibit the full range of morphological, semantic, and syntactic features of nouns. We suggest that this kind of verbalization of color concepts in painting descriptions reflects a certain model of understanding color as a domain of human experience, in particular, categorizing color as a thing-like manipulable entity.
Metaphors as cognitive models in Halkomelem color adjectives
Authors: Galloway Brent D.
Published: August 2014

Halkomelem is a Central Salish language of the Pacific Northwest with dialects of Upriver, Downriver, and Island. Color terms are adjectival verbs in Upriver Halkomelem, used syntactically and cognitively as both verbs and adjectives. Fieldwork with Munsell chips reveals that speakers of Upriver Halkomelem use a variety of strategies to name shades of color. Galloway 1992 reported on the use of aspect inflection to name the shades; thus color term roots are inflected for stative (be red), inceptive (get red, turn red), and these can be combined with continuative aspect (being red, getting/tuming red, getting in a state of red) and even with diminutives (a little red, getting/tuming a little red). There is one augmentative affix but adverbs like ‘very’ and ‘real’ are preposed by certain speakers to express some shades. Color adjectives, with or without adverbs and affixes, may be used sentence-initially as verbs or may be preposed to nouns within noun phrases. It seems, then, that different speakers use distinct metaphorical cognitive models in creating these terms. All speakers share the metaphorical model that COLORS ARE PROCESSES. This cognitive model allows further metaphors to be applied, for example, INCREASING SATURATION & BRIGHTNESS ARE CONTINUATIVES. Another metaphorical model is seen with the diminutive: DECREASING SATURATION & BRIGHTNESS ARE DIMINISHING IN SIZE OR AMOUNT. These last two mental models are coherent with each other and, therefore, can be used together. There are also adjectives meaning ‘light’ and ‘dark’ which some speakers use with color terms, and some use two basic color terms together to express variations in hue (like blue-green in English). Investigation continues into whether there are submodels ofmodifiers used to express variations in saturation independently from those in brightness. In Upriver Halkomelem, thinking of color in terms of culturally sanctioned metaphors is a convention that exceeds mere application of linguistic form to unprocessed color perception. Communicative subtlety depends on them.
Prototypical and stereotypical color in Slavic languages: Models based on folklore
Authors: Popovic Lyudmila
Published: August 2014

Cognitive theory of worldview in language specifies speakers’ ability to isolate a prototype as the construct of interpretative reality and to use a stereotype as an associative prototype, a process undertaken by certain Slavic cultures. Linguistic conceptualization of basic color categories provides data to explore criteria for assigning prototypes as well as the reasons to encode stereotypes. Data derive from nineteenth century Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian folklore. Therein, color prototypes are radiant and positive, nonprototypes not radiant and secondary, for which they come to symbolize negative stereotypes. Each color concept harbors a duality of both semantic potentials, which appear to descend from like oppositions in ancient ancestral languages. The data provide background in time depth for comparison with outcomes of associative experiments and with results from psycholinguistic research in contemporary Russian and Ukrainian.
To have color and to have no color: The coloring of the face in the Czech linguistic picture of the world
Authors: Vanková Irena
Published: August 2014

The semantic analysis of color vocabulary provides insight into models of perception and thinking. Color and coloring play an important role in the way phenomena of human perception and reflection are conceptualized. Various linguistic and cultural connotations related to colors in specific contexts are explored and a semantic analysis of the role of color in these contexts is given, with reference to Czech color words.
Phraseology and language pedagogy: Semantic preference associated with English verbs in the British National Corpus
Authors: Kennedy Graeme
Published: August 2014

The key role of phraseology in language acquisition and use has been recognised by a number of distinguished linguists during the twentieth century. Research in cognitive science has shown that frequency of occurrence and frequency of experience establishes words and collocations as units of learning, and becomes a determinant in their use. This chapter first describes the distribution of phraseology associated with a number of very high frequency lexical verbs in the British National Corpus, and explores the extent to which the collocates of particular verbs tend to reflect underlying semantic preference and grammatical processes. Collocations associated with the verbs enjoy, give, receive, start, begin, stop, end,and finish are analysed. Frequency of occurrence and the extent of collocational bonding as revealed by the Mutual Information measure are used in the study to identify collocational relations. The chapter then explores why, in light of the evidence from corpora on the nature and pervasiveness of phraseology, there has not been a more explicit and prominent place in language pedagogy for the learning of multi-word units.
Why can't you just leave it alone? Deviations from memorized language as a gauge of nativelike competence
Authors: Wray Alison , Fitzpatrick Tess
Published: August 2014

This chapter reports an investigation into the capacity of language learners to improve their performance through the memorization of specifically targeted linguistic material. Six intermediate/advanced learners of English memorized nativelike versions of conversational turns that they anticipated needing in future conversations. After rehearsal, they attempted to use the memorized material in real interaction. Recordings of all stages of the process were transcribed and analyzed, to identify the nature of the deviations made from the targets. Nativelike deviations are interpreted as a legitimate approximation of nativelike behaviour, since fully faithful reproduction of a memorized original is usually neither necessary nor desirable for those with the linguistic skill to make appropriate changes. Non-nativelike deviations are viewed as indicative of shortfalls in knowledge, poor attention focus, and over-optimistic risk-taking during memorization. Individual profiles of the learners are presented, and it is proposed that memorization could be used as a means of establishing the strengths and weaknesses of learners in relation to morphological, lexical and phraseological knowledge
11. Fixed expressions, extenders and metonymy in the speech of people with Alzheimer's disease
Authors: Maclagan Margaret , Davis Boyd , Lunsford Ron
Published: August 2014

In this chapter we demonstrate how fixed expressions, extenders and metonymy help maintain the appearance of competence for speakers with Alzheimer’s disease. We compare impaired and unimpaired speakers from two different countries (the United States of America and New Zealand) to show that speakers with Alzheimer’s disease use fixed expressions, extenders and metonymy similarly to unimpaired speakers. Initially, speakers with Alzheimer’s disease can retrieve the full range of meanings referenced by the extender ormetonymy. As the disease progresses, extenders and metonymy are still used appropriately, but only the conversational partner is able to retrieve the full set of meanings. The use of fixed expressions, extenders and metonymy helps speakers with Alzheimer’s disease to continue to position themselves as competent interactors and to participate in conversations.
18. Automatic extraction of translation equivalents of phrasal and light verbs in English and Russian
Authors: Mudraya Olga , Piao Scott S.L. , Rayson Paul , Sharoff Serge , Babych Bogdan , Löfberg Laura
Published: August 2014

This chapter aims at bridging the functionalist theoretical perspective on word usage with corpus-based studies. We are dealing with the issue of construction of reliable lists of what is called ‘phraseological units’ in general linguistics literature or ‘multi-word expressions’ (MWEs) in literature on computational linguistics. The two groups of constructions under investigation in this chapter are phrasal verbs and light verb constructions. Another distinguishing feature of this study is its multilingual aspect. Previous computational approaches to MWEs have mainly focussed on English, and there has been little research on computational approaches to MWEs in other languages. In this chapter, we examine phrasal verbs in English and their translation equivalents in Russian, and compare English-Russian/Russian-English translation equivalents of selected light verb constructions in two case studies. Our study reveals some interesting cross-language structural divergences between the languages under consideration and shows that a phraseological expression in a language may have equivalent expressions in other languages with different morpho-syntactic structures and semantic properties. However, our investigation not only reveals marked differences between English and Russian, but also discovers some general corresponding structural patterns between them; for example, English phrasal verbs usually have single-word translation equivalents in Russian. Moreover, our study of phrasal and light verbs demonstrates that corpus-based resources can provide an invaluable help to a practising translator, as dictionaries do not cover a large variety of real-life language examples.
Gender distinction and affirmative copula clauses in Zargulla
Authors: Amha Azeb
Published: August 2014

In Omotic, grammatical gender that is expressed through agreement between associated words and equally affecting animate and inanimate nouns is not common. Rather, the system of gender-marking in Omotic mostly involves direct-marking on the noun and it is semantically determined, i.e., the system classifies (large) animate nouns according to their biological gender and leaves inanimate nouns unmarked or marks all inanimate nouns categorically as either masculine or feminine. In Zargulla feminine and masculine gender is morphologically distinguished in the following areas: in verbal subject-agreement marking, definiteness marking in nouns and in third person singular pronouns. Moreover, Zargulla has two copula markers: -tte and -tta, the distribution of which partly corresponds to masculine and feminine gender respectively. The focus of the present contribution is on these two morphemes. We show that the gender-marking role of the two morphemes is diminishing and that they are grammaticalizing into two different discourse-functional morphemes.
Lexicostatistical comparison of Omotic languages
Authors: Blažek Václav
Published: August 2014

The taxonomy of the Omotic language family is thoroughly analyzed. The hypotheses of “West Cushitic” vs. a “Cushomotic” super-branch, vs. separating Omotic as the sixth branch of Afroasiatic (Fleming) are compared. Earlier classifications of the Omotic family are presented, followed by the author’s version based on S.A. Starostin’s variant of glottochronology. According to the latter the North/South Omotic disintegration can be dated to the beginning of the 5th mill. BC. Borrowings can be distinguished from inherited lexicon, though often one can only speculate on the direction of borrowing. Nilo-Saharan parallels were also taken into account. The numbers of cognates common to Omotic and other Cushitic branches on the one hand are contrasted with those common to Omotic and the other Afroasiatic families on the other. It seems most natural to see in Omotic an independent member of the Afroasiatic macro-phylum.

1. Internal classification

2. Phonetic correspondences

3. Basic lexicon

4. Etymological comments
Erosion in Chadic
Authors: Jungraithmayr Herrmann
Published: August 2014

The Chadic language family in the Central Sudan is comparable to a landscape the surface of which consists of plains, valleys and mountain ridges. Some areas were more resistant than others against the forces of erosion. Different degrees of hardness and resistibility caused languages to preserve or reduce the original substance with regard to lexicon or grammar of an individual language or the entire language group. Chadic with its ca. 130–150 languages is probably the one branch of Hamitosemitic (Afroaasiatic) which has been subject to the strongest transformational processes in which erosion, i.e., attrition of language material in space and time, played a dominant role. The paper presents numerous examples illustrating different stages of progressive erosion which may characterize the nature of Chadic linguistic history.
Some thoughts on the Proto-Indo-European cardinal numbers
Authors: Bomhard Allan R.
Published: August 2014

This paper takes a fresh look at the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European cardinal numbers. Evidence is presented that the earliest form of the number “two” was (in traditional reconstruction) *do- and that the form usually given in the standard handbooks, namely, *duwō/*dwō, was a later borrowing, probably from Northwest Caucasian. Moreover, the earliest form of the number “four” was *Hokh-tho-. It is preserved in the number “eight”, *Hokh-thoH(w), which is a later dual form meaning “two fours”. The forms *meyu- “four”, found in the Anatolian branch, and *kwhéth-wor- “four”, found in the non-Anatolian daughter languages, are both later innovations. Finally, the number “ten”, de-kmo t-, is taken to be an old compound meaning “two hands”, as often suggested in the literature.
Trombetti: The forefather of Indo-Pacific
Authors: Morris Jonathan
Published: August 2014

The work of the Italian linguists Alfredo Trombetti and Riccardo Gatti on their hypothesis of genetic relationship between the languages of the Andaman Islands, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, and the Dravidian languages is discussed in detail. It is shown that Trombetti and Gatti had formulated a coherent precursor of the “Indo-Pacific” hypothesis (Greenberg 1971) by 1906.
The Berber and the Berbers
Authors: Dugoujon Jean-Michel , Coudray Clotilde , Torroni Antonio , Cruciani Fulvio , Scozzari Rosaria , Moral Pedro , Louali Naima , Kossmann Maarten
Published: August 2014

In Northern Africa, two main blocks of languages are spoken: the vernacular Arabic varieties and the Berber languages. Our objective is to correlate linguistic characters to genetic data. The precise language affiliation of the samples is controlled. Relationships with Arabic speakers are examined. Four informative genetic markers have been studied: two are autosomal (Gm allotypes and Alu sequences) and the other two are of maternal (mitochondrial DNA) and paternal (Y chromosome) lineages. Four populations were studied (514 samples): three are from Morocco (Asni, Bouhria and Figuig oasis) and the fourth from Egypt (the Siwa oasis). The results were compared with previously published analyses. The genetic differentiation between North-Western and North-Eastern African Berbers (Siwan) seems to be correlated with linguistic studies.
Genetic and linguistic borders in the Himalayan Region
Authors: Kraaijenbrink Thirsa , Parkin Emma J. , Carvalho-Silva Denise R. , van Driem George L. , Barbujani Guido , Tyler-Smith Chris , Jobling Mark A. , Knijff Peter de
Published: August 2014

There are a number of competing theories about the origins of the Himalayan peoples. These theories are largely based on linguistic and/or archaeological findings, sometimes supported by the results of small-scale genetic studies. A large-scale, ethnolinguistically-informed genetic study of the greater Himalayan region might provide a definitive model for historical population events in this region, and that is why the current study was undertaken.The geographical area of the present-day states of Nepal and Bhutan could have served as ancient corridors for human migration through the Himalayas despite their geographical position immediately south of the highest land barrier. The findings also raise the question as to whether the southern slopes of the Himalayas could have harboured a myriad of refuge areas for the ancestral Tibeto-Burman population(s) during the last glacial maximum. Alternatively, if the multitude and diversity of language communities found in these countries is a reliable indication, they could be an ancient source of genetically differentiated populations and languages. A detailed genetic study of the Himalayan region, therefore, may not only provide insights into the uniqueness and antiquity of its residents, but may also shed light on the peopling of the Himalayas and eastern Asia in general.Using genetic data from 15 autosomal Short Tandem Repeat (STR) loci, we provide evidence that there is clear congruence between language and genetics. Populations speaking a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family are genetically more similar to each other than to populations speaking a language belonging to the Indo-European language family. On the basis of language differences we can draw a linguistic boundary roughly running from east to west, just south of the border between India and Bhutan and through southern Nepal. A genetic boundary can be reconstructed along nearly the same route. We conclude from all these analyses that the populations of Nepal and Bhutan are likely to have originated outside their current locations, in regions where their language families are spoken, but need further work to suggest more precise origins.
Universalism and human difference in Chomskyan linguistics
Authors: Hutton Christopher
Published: August 2014

Chomskyan linguistics is defined by its commitment to universalism and to belief in the existence of a shared species-wide language faculty grounded in human biology. The claim is that all human beings are linguistically one, and that human unity is the product of biological endowment. This paper argues that there is a profound contradiction at the heart of this project, which can be seen in the tension between universalism and rationalism on the one hand, and Romantic notions of mother tongue, native speaker, and intuitions about biological structure, on the other. There is one feature in common, however, between the universalistic framework and the Romantic-intuitive one. Neither is easily reconcilable with mainstream evolutionary theory. Conventional evolutionary theory is based on natural selection acting on intra-species variation, but Chomskyan linguistics seeks to avoid at all costs a characterization of humankind that includes any significant differences in biological inheritance or variation. In order to defend this core postulate of identity Chomsky is willing to present as reductionalist a view of the subject matter of linguistics as is necessary. Having linked language to biology, Chomsky must bracket out all forms of variation from his model in order to sustain this vision of human equality. But this idealization is only required because of the biolinguistic framework itself, and the insistence that there is a deterministic relationship between human biology and language. Ultimately the theory is driven by an ideological or political ideal of absolute human equality, a concept completely alien to the biological sciences. By linking human linguistic endowment to biology, Chomskyan linguistics is in danger of lending support to an idea quite antithetical to its universalism, namely that human beings and human societies are shaped by profound differences in their biolinguistic heritage.
Historiography’s contribution to theoretical linguistics
Authors: Andresen Julie T.
Published: August 2014

Given the rich, multidisciplinary developments that have influenced linguistic theory and practice over the past fifty years, we historiographers are uniquely positioned to provide some much needed theoretical integration for the discipline in these post-Chomskyan times. We do so when we shift from practicing historiography as a subdiscipline to deploying it as a method of theoretical intervention. The goal of this essay is to sketch the results of a historiographicallyinformed critique of introductory linguistics textbooks – all of whose formats extend back to Leonard Bloomfield’s Language (1933) – and to offer the outline of a newer developmental linguistics which is: (a) reframed pragmatically by establishing from the beginning an embodied brain embedded in a context; and (b) organized not around the questions: What is language? or What do we know when we know a language? but rather around: How is it that hearing a sequence of sounds (or seeing a sequence of signs or reading a sequence of words) have the effects that they do? This conceptual shift entails addressing two new questions: How does a living being become a languaging living being? and How do we become the particular languaging living beings that we do? In order to answer these questions, both a phylogenetic script and an ontogenetic script need to be provided. Such an approach avoids the problem of the linguist who inherits a construct (e.g. Universal Grammar) and then must retrofit it to contemporary evolutionary and neurological research. It offers instead to our students – the future of the field – a theoretical account of our subject matter (language/ languaging) whose evolutionary and neurological plausibility have been factored in from the beginning.
Beyond expertise
Authors: Gerdts Donna B.
Published: August 2014

We linguists see ourselves as knights in shining armor, while Natives see us as a necessarily evil. They are quick to criticize, control, and even block linguistic work. Why this gap? First, there is misunderstanding about what linguists do. Second, linguists cannot help with the most crucial needs of an endangered language. Finally, including outsiders entails a loss of community autonomy. The socio-political agenda can easily override the urgency of the work. Understanding differences in viewpoint can foster an environment of mutual respect, leading to a successful project. The linguist must learn to function as part of a team, and the community must learn to get the most out of their linguist in order to attain the shared goal – the revitalization of the language.
Saving languages, saving lives
Authors: Aguilar Méndez Hermelindo , López Méndez Teresa , Méndez Vázquez Juan , Sántiz Pérez Maria Bertha , Jiménez Jiménez Ramon , Furbee N. Louanna , del Socorro Guillén Rovelo Louanna , Benfer Robert A.
Published: August 2014

Most documentation projects for endangered languages arise from the concerns and subsequent collaborations of language experts and of language inheritors. Both groups have vital interests. Linguistic experts view language death as loss of a record of human creativity and adaptation, study of which dominates their careers. Inheritors of the dying language experience the loss as erasure of the most important touchstone to their history and culture. Nonetheless, sometimes a project that enhances the vitality of an endangered language arises as an emergent phenomenon, an activity ancillary to the primary concern of a group that initiates the documentation and invigoration processes. In this paper we describe one such collaboration, and suggest it as a model for other potential collaborations.
Language documentation in the Tohono O’odham community
Authors: Fitzgerald Colleen M.
Published: August 2014

This paper examines language documentation efforts on the Tohono O’odham (formerly known as Papago) reservation. Tohono O’odham is an endangered Uto-Aztecan language spoken in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. The focus here is on legacy documentation, which consists of recordings and manuscripts collected by previous researchers. These materials could potentially serve as a valuable resource for the tribal community in language maintenance and revitalization. However, most have not been transcribed, translated, or published. This article describes the beginning of a collaboration between tribal community members and academics to make O’odham legacy materials more accessible. This paper offers suggestions to other groups for developing similar collaborations and presents community-generated ideas for how to develop and work with these legacy materials.
Age-dependence of colour preference in the U.K. population
Authors: Ling Zhu , Hurlbert Anya
Published: August 2014

In our previous study of hue preference for young Chinese and British adults in Newcastle upon Tyne, we found that individual hue preference patterns may be described by the weighted sum of the two universal cone-contrast channels (S-(L+M) and L–M contrast) (Hurlbert & Ling 2007). Therefore, each individual’s hue preference may be reduced to two factors, representing preference along the ‘blue’-‘yellow’ and ‘red’-‘green’ dimensions correspondingly. We also found robust differences between sex and culture, represented by differential weighting on these components. Here we extend the study by investigating colour preference across ages in the U.K. population. A portable experimental box was developed to conduct the study outside the lab. Stimuli were displayed on a calibrated laptop screen fixed at the back of the box. A chin-rest fixed the distance from which observers viewed the stimuli, and their heads were covered by a black curtain to exclude external light from view. The observer had to select, as rapidly as possible, his or her preferred colour from each of a series of pairs of stimuli on a grey background, above and below the centre of the screen. We tested 4 age groups, children (8–9 years old and 11–12 years old), young adults (18–24 years), and elderly adults (61–88 years). The results reveal robust sex and age differences in colour preference for the U.K. population, which are described by our preference model. Implications of these differences are discussed.
Ecological valence and human color preference
Authors: Palmer Stephen E. , Schloss Karen B.
Published: August 2014

Aesthetic response to color is an important aspect of human experience, but little is known about why people like some colors more than others. Previous research suggested explanations based on sensory physiology and color-emotions. In this chapter we propose an ecological valence theory based on the hypothesis that color preferences are caused by people’s average affective responses to color-associated objects. That is, people like colors that are strongly associated with objects they like (e.g. blues with clear skies and clean water) and dislike colors strongly associated with objects they dislike (e.g. browns with feces and rotten fruit). We report data that strongly support this claim: the ecological valence theory not only predicts average color preferences better than three alternative theories containing more free parameters, but it provides a plausible explanation of why color preferences exist and how they arise.
Chapter 7. The human major transition in relation to symbolic behaviour, including language, imagination, and spirituality
Authors: Sloan Wilson David
Published: August 2014

Human evolution can be described in terms of three C’s: Cognition, Culture, and Cooperation. Cognition includes the capacity for symbolic thought that lies at the heart of both language and spirituality. Culture includes the capacity to transmit information, both horizontally and vertically, leading to cumulative behavioural change and rapid adaptation to local environments. Cooperation includes the capacity to engage in prosocial behaviours far beyond one’s circle of genealogical relatives and narrow reciprocators. The three C’s all have precursors in nonhuman species, but they are vastly elaborated in our species.
In what sequence did the 3 C’s of human evolution arise and how are they related to each other? A commonly invoked scenario is that the first step was the evolution of advanced cognition, often called “theory of mind (ToM)”, which enabled widespread cooperation and culture (e.g. Tomasello 1999). More recently, a consensus is forming around a second scenario. The first step in human evolution was a major evolutionary transition, which enabled withingroup cooperation to take place much more strongly than before (e.g. Boehm 1999; Wilson 2002, 2006, 2007; Tomasello et al. 2005). The major transition took place without a prior advance in cognitive ability and was a pre-requisite for the advanced forms of human cognition that we associate with language, symbolic thought, and spirituality. Moreover, much simpler adaptations were required as prerequisites for the advanced forms. The entire package of traits that make humans so distinctive are forms of teamwork that require interactions among trustworthy social partners. The first C to evolve was cooperation and the other two C’s are forms of cooperation.
Chapter 10. The other middle-range theories
Authors: Dubreuil Benoît
Published: August 2014

Archaeologists have long been aware of the need to make explicit the middle-range theories that they use to bridge the gap between raw archaeological evidence and human behaviour. In this paper, I discuss the difficulties in proposing such theories when dealing with long-extinct hominin populations, among which significant biological differences may have existed. I emphasize how far we remain from a general theory that would link genetic, neural, cognitive, and behavioural evolution, and how difficult it is to go beyond trivial explanations of the evolution of the human mind and behaviour. I argue that students of human cognitive evolution should move away from general mental phenomena, which they have focused on in recent years, and turn their attention to increasingly precise cognitive mechanisms realized in specific neural structures.
Does the autonomy of linguistics rest on the autonomy of syntax?
Authors: Silverstein Michael
Published: August 2014

The presenting semiotic fact of language is its thoroughly indexical character, its contextualization as the mediating text or message in interactional context, necessitating the methods of the interpretative social and behavioral sciences. Farthest removed from this as an object of study is its semiotic character as theorized in the modern structural-functional tradition of linguistic theory that, since Saussure, has transformed from trying to explain the autonomy of diachronic phonetic change to modeling a synchronic system of mutually internally distributed categories of syntactic form. A critique of several approaches to bridging the chasm between these two semiotic poles of language re-situates the “autonomy of syntax” thesis as a small, though vital part of what linguistic theory needs to be about.
Roots of the wakimae aspect of linguistic politeness
Authors: Ide Sachiko
Published: August 2014

Why is Japanese linguistic politeness characterized by wakimae? This paper argues that wakimae, or linguistic politeness, can be traced back to two roots. First, the Japanese language has abundant modal expressions from the morpheme level to the discourse level that index the context in order to show the speaker’s attitude toward the contextual elements involved. The structure of utterances consists of the proposition and the modality, and it is this modality expression that shows the speaker’s attitude toward the context of speaking. Second, the Japanese ‘sense of self’ consists of two layers of interactional domains: uchi (ingroup) and soto (outgroup). The use of modal expressions such as addressee honorifics is required to index the interactional domains of soto to observe wakimae. Finally, in this paper the moral aspiration for the pursuit of wakimae is discussed in light of historical development of Japanese philosophy.
Chapter 4. The collection of Anglicisms
Authors: Graedler Anne-Line
Published: August 2014

This article raises some methodological questions related to data collection in connection with Norwegian Anglicism studies. Specifically, it queries the extent to which results from methodologically divergent studies can be used for comparative purposes, such as estimating the rate of impact of English influence on the Norwegian vocabulary, something which represents an important foundation for present-day language policy. Questions that are raised and discussed concern the unit of investigation itself and types of criteria used to identify Anglicisms: the factors of age and degree of establishment, the type and size of the source material, and the treatment and presentation of data. The article concludes that some methodological problems may be alleviated in the future by using computerized research corpora.
Chapter 9. Multi-word loan translations and semantic borrowings from English in French journalistic discourse
Authors: Martí Solano Ramón
Published: August 2014

The French written press abounds with multi-word loan translations from English, such as en terme(s) de or adopter un profil bas. The results provided in this study correspond to the presence of this type of phrases in the French weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in the first decade of the 21st century. Although some have been in use for several decades, they clearly show a steady and unbroken evolution in the last few years. Multi-word semantic borrowings, as is the case with tour noir, are less pervasive and tend to go unnoticed to the general reader. There are, however, two different stages of integration corresponding to higher or lower frequency rates, typographical markers and lexicographical treatment.
Chapter 14. Incorporation degrees of selected economics-related Anglicisms in Italian
Authors: Gaudio Paola
Published: August 2014

In spite of the universally acknowledged worldwide influence of English on our native languages, once an English word crosses the borders to become an Anglicism, it undergoes a process of incorporation into the receiving language. This paper concerns the economics-related Anglicisms used in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and suggests that it is possible to identify four different patterns: drawn from a pool of more than ten million tokens, the eighty words selected exemplify three stages of foreign-word incorporation, from hapax legomena to fully incorporated and commonly recognized Anglicisms of specialized discourse.
Photo sharing as a joint activity between an aphasic speaker and others
Authors: Aaltonen Tarja , Arminen Ilkka , Raudaskoski Sanna
Published: August 2014

The chapter concerns the usages of a digital camera and digital photographs as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methods in interaction between aphasic and non-challenged speakers. It focuses on the way in which a universal tool (the ‘ubi-tech’ method) can contribute to the fluency of spontaneous everyday interactions. The video-recorded conversation is analysed with conversation analytical methods. We highlight the way in which sharing photographs on the display of a digital camera affects the organisation of social activity through bringing in additional semiotic resources that empower the person with aphasia. The digital camera and photos also assist in manifesting the epistemic status of a knowing participant who otherwise tends to be limited by communicative constraints.