Gecco German English Contrasts In Cohesion

In contrastive linguistics English-German, there is a tradition of accounting for contrasts with respect to grammar, and to a lesser extent, for lexis and phonetics. Moving on to discourse and text, there is a sizeable body of literature on cohesive patterns in English and German respectively - but very little in terms of a comparison. The latter, though, would be of particular interest for language learners, translators and, of course, linguists. The proposed book attempts to close this gap, based on a number of years of corpus-based study into variation and cohesion in the two languages. While there is an overall focus on the language contrast, we shall for each of the two languages also investigate variation between several different registers language-internally, and between written and spoken mode in particular. For each of the five major types of cohesion (co-reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunctive relations and lexical cohesion), overviews will be given of contrasts in the system and of contrastive frequencies in instantiated text. The book should thus be relevant for language teaching, translation and generally corpus-based work on English and German, in terms of results and methodology.

In contrastive linguistics of English and German, there is a tradition of accounting for contrasts with respect to grammar and, to a lesser extent, for lexis and phonetics. Moving on to discourse and text, there is a sizeable body of literature on cohesive patterns in English and German respectively - but very little in terms of a comparison. The latter, though, is of particular interest for language learners, translators and, of course, linguists and researchers in language technology. This book attempts to close this gap, based on a number of years of corpus-based study into variation and cohesion in the two languages. While there is an overall focus on language contrasts, it also investigates variation between different registers language-internally, and between written and spoken mode in particular. For each of the five major types of cohesion (co-reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunctive relations and lexical cohesion), overviews are given of contrasts in the system and of contrastive frequencies in texts. Results and methods presented in this book are thus relevant for language teaching, translation, language technology and corpus-based work on English and German generally.

Situated at the interface between corpus linguistics and Systemic Functional Linguistics, this volume focuses on conjunctive markers expressing contrast in English and French. The frequency and placement patterns of the markers are analysed using large corpora of texts from two written registers: newspaper editorials and research articles. The corpus study revisits the long-standing but largely unsubstantiated claim that French requires more explicit markers of cohesive conjunction than English and shows that the opposite is in fact the case. Novel insights into the placement preferences of English and French conjunctive markers are provided by a new approach to theme and rheme that attaches more importance to the rheme than previous studies. The study demonstrates the significant benefits of a combined corpus and Systemic Functional Linguistics approach to the cross-linguistic analysis of cohesion.

This collection features eight interviews with seven senior scholars, whose seminal works involve the application of Systemic Functional Linguistica (SFL) to translation studies have advanced Systemic Functional Translation Studies (SFTS) as a research agenda in its own right, with critical reflections and insights into future directions. The book introduces SFTS as a research field, tracing its development and situating the contributions of the scholars interviewed within this tradition. An international group of researchers working across a diverse range of topics within SFTS are interviewed, including Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, Erich Steiner, J.R. Martin, Juliane House, Jeremy Munday, Adriana Pagano and Akila Sellami-Baklouti. Taken together, the collection offers a comprehensive account of theoretical and methodological developments in SFTS, with critical overviews of these scholars’ body of work within the research area and reflections on the emerging research that pushes SFTS scholarship into new frontiers. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars in translation studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics, as well as those interested in innovations in linguistic theory.

Contrastive studies have experienced a dramatic revival in the last decades. By combining the methodological advantages of computer corpus linguistics and the possibility of contrasting texts in two or more languages, the structure and use of languages can be explored with greater accuracy, detail and empirical strength than before. The approach has also proved to have fruitful practical applications in a number of areas such as language teaching, lexicography, translation studies and computer-aided translation. This volume contains twelve studies comparing linguistic phenomena in English and seven other languages. The topics range from comparisons of specific lexical categories and word combinations to syntactic constructions and discourse phenomena such as cohesion and thematic structure. The studies highlight similarities and differences in the use, semantics and functions of the compared items, as well as the emergence of new meanings and language change. The emphasis varies from purely linguistic studies to those focusing on practical applications.

This collection explores the relationships between theory and evidences in functional linguistics, bringing together perspectives from both established and emerging scholars. The volume begins by establishing theoretical common ground for functional approaches to language, critically discussing empirical inquiry in functional linguistics and the challenges and opportunities of using new technologies in linguistic investigations. Building on this foundation, the second part of the volume explores the challenges involved in using different data sources as evidence for theorizing language and linguistic processes, drawing on work on lexical cohesion in language variation, neuroimaging and neuropathological data, and keystroke logging and eye-tracking. The final section of the volume examines the ways in which evidences from a wide range of data sources can offer new perspectives toward challenging established theoretical claims, employing empirical evidences from corpus linguistic analysis, keystroke logging, and multimodal communication. This pioneering collection synthesizes perspectives and addresses fundamental questions in the investigation of the relationships between theory and evidences in functional linguistics and will be of particular interest to researchers working in the field, as well as linguists working in experimental and interdisciplinary approaches which seek to bridge this gap.

This collection reflects on developments in the field of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as embodied in the work of Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, highlighting his diverse contributions to the field from theoretical and applied perspectives. The book surveys Matthiessen’s academic career and illustrates the myriad ways in which his work has reverberated through to current innovations in SFL research. The book also exhibits his theoretical contributions to major linguistic topics and his influence on the development of SFL. Written by some of the world’s foremost scholars in the field, chapters cover such topics as theories of SFL and its applications in different domains as well as the developmental trajectories of SFL in major geographic areas. Addressing the key issues in SFL through the lens of Matthiessen’s career, this book is an accessible resource for students and scholars in systemic functional linguistics, as well as those interested in the systemic functional approach in related areas within linguistics.

Contrastive Linguistics is an expanding field, as witnessed by the publication in recent years of an increasing number of monographs, collected volumes and journal articles. The present volume, which comprises an introduction and ten chapters dealing with lexical contrasts between English and other languages, shows advances within the well-established lexical work in the field. Each of the chapters takes lexical items as its starting point and compares English with one or more languages. The languages represented are Spanish, Lithuanian, Swedish, German, Norwegian and Czech. Furthermore, they emphasise the link between lexis and grammar, not only within the same language, but also across languages. Finally, several studies represent one of the more recent developments of contrastive linguistics, namely a growing focus on genre and register comparisons. The book should appeal to both established scholars and advanced students with an interest in lexis, genre, corpus linguistics and/or contrastive linguistics.