Jeffrey D. Robinson (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190210557
- eISBN:
- 9780190210571
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210557.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
Within the study of language and social interaction, in which this book is situated, the concept of “accountability”—including related concepts, such as “account” or “motive,” “accounting,” and ...
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Within the study of language and social interaction, in which this book is situated, the concept of “accountability”—including related concepts, such as “account” or “motive,” “accounting,” and “being accountable”—has been of longstanding interest in terms of how interactants in both ordinary and organizational contexts manage their image or reputation, as well as how they achieve mutual understanding. However, these concepts are polysemous, with different senses being rather dramatic, such as accountability as “moral responsibility” and accountability as “intelligibility.” Even today this fact is not always remembered or fully recognized or appreciated by scholars, which has arguably slowed the development of these concepts. This volume brings together a collection of novel, conversation-analytic studies addressing accountability, with the goal of re-exposing its multiple senses, reiterating their interrelationships and, in doing so, breaking new conceptual ground and exposing new pathways for future research. Chapters advance our understanding of central theoretical issues, including turn taking, sequence and preference organization, repair, membership categorization, action formation and ascription, social solidarity and affiliation, and the relevance of context. Chapters range contextually, canvassing interactions between friends and family members, and during talk shows, broadcast news interviews, airline reservations, and medical visits. Chapters also range culturally, including English, Japanese, and Korean data.Less
Within the study of language and social interaction, in which this book is situated, the concept of “accountability”—including related concepts, such as “account” or “motive,” “accounting,” and “being accountable”—has been of longstanding interest in terms of how interactants in both ordinary and organizational contexts manage their image or reputation, as well as how they achieve mutual understanding. However, these concepts are polysemous, with different senses being rather dramatic, such as accountability as “moral responsibility” and accountability as “intelligibility.” Even today this fact is not always remembered or fully recognized or appreciated by scholars, which has arguably slowed the development of these concepts. This volume brings together a collection of novel, conversation-analytic studies addressing accountability, with the goal of re-exposing its multiple senses, reiterating their interrelationships and, in doing so, breaking new conceptual ground and exposing new pathways for future research. Chapters advance our understanding of central theoretical issues, including turn taking, sequence and preference organization, repair, membership categorization, action formation and ascription, social solidarity and affiliation, and the relevance of context. Chapters range contextually, canvassing interactions between friends and family members, and during talk shows, broadcast news interviews, airline reservations, and medical visits. Chapters also range culturally, including English, Japanese, and Korean data.
Paul Kockelman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199926985
- eISBN:
- 9780199980512
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199926985.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book offers both a naturalistic and critical theory of signs, minds, and meaning-in-the-world. It provides a reconstructive rather than deconstructive theory of the individual, one which both ...
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This book offers both a naturalistic and critical theory of signs, minds, and meaning-in-the-world. It provides a reconstructive rather than deconstructive theory of the individual, one which both analytically separates and theoretically synthesizes a range of faculties that are often confused and conflated: agency (understood as a causal capacity), subjectivity (understood as a representational capacity), selfhood (understood as a reflexive capacity), and personhood (understood as a sociopolitical capacity attendant on being an agent, subject, or self). It argues that these facilities are best understood from a semiotic stance that supersedes the usual intentional stance. And, in so doing, it offers a pragmatism-grounded approach to meaning and mediation that is general enough to account for processes that are as embodied and embedded as they are articulated and enminded. In particular, while this theory is thereby focused on human-specific modes of meaning, it also offers a general theory of meaning, such that the agents, subjects and selves in question need not always, or even usually, map onto persons. And while this theory foregrounds agents, persons, subjects and selves, it does this by theorizing processes that often remain in the background of such otherwise erroneously individuated figures: ontologies (akin to culture, but generalized across agentive collectivities), interaction (not only between people, but also between people and things, and anything outside or in-between), and infrastructure (akin to context, but generalized to include mediation at any degree of remove).Less
This book offers both a naturalistic and critical theory of signs, minds, and meaning-in-the-world. It provides a reconstructive rather than deconstructive theory of the individual, one which both analytically separates and theoretically synthesizes a range of faculties that are often confused and conflated: agency (understood as a causal capacity), subjectivity (understood as a representational capacity), selfhood (understood as a reflexive capacity), and personhood (understood as a sociopolitical capacity attendant on being an agent, subject, or self). It argues that these facilities are best understood from a semiotic stance that supersedes the usual intentional stance. And, in so doing, it offers a pragmatism-grounded approach to meaning and mediation that is general enough to account for processes that are as embodied and embedded as they are articulated and enminded. In particular, while this theory is thereby focused on human-specific modes of meaning, it also offers a general theory of meaning, such that the agents, subjects and selves in question need not always, or even usually, map onto persons. And while this theory foregrounds agents, persons, subjects and selves, it does this by theorizing processes that often remain in the background of such otherwise erroneously individuated figures: ontologies (akin to culture, but generalized across agentive collectivities), interaction (not only between people, but also between people and things, and anything outside or in-between), and infrastructure (akin to context, but generalized to include mediation at any degree of remove).
James P. Blevins and Juliette Blevins (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199547548
- eISBN:
- 9780191720628
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547548.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
Analogy is a central component of language structure, language processing, and language change. This book addresses central questions about the form and acquisition of analogy in grammar. What ...
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Analogy is a central component of language structure, language processing, and language change. This book addresses central questions about the form and acquisition of analogy in grammar. What patterns of structural similarity do speakers select as the basis for analogical extension? What types of items are particularly susceptible or resistant to analogical pressures? At what levels do analogical processes operate and how do processes interact? What formal mechanisms are appropriate for modeling analogy? What analogical processes are evident in language acquisition? Answers to these questions emerge from this book which is a synthesis of typological, experimental, computational, and developmental paradigms.Less
Analogy is a central component of language structure, language processing, and language change. This book addresses central questions about the form and acquisition of analogy in grammar. What patterns of structural similarity do speakers select as the basis for analogical extension? What types of items are particularly susceptible or resistant to analogical pressures? At what levels do analogical processes operate and how do processes interact? What formal mechanisms are appropriate for modeling analogy? What analogical processes are evident in language acquisition? Answers to these questions emerge from this book which is a synthesis of typological, experimental, computational, and developmental paradigms.
R. M. W. Dixon
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198766810
- eISBN:
- 9780191821066
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198766810.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics
There was a tendency, in the nineteenth century, for Europeans to denigrate the customs of dark-skinned peoples, and to put forward the uninformed opinion that their languages were ‘primitive’. To ...
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There was a tendency, in the nineteenth century, for Europeans to denigrate the customs of dark-skinned peoples, and to put forward the uninformed opinion that their languages were ‘primitive’. To counter this mistaken idea, the first pages of textbooks and the first lectures of freshman courses in linguistics have emphasised, as loud as was possible, that ‘no language spoken in the world today is primitive’ and then ‘that all languages are about equal in complexity’. But surely they are not all of exactly equal worth. The present volume is the first serious attempt to address this question, in a measured and scientific manner. It is intended for students of linguistics and, beyond that, for a wide general audience. In essence, it presents a succinct portrait of the discipline of linguistics, pared down to its essentials. I work on the principle that if something can be explained, it should be explainable in everyday language, which any intelligent person can understand, although of course a degree of concentration and thoughtfulness is required. The use of technical terms has been kept to a minimum. Examples are quoted from a wide range of languages; these have been chosen to be simple (although not simplified), avoiding additional complexities which are irrelevant to the point being made. The book will be accessible to anyone with an interest in how languages work.Less
There was a tendency, in the nineteenth century, for Europeans to denigrate the customs of dark-skinned peoples, and to put forward the uninformed opinion that their languages were ‘primitive’. To counter this mistaken idea, the first pages of textbooks and the first lectures of freshman courses in linguistics have emphasised, as loud as was possible, that ‘no language spoken in the world today is primitive’ and then ‘that all languages are about equal in complexity’. But surely they are not all of exactly equal worth. The present volume is the first serious attempt to address this question, in a measured and scientific manner. It is intended for students of linguistics and, beyond that, for a wide general audience. In essence, it presents a succinct portrait of the discipline of linguistics, pared down to its essentials. I work on the principle that if something can be explained, it should be explainable in everyday language, which any intelligent person can understand, although of course a degree of concentration and thoughtfulness is required. The use of technical terms has been kept to a minimum. Examples are quoted from a wide range of languages; these have been chosen to be simple (although not simplified), avoiding additional complexities which are irrelevant to the point being made. The book will be accessible to anyone with an interest in how languages work.
Bridget Copley and Fabienne Martin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199672073
- eISBN:
- 9780191751240
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199672073.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics
Causation is a topic of great interest to a number of different domains related to the study of natural language, from philosophy to cognitive ontology to argument structure. However, these domains ...
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Causation is a topic of great interest to a number of different domains related to the study of natural language, from philosophy to cognitive ontology to argument structure. However, these domains have historically seen little interaction. This volume collects research from experts in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology, making explicit their assumptions and key questions, with the aim of arriving at a more sophisticated understanding both of how causal concepts are expressed in causal meanings and of how those meanings in turn are organized into structures. The research presented here addresses some of the most exciting current questions related to the way causation is expressed in grammatical structures, using data from both familiar and less familiar languages.Less
Causation is a topic of great interest to a number of different domains related to the study of natural language, from philosophy to cognitive ontology to argument structure. However, these domains have historically seen little interaction. This volume collects research from experts in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology, making explicit their assumptions and key questions, with the aim of arriving at a more sophisticated understanding both of how causal concepts are expressed in causal meanings and of how those meanings in turn are organized into structures. The research presented here addresses some of the most exciting current questions related to the way causation is expressed in grammatical structures, using data from both familiar and less familiar languages.
Anne Reboul
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198747314
- eISBN:
- 9780191809729
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198747314.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
The book offers a new approach to the evolution of language, arguing for a two-step process, syntax first evolving as an auto-organizational process for the human conceptual apparatus (as a Language ...
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The book offers a new approach to the evolution of language, arguing for a two-step process, syntax first evolving as an auto-organizational process for the human conceptual apparatus (as a Language of Thought), and this language of thought being then externalized for communication, due to social selection pressures. The book first argues that, despite the routine use of language in communication, current use is not a failsafe guide to adaptive history. It points out the many difficulties of accounts that see language as having evolved for communication: its uniqueness among animal communication systems and its structural properties, notably decoupling that makes a tool for deception in contradiction with all views on the evolution of communication, making it unlikely that it specifically evolved for communication. It highlights the specificity of human cognition relative to animal communication and notably the specific richness of the human conceptual apparatus. It proposes that syntax (on a minimalist view, Merge) evolved owing to a self-organizational process of the human conceptual apparatus. The last step, the externalization of language for communication, was due to the political organization of human hunter-gatherer groups, along the lines of the Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. The evolutionary processes involved are heterogeneous in keeping with the contemporary Extended Synthesis.Less
The book offers a new approach to the evolution of language, arguing for a two-step process, syntax first evolving as an auto-organizational process for the human conceptual apparatus (as a Language of Thought), and this language of thought being then externalized for communication, due to social selection pressures. The book first argues that, despite the routine use of language in communication, current use is not a failsafe guide to adaptive history. It points out the many difficulties of accounts that see language as having evolved for communication: its uniqueness among animal communication systems and its structural properties, notably decoupling that makes a tool for deception in contradiction with all views on the evolution of communication, making it unlikely that it specifically evolved for communication. It highlights the specificity of human cognition relative to animal communication and notably the specific richness of the human conceptual apparatus. It proposes that syntax (on a minimalist view, Merge) evolved owing to a self-organizational process of the human conceptual apparatus. The last step, the externalization of language for communication, was due to the political organization of human hunter-gatherer groups, along the lines of the Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. The evolutionary processes involved are heterogeneous in keeping with the contemporary Extended Synthesis.
Michael Burke and Emily T. Troscianko (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190496869
- eISBN:
- 9780190496883
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190496869.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book brings together researchers with cognitive-scientific and literary backgrounds to present innovative research in all three variations on the possible interactions between literary studies ...
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This book brings together researchers with cognitive-scientific and literary backgrounds to present innovative research in all three variations on the possible interactions between literary studies and cognitive science. The tripartite structure of the volume reflects a more ambitious conception of what cognitive approaches to literature are and could be than is usually encountered, and thus aims both to map out and to advance the field. The first section corresponds to what most people think of as ‘cognitive poetics’ or ‘cognitive literary studies’: the study of literature by literary scholars drawing on cognitive-scientific methods, findings, and/or debates to yield insights into literature. The second section demonstrates that literary scholars need not only make use of cognitive science to study literature, but can also, in a reciprocally interdisciplinary manner, use a cognitively informed perspective on literature to offer benefits back to the cognitive sciences. Finally, the third section, ‘literature in cognitive science’, showcases some of the ways in which literature can be a stimulating object of study and a fertile testing ground for theories and models, not only to literary scholars but also to cognitive scientists, who here engage with some key questions in cognitive literary studies with the benefit of their in-depth scientific knowledge and training.Less
This book brings together researchers with cognitive-scientific and literary backgrounds to present innovative research in all three variations on the possible interactions between literary studies and cognitive science. The tripartite structure of the volume reflects a more ambitious conception of what cognitive approaches to literature are and could be than is usually encountered, and thus aims both to map out and to advance the field. The first section corresponds to what most people think of as ‘cognitive poetics’ or ‘cognitive literary studies’: the study of literature by literary scholars drawing on cognitive-scientific methods, findings, and/or debates to yield insights into literature. The second section demonstrates that literary scholars need not only make use of cognitive science to study literature, but can also, in a reciprocally interdisciplinary manner, use a cognitively informed perspective on literature to offer benefits back to the cognitive sciences. Finally, the third section, ‘literature in cognitive science’, showcases some of the ways in which literature can be a stimulating object of study and a fertile testing ground for theories and models, not only to literary scholars but also to cognitive scientists, who here engage with some key questions in cognitive literary studies with the benefit of their in-depth scientific knowledge and training.
Brian MacWhinney, Andrej Malchukov, and Edith Moravcsik (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198709848
- eISBN:
- 9780191780158
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198709848.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book examines the issue of competing motivations in grammar and language use. The term “competing motivations” refers to the conflicting factors that shape the content and form of grammatical ...
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This book examines the issue of competing motivations in grammar and language use. The term “competing motivations” refers to the conflicting factors that shape the content and form of grammatical rules and which speakers and addressees need to contend with when expressing themselves, or when trying to comprehend messages. For example, there are on-going competitions between the speaker's interests and the addressee's needs, or between constraints imposed by grammar and those imposed by online processing. These competitions impact a wide variety of systems, including case marking, agreement, and word order, politeness forms, lexical choices, and the position of relative clauses. The twenty-one studies are mostly based on English data but evidence from many languages is also discussed. In addition to grammar and usage in adult language, many of the chapters analyze data from first- and second-language acquisition as well; others probe into the motivations that drive historical change.Less
This book examines the issue of competing motivations in grammar and language use. The term “competing motivations” refers to the conflicting factors that shape the content and form of grammatical rules and which speakers and addressees need to contend with when expressing themselves, or when trying to comprehend messages. For example, there are on-going competitions between the speaker's interests and the addressee's needs, or between constraints imposed by grammar and those imposed by online processing. These competitions impact a wide variety of systems, including case marking, agreement, and word order, politeness forms, lexical choices, and the position of relative clauses. The twenty-one studies are mostly based on English data but evidence from many languages is also discussed. In addition to grammar and usage in adult language, many of the chapters analyze data from first- and second-language acquisition as well; others probe into the motivations that drive historical change.
Sergio Balari and Guillermo Lorenzo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199665464
- eISBN:
- 9780191746116
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665464.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
This is a book about language as a species-typical trait of humans. Linguists customarily describe it as an extremely exceptional capacity, even when compared with the biological endowment of closely ...
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This is a book about language as a species-typical trait of humans. Linguists customarily describe it as an extremely exceptional capacity, even when compared with the biological endowment of closely related species, and this is the source of the many quarrels that exist around the aim of explaining its evolutionary origins. This book argues that language is not so exceptional after all, as according to the text it is just the human version of a rather common and conservative organic system that they refer to as the Central Computational Complex. The book argues that inter-specific variation of this organ is restricted to (i) accessible memory resources, and (ii) patterns of external connectivity, both being the result of perturbations in the system underlying its development. The book thus offers a fresh perspective on language as a naturally evolved phenomenon.Less
This is a book about language as a species-typical trait of humans. Linguists customarily describe it as an extremely exceptional capacity, even when compared with the biological endowment of closely related species, and this is the source of the many quarrels that exist around the aim of explaining its evolutionary origins. This book argues that language is not so exceptional after all, as according to the text it is just the human version of a rather common and conservative organic system that they refer to as the Central Computational Complex. The book argues that inter-specific variation of this organ is restricted to (i) accessible memory resources, and (ii) patterns of external connectivity, both being the result of perturbations in the system underlying its development. The book thus offers a fresh perspective on language as a naturally evolved phenomenon.
Stefan Larsson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190650384
- eISBN:
- 9780190650414
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190650384.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book makes a significant contribution to sociolegal analysis and also represents a valuable contribution to conceptual metaphor theory. By utilising the case of copyright in a digital context it ...
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This book makes a significant contribution to sociolegal analysis and also represents a valuable contribution to conceptual metaphor theory. By utilising the case of copyright in a digital context it explains the role that metaphor plays when the law is dealing with technological change, displaying both ‘conceptual path dependence’, normative implications of reusing already established concepts for new phenomena, as well as what is called non-legislative developments in the law. The analysis draws from conceptual studies of ‘property’ in intellectual property, and shows how the property regime of copyright is the projection of an older regime of control onto a new set of digital social relations. Moreover, through an analysis of the concept of ‘copy’ in copyright as well as the Swedish court case against the founders of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay, the author shows the historical and embodied dependence of digital phenomena in law, and the significance of metaphorical framing (for example, was The Pirate Bay a ‘platform’, a ‘storage service’ or a ‘bulletin board’?). The contribution is thereby relevant for how to understand the conceptual and regulatory dynamics of a multitude of contemporary sociodigital phenomena in addition to copyright and file-sharing. On an overarching level, it is here argued that the conceptual battles to define the Internet, as well as the implications of digital development, are significant battles for the role of law in society. There are conceptions in, and underlying, both law and digital architecture—that is, in the code.Less
This book makes a significant contribution to sociolegal analysis and also represents a valuable contribution to conceptual metaphor theory. By utilising the case of copyright in a digital context it explains the role that metaphor plays when the law is dealing with technological change, displaying both ‘conceptual path dependence’, normative implications of reusing already established concepts for new phenomena, as well as what is called non-legislative developments in the law. The analysis draws from conceptual studies of ‘property’ in intellectual property, and shows how the property regime of copyright is the projection of an older regime of control onto a new set of digital social relations. Moreover, through an analysis of the concept of ‘copy’ in copyright as well as the Swedish court case against the founders of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay, the author shows the historical and embodied dependence of digital phenomena in law, and the significance of metaphorical framing (for example, was The Pirate Bay a ‘platform’, a ‘storage service’ or a ‘bulletin board’?). The contribution is thereby relevant for how to understand the conceptual and regulatory dynamics of a multitude of contemporary sociodigital phenomena in addition to copyright and file-sharing. On an overarching level, it is here argued that the conceptual battles to define the Internet, as well as the implications of digital development, are significant battles for the role of law in society. There are conceptions in, and underlying, both law and digital architecture—that is, in the code.
Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing
Clausewitz's Puzzle
International Legitimacy and World Society
Multicultural Nationalism
Levelling the Playing Field
The Politics of Public Service Bargains
Corporate Governance, Competition, and Political Parties
New Labour at the Centre
The European Union and the People
