Experiments In Comparative Intonation

Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.

This volume presents original comparative and contrastive research into various aspects of information structure (topic, focus, contrastivity, givenness, anaphoricity) as well as into forms and structures whose realisation depends on information-structural factors (clefts, dislocations, reflexives, null subjects, prosodic features, interrogatives) in a number of different languages (Catalan, English, French, Georgian, German, Hebrew, Hungarian). Each contribution emphasises differences or commonalities between the languages under investigation with respect to the realisation of information structural categories or with respect to the information structural implications of a given form or structure. The specific comparative-contrastive perspective of the volume makes a substantial contribution towards a better understanding of language specific and universal aspects of information structure. It raises significant questions and provides solutions for the formal representation and the functional properties of information structural categories.

This updated edition remains the basic reference book for all these concerned with speech in any way.

Intonation, rhythm, and general “melody” of language are among the first aspects of speech that infants attend to and produce themselves. Yet, these same features are among the last to be mastered by adult L2 learners. Why is this, and how can L2 learners be helped? This book first presents the latest linguistic theories of intonation, in particular, how intonation functions in discourse not only to signal sentence types and attitudinal meanings but also to provide turn-taking and other conversational cues. The second part of the book examines the research in applied linguistics on the acquisition of L2 phonology and intonation. The third section offers practical applications of how to incorporate the teaching of intonation into L2 instruction, with a focus on using new speech technologies. The accompanying CD-ROM makes a unique addition in allowing for simultaneous audio playback and visual display of the pitch contours of utterances contained in the book. Users can start or stop the playback at any point in the utterance and can observe first-hand how such visual and audio representations could be useful for L2 learners.

The Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics is a unique reference work for students and teachers of linguistics. The highly regarded second edition of the Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft by Hadumod Bussmann has been specifically adapted by a team of over thirty specialist linguists to form the most comprehensive and up-to-date work of its kind in the English language. In over 2,500 entries, the Dictionary provides an exhaustive survey of the key terminology and languages of more than 30 subdisciplines of linguistics. With its term-based approach and emphasis on clear analysis, it complements perfectly Routledge's established range of reference material in the field of linguistics.

This volume presents 14 experimental studies of lexical tone and intonation in a wide variety of languages. Six papers deal with the discriminability or the function of intonation contours and lexical tones in specific languages, as established on the basis of listener responses, as well as with brain activation patterns resulting from the perception of tonal and intonational stimuli. The remaining eight papers report on detailed phonetic findings on a variety of tonal phenomena in a number of languages, including declination in tone languages, final lowering, consonant-tone interactions and pitch target alignment.

While native corpora and corpus linguistic tools and methods have been used and applied for quite some time in the development of learning and teaching materials, learner corpora are only just beginning to impact the field of language teaching, testing and assessment. This volume helps to close this still existing gap and highlights the great potential of learner corpus research for language pedagogy by presenting a selection of 11 original studies on learner corpora, conducted by established experts as well as by excellent young researchers. The papers included in the volume present new corpora and methods; studies on written as well as spoken learner corpora and on using data-driven learning scenarios in the classroom. All papers include sections on practical and concrete language-pedagogical applications. This volume will be of significant interest to researchers working in corpus linguistics, learner corpus research, second language acquisition and English for Academic and Specific Purposes, as well to language teachers and materials developers.