Phonological Argumentation
Essays on Evidence and Motivation
Edited by Steve Parker
Series: Advances in Optimality Theory, edited by Ellen Woolford, University of Massachusetts at Amherst,  and Armin Mester, University of California, Santa Cruz
   
Subject:  Linguistics
Readership:  academics and graduate students
Pub date:  November 2009   234 x 156mm, 388pp
ISBN:  PB 978 1 84553 221 5    £26.95    $45   HB 978 1 84553 220 8    £75      $135                         
 
Description:
This volume presents a series of original papers focusing on the theme of phonological argumentation, set within the framework of Optimality Theory. It contains two major sections: (1) chapters about the evidence for and methodology used in discovering the bases of phonological theory, i.e., how constraints are formed and what sort of evidence is relevant in positing them; and (2) case studies that focus on particular theoretical issues within OT, usually through selected phenomena in one or more languages, arguing in favor of or against specific formal analyses.
 
A noteworthy detail of this book is that all of the contributors are connected with the program in phonology and phonetics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, either as current professors or former graduate students. Consequently, all of them have been directly influenced by John McCarthy, himself one of the major proponents of OT. This collection will therefore be of interest to anyone who seriously follows the field of OT. The intended readership is primarily graduate students and those already holding an advanced degree in linguistics, i.e., persons conversant with and capable of interacting with the OT literature.
 
Steve Parker graduated from the linguistics department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2002. He has served as a teacher and consultant with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL International) for twenty-five years. In that capacity he has carried out direct fieldwork and research on a number of indigenous languages of South America and Papua New Guinea, two of which are now extinct.

Table of Contents
Foreword by Elisabeth Selkirk, University of Massachusetts
Introduction (Steve Parker)
 
Part 1: Phonological argumentation and the bases of Optimality Theory
Chapter 1: Grammar is both categorical and gradient (Andries Coetzee, University of Michigan)
Chapter 2: Phonological evidence (Paul de Lacy, Rutgers University)
Chapter 3: Underphonologization and modularity bias (Elliott Moreton, University of North Carolina)
Chapter 4: Contrast, comparison sets, and the perceptual space (Máire Ní Chiosáin, University College Dublin & Jaye Padgett, University of California, Santa Cruz)
Chapter 5: Morpheme-specific phonology: Constraint indexation and inconsistency resolution (Joe Pater, University of Massachusetts)
Chapter 6: Source similarity in loanword adaptation: Correspondence theory and the posited source-language representation (Jennifer Smith, University of North Carolina)
 
Part 2: Case studies in phonological argumentation
Chapter 7: Exploring recursivity, stringency and gradience in the Pama-Nyungan stress continuum (John Alderete, Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Chapter 8: Acoustics of epenthetic vowels in Lebanese Arabic (Maria Gouskova, New York University & Nancy Hall, University of Essex)
Chapter 9: The onset of the prosodic word (Junko Ito & Armin Mester, both at University of California, Santa Cruz)
Chapter 10: Infixation as morpheme absorption (Ania Lubowicz, University of South Carolina)
Chapter 11: Vowel length in Arabic verb stems (Sam Rosenthall, University of Victoria, Canada)


Webpage: http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=363&keyword=metaphor

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Metaphor Analysis
Research Practice in Applied Linguistics, Social Sciences and the Humanities
Edited by Lynne Cameron and Robert Maslen
Series: Studies in Applied Linguistics edited by Christopher Candlin, Macquarie University, and Srikant Sarangi, Cardiff University
 
Subject:  Linguistics; GTC Communication studies, 2AB English, 3JM 21st Century
Readership:  MA students
Pub date: May 2010   234 x 156 mm, 308pp, 36 figures
ISBN:  PB 978 1 84553 447 9    £17.99   $34   HB 978 1 84553 446 2   £55  $95
 
Description:
Metaphor is recognised as an important way of thinking – constructing analogies and making connections between ideas – and an important way of using language – to explain abstract ideas or to find indirect but powerful ways of conveying feelings. By investigating people’s use of metaphors, we can better understand their emotions, attitudes and conceptualisations, as individuals and as participants in social life. This book describes practice in the analysis of metaphor in real-world discourse.
 
When real-world language use is taken as the site of metaphor study, researchers face methodological issues that have only recently begun to be addressed. The contributors to this volume have all had to find ways to deal with methodological issues in their own research and have developed techniques that are brought together here. Using as a basis the discourse dynamics approach to metaphor developed by the editor, the book explores links between theory and empirical investigation, exemplifies data analysis and discusses issues in research design and practice. Particular attention is paid to the processes of metaphor identification, categorisation and labelling, and to the use of corpus linguistic and other computer-assisted methods.
   
Lynne Cameron is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Centre for Language and Communication, The Open University.
 
Robert Maslen is a Research Associate at the Centre for Language and Communication, the Open University. He gained his PhD in language acquisition from the Department of Psychology, University of Manchester (with funding from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig). His work in applied linguistics has included research on terrorism risk communications and the expression of empathy in discourse.
 
Table of Contents
Section 1: Introducing Metaphor Analysis
1  What is Metaphor and Why Does it Matter?
Lynne Cameron
2  A Selective Survey of  Research Practice in Published Studies Using Metaphor Analysis
Zazie Todd, University of Leeds, and Graham Low, University of York
 
Section 2: Contemporary Theories of Metaphor
3  The Cognitive View of Metaphor: Conceptual Metaphor Theory
Alice Deignan, University of Leeds
4  Between Mind and Language: A journey Worth Taking
David Ritchie, Portland State University
5   The Discourse Dynamics Framework for Metaphor
Lynne Cameron
 
Section 3: Metaphor Analysis
6  Identifying Metaphors in Discourse Data
Lynne Cameron and Robert Maslen
7  Finding Systematicity in Metaphor Use
Lynne Cameron, Robert Maslen and Graham Low
8  Metaphors and Discourse Activity
Lynne Cameron
9  Corpus Techniques for Metaphor Analysis
Alice Deignan and Elena Semino, Lancaster University
10  Working with Large Amounts of Metaphor Data
Robert Maslen
11  Multimodal Metaphor Analysis
Alan Cienki, Vrije Universiteit
 
Section 4: Bringing it all Together
12  Guidelines for Good Practice in Meaphor Analysis
Graham Low and Zazie Todd
13  Metaphor Analysis in a PhD Study: Analysing Online Discussions -- Learning by Word of Mouse?
Sue Rivers, Coventry University
14  Metaphor Analysis in a Social Sciences Project: Using Metaphor Analysis to Compare Expert and Public Perceptions of the Risk of Terrorism
Lynne Cameron and Robert Maslen
 
Webpage: http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=352&keyword=conflicts

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Conflicts in Interpretation
Petra Hendriks, Helen de Hoop, Irene Krämer, Henriëtte de Swart and Joost Zwarts
Series: Advances in Optimality Theory, edited by Ellen Woolford, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Armin Mester, University of California, Santa Cruz
 
Subject:  Linguistics
Readership:  academics and advanced students
Pub date:  February 2010   234 x 156mm, 192pp, 21 black and white figures
ISBN:  PB 978 1 84553 438 7   £18.99  $37.95     HB 978 1 84553 437 0    £60      $95                         
 
Description:
Conflicts in Interpretation applies novel methods of constraint interaction, derived from connectionist theories and implemented in linguistics within the framework of Optimality Theory, to core semantic and pragmatic issues such as polysemy, negation, (in)definiteness, focus, anaphora, and rhetorical structure. It explores the hypothesis that a natural language grammar is a set of potentially conflicting constraints on forms and meanings. Moreover, it hypothesizes that competent language users not only optimize from an input form to the optimal output meaning for this form, or vice versa, but also consider the opposite direction of optimization, thus taking into account the speaker as a hearer and taking into account the hearer as a speaker. The book aims to show that such a bidirectional constraint-based grammar sheds new light on the relation between form and meaning, within a sentence as well as across sentence boundaries, within a single language as well as across languages, and within competent adult language users as well as during language development. An important dimension of the book is the structured investigation of issues at the interface of semantics with syntax and pragmatics, such as the effects of distinguishing between speaker’s perspective and hearer’s perspective in comprehension and production, stable and instable patterns of form and meaning across languages, and the development of a coherent pattern of form and meaning in children.
 
The book will be of interest to any researcher or advanced student in linguistics, cognitive science, language typology, or psycholinguistics who is interested in the capacity of our human mind to map meaning onto form, and form onto meaning.
 
Petra Hendriks is a Professor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Helen de Hoop is a Professor at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Irene Krämer is a Clinical Linguist at Audiology Center Brabant, The Netherlands.
Henriëtte de Swart is a Professor at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. 
Joost Zwarts  is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

 
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Optimization of interpretation
Chapter 2 - Rhetorical structure
Chapter 3 - Escape from stress: pronouns in Dutch
Chapter 4 - Children’s late mastery of marked interpretations
Chapter 5 - Speaking versus understanding in language acquisition
Chapter 6 - Patterns of negation in natural language
Chapter 7 - Nominals with and without an article: distribution, interpretation and variation
Chapter 8 - Paradigmatic preposition patterns
Chapter 9 - Conclusions
 
Webpage: http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=409&keyword=discovery

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An Introduction to the Grammar of Old English
A Systemic Functional Approach
Michael Cummings
Series: Functional Linguistics, edited by Professor Robin Fawcett, Cardiff University
 
Subject:  Linguistics; CFF Historical and comparative linguistics , CFK Grammar, syntax, CJBG Language teaching and learning: grammar and vocabulary
Readership:  University teachers; undergraduate and postgraduate students
Pub date:  May 2010   234 x 156 mm, 184pp, 160 figures
ISBN: PB 978 1 84553 364 9   £25     $45   HB 978 1 84553 363 2   £60              $95                        
 
Description:
This book applies the techniques of systemic functional grammar to the description of the Old English historical dialect, 650-1150 CE.  Systemic functional grammar is an approach to the description of language which distinguishes three separate functions in communication:  language as representation, language as attitude, and language as the construction of text.  Most applications of systemic functional theory have concentrated on modern English.  This book is the first comprehensive description of the Old English dialect on systemic functional principles.  The book begins with an outline of systemic functional grammatical theory.  It then describes the Old English clause with a separate grammar for each of the three general functions it serves, the representational, the attitudinal, and the text-formative.  Other areas covered include structures and functions within nominal, verbal and adverbial groups; relationships among clauses; embedding; and cohesion.  The book is thus designed to suit the needs of systemic functional grammarians who are interested in the historical development of the English language.  It is also designed for students of Old English who are looking for ways of explaining the grammatical system of Old English on terms other than those of traditional grammar.
 
Michael Cummings teaches as Professor emeritus at York University, Toronto.  He is co-author or co-editor of The Language of Literature (1983), Linguistics in a Systemic Perspective (1988), and Relations and Functions within and around Language (2002).  He has also published a number of articles and book chapters on the systemic functional description of Old English.
 
Table of contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1.  Synopsis of Systemic Functional Grammar.
Chapter 2.  The Old English Clause from the Interpersonal Perspective
Chapter 3.  The Old English Clause from the Experiential Perspective
Chapter 4.  The Old English Clause from the Textual Perspective
Chapter 5.  Old English Groups and Phrases
Chapter 6.  Complexes of Clauses, Groups and Words
Chapter 7.  Beyond the Cause:  Cohesion and Metaphor

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