Editorial Board
Publication date: September 2018Source: Language Sciences, Volume 69Author(s): (Source: Language Sciences)
Source: Language Sciences - August 15, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The representation of motion in discourse: variation across registers
Publication date: Available online 9 August 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Abhishek Kumar Kashyap, Christian M.I.M. MatthiessenAbstractIn this article, we investigate verbs of motion in discourse, adding a dimension that has not yet been explored in published literature — viz. the variation in representing motion across different registers. We take a functional- registerial approach and profile the representation of motion through space in four registers, which include six "spatial texts" (i.e. texts where motion through space is central) and bring out the kinds of motion that are characteristic of each registe...
Source: Language Sciences - August 10, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Afterword: a view from enaction
Publication date: Available online 7 August 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): John StewartAbstractEnaction is the process whereby a living organism brings about its own Umwelt or lived-world of experience. The prototype example is the “the world of the tick” as described by von Uexküll. This is a nice case of simplexity – achieving an impressive result by apparently simple means. Thus, the modest tick, blind and deaf and only capable of crawling slowly, achieves the task of catching a mammal – thousands of times bigger and faster – and getting to suck its blood. The means in question involve chaining three...
Source: Language Sciences - August 8, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Tran-Duc-Thao and the language of real life
Publication date: Available online 27 July 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Jacopo D'AlonzoAbstractFrom the 1950s, the Vietnamese philosopher Tran-Duc-Thao (1917–1993) became interested in language origins. To him, the way to investigate the roots of human language was to suggest a semiotics that would be free from the primacy of arbitrary signs. Thao called his own semiotic project the ‘semiology of real life’. The main source of that label is a passage of Marx's and Engels' German Ideology dealing with ‘the language of real life’. Thao's semiotic model may allow us to better understand some of the assump...
Source: Language Sciences - July 27, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The similar rates of occurrence of consonants across the world's languages: A quantitative analysis of phonetically transcribed word lists
Publication date: Available online 23 July 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Caleb EverettAbstractVia an analysis of nearly 7000 phonetically transcribed word lists representing every major linguistic family, this study examines the frequency with which languages use particular consonants. The results suggest that there is an underlying global similarity in the frequency of occurrence of these consonants. Some consonants are uncommon across the word lists, and do not occur frequently even in those languages in which they are used. In contrast, a few other consonants represent a large portion of sounds in the word lis...
Source: Language Sciences - July 23, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Tonal polarity in Sylheti in the context of noun faithfulness
Publication date: Available online 20 July 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Shakuntala Mahanta, Amalesh GopeAbstractThe extant literature (Smith, 2000a,b, 2001, 2002) on differences between nouns versus verbs in phonology has shown that nouns enjoy a privileged status in exhibiting phonological contrasts and processes at the expense of verbal domains. In this paper, we show from original work on Sylheti tones that verbs exhibit exceptionally marked tonal polarity and dominant suffixes which are not seen in nouns. This does not lead to more contrasting patterns in nouns but nouns are faithful. Noun faithfulness can b...
Source: Language Sciences - July 21, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Language and ideology: Althusser's theory of ideology
Publication date: Available online 17 July 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Kyong Deock KangAbstractAlthusser's work constitutes a decisive moment in the problem of ideology by conceptualizing it as a universal element of society operating on its own materiality: ideology is not a simple error, false consciousness or misrepresentation but rather a system of representations (images, myths, ideas or concepts), the fundamental mechanism of which depends on Lacan's theory of the symbolic. Though Althusser imports Lacan's theory of the symbolic in elaborating the theory of ideology, his theorization disagrees with Lacan'...
Source: Language Sciences - July 18, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Proper name subcategory: a prominent position
Publication date: Available online 12 July 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Aziz Jaber, Osama OmariAbstractProponents of positional faithfulness theory in phonology have identified root-initial syllables, stressed syllables, roots, category nouns, and somehow final syllables as prominent positions that exhibit asymmetrical effects in resisting neutralization themselves but triggering it in other, less privileged, positions and categories. Based on data mainly from Jordanian Arabic, but from other languages as well, this paper establishes the proper name subcategory as a prominent licensor that phonologically manifes...
Source: Language Sciences - July 13, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The politeness bias and the society of strangers
Publication date: Available online 11 July 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Zhengdao YeAbstractThis paper argues that politeness, a notion central to many theories of social interaction and pragmatics, is fundamentally biased towards models of social interaction based on the ‘society of strangers’ (as opposed to the ‘society of intimates’; cf. Givón, 2005), consistent with the values and cultural ethos of Anglophone societies. It illustrates this by comparing Anglophone communicative styles to Chinese interactional style characteristic of the ‘society of intimates’, and by tracing its roots to eighteent...
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Language, commodification and labour: the relevance of Marx
This article explores, through a Marxist lens, the nature and extent of language commodification in work situations from three perspectives: firstly, as a component of the commodity of labour power in the exploitative labour process; secondly, from an ideological perspective, the influence of the dominant neoliberal narrative of commodification which marketizes everything; and thirdly, the active social agent dimension of ‘language workers’ who resist, in various ways, attempts at commodification of their language. (Source: Language Sciences)
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
The bio-logic of languaging and its epistemological background
Publication date: Available online 24 March 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Vincenzo RaimondiAbstractMaturana's notion of languaging is deeply rooted in his “Biology of cognition” and in the epistemological orientation provided by the “autopoietic systems” theory developed with Varela. Within this framework, language is traced to its operational and interactional matrix. In this paper, I show how pursuing such a “bio-logically” grounded approach allows a shift from traditional conceptions of language, in particular with regards to its role in the achievement of communication and joint activities. In ord...
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Language and simplexity: A powers view
Publication date: Available online 26 March 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Charles LassiterAbstractThe notion of simplexity is that complex problems are often solved by novel combinations of simple mechanisms. These solutions aren't simple; they're simplex. Language use, as a complex behavior, is ripe for simplex analysis. In this paper, I argue that the notion of powers—an organism's capacity to instigate or undergo change—is doubly useful. First, powers, as opposed to mental representations, are a suitable object for simplex analysis. So conceptualizing languaging in terms of powers gets us one step closer t...
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Biological simplexity and cognitive heteronomy
This article explores Berthoz's (2012) notion of simplexity in relation to heteronomous aspects of human cognition while it criticises proponents of Active Externalism for presuming that cognitive activity is based in strong autonomy. Specifically, its negative target is the problematic aspects of Varelian Enactivism and Extended Cognitive Functionalism which are linked to the assumption that cognition is conditioned by the cogniser's strong autonomy. Since active externalists presume that cognition has a clear agent-to-world directionality, they prove unable to account for cases where cognition is informed by novel sensuo...
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Marx, Vološinov, Williams: language, history, practice
Publication date: Available online 30 March 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Tony CrowleyAbstractThe article will consider the development of the Marxist tradition of thought on language. It will focus specifically on the limited though significant account of language found in Marx's writing, consider how this is developed by Vološinov, and then turn to the work of Raymond Williams. It will be argued that an emphasis on language as a fundamental and creative form of labour is an important development in Marxist social theory and a significant contribution to linguistic thought. The article will conclude with an ana...
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Evolution, lineages and human language
Publication date: Available online 5 April 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Stephen J. Cowley, Anton MarkošAbstractIn life as in language, living beings act in ways that are multiply constrained as history works through them both directly and as mediated by what we identify as structures (e.g. genes or words). Emphasising direct effects, we replace the ‘language metaphor of life’ with the view that language extends the domain of the living. Just as a living proteome system manages without central control, so does language. Both life and language enable living beings to expand into –and create – new domains ...
Source: Language Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
